My first patient was a 94 year old women who has end stage pancreatic cancer.   Her son said that she has no appetite and is nauseated constantly.   Her weight is down to 89 pounds and she has been throwing up the majority of the nutrition she tries to eat.   In this case, I advised my patient to vaporize as much as possible to reduce the nausea and stimulate her appetite.   She ended up using an indica strain which worked “tremendously” per her son.

My second patient was a 77 year old women who has breast cancer with metastases to her brain.  While in my office she threw up three times secondary to the tumor in her brain.   Like my first patient she is having a difficult time eating and has lost 30 pounds in the past 2 months.

I receive emails from hundreds of families across the country who have family members in situations just like this who do not have access to medical marijuana.   The stories are all similar.  They just want some relief from the suffering associated with advanced disease and end-stage illness.

In my experience medical marijuana has worked excellent for relieving nausea, reducing pain, increasing appetite and improving sleep.   Most patients in home hospice suffer from one of these symptoms and can benefit.   Unfortunately only 16 states approve the use of medical marijuana.   In California, patients can easily purchase medicine from local collectives and choose from over 20 strains.   Many dispensaries have edibles in the form of sodas, teas, chocolate, lolly pops, cookies, brownies and even ice cream.    I have also had hospice patients use tinctures sublingually and also take cannabis in pill form.  The great thing is that patients can also vaporize the medicine which is smoke free and odorless.

If you have questions about end of life care and medical marijuana feel free to contact my office. We are located in Irvine and Long Beach, CA.

Here is the email I received from her today.  It is truly amazing how cannabis can be a “Godsend” for some patients.

Hi Dr. Breen,

I met you yesterday. I have Cervical Dystonia and I am currently battling Botulism because I contracted it from my last treatment of Botox for the Dystonia. I tried the Medical Cannabis for the first time last night and I want to thank you. It is the first time in YEARS that I have slept a full nights sleep. I am crying as I write this to you. I can’t thank you enough. My husband and I were so scared to try this for me because he is in law enforcement and I used to be and we are also both Christians. I thank God that he lead us to you. I know that God did and I thank you for what you do.

From the bottom of my heart THANK YOU!!
LOVE,
XXXXXXXXX

I went on to explain to her that I have treated hundreds of patients going through chemotherapy and that I expected her to do very well.    She can expect: 1. Less pain 2. Less nausea 3. better sleep 4. Improved appetite and hopefully 5. An improved mood.

Most patients will stop their narcotics all together.   They also stop taking any sleeping pills or antiemetics (anti-nasuea pills).   Most oncologists acknowledge the benefits of using medical marijuana but few are willing to recommend it to their patients.   This patients oncologist was compassionate enough to give her a direct referral to my clinics.

I expect that she will do well.   There is a great dispensary in Long Beach called Herbal Solutions that will take the time to find a strain that works best for her.  Even though she is 77 years old I anticipate that she will be able to use the vaporizer without difficulty.

Lastly, all of our prayers are with her and her husband as they go through this difficult time.   Expect a miracle!!

I can not begin to tell you how many patients are prescribed xanax by their primary care doctors for chronic issues like insomnia and “stress”.    Very few patients understand how addictive these medications are.    It is only because of cases like Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston that patients are beginning to understand why they do not want to take them.   In addition to being highly addictive and dangerous, they do not address the underlying cause and only treat symptoms.

More and more patients are turning to cannabis for sleep and anxiety and ditching their Xanax in the trash.    They are finding that they are getting good control of their symptoms and their sleep improves dramatically.    Cannabis also does not have any of the addictive properties that we commonly see with benzodiazepines.   Patients simply vaporize one or two doses and go to sleep.

Many patients are not aware that they even qualify to use medical marijuana.  In California, there are over 150 different indications to recommend marijuana but the most common reasons people get recommendations for are:

1. Chronic Pain: for things like arthritis, headaches, back pain, dental pain etc.

2. Sleep disorders: primary insomnia to anxiety related sleep disorders.

3. Nausea, Vomiting or Lack of appetite for any reason.

4. Chronic anxiety in patients that do not want to take xanax or valium.

5. Har reduction for people who are addicted to opioids.

If you are wondering if you would qualify to use medical marijuana feel free to pre-qualify for free on our homepage or call our professional staff at 877-721-0047

What are the ramifications of drinking 62 grams of sugar in the morning (or ever for that matter?)   The body was not designed to handle that much sugar at any one time.    Because it is in the form of sucrose it gets rapidly absorbed which causes a spike in the amount of insulin in the blood.    Insulin is a fat storing hormone produced by the pancreas.  One of its main goals is to make sure that the brain, kidneys, heart and other vital organs have enough sugar (glucose) to maintain normal function.    If there is any sugar left over insulin tells the body to store it as fat.    That is why eating sugary foods and drinks (even if they are fat free) makes you fat.   It is the conversion of sugars to fat which takes place in the liver that makes these drinks so harmful to your health.

High insulin levels lead to diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, depression, decreased libido and inflammation.   Across the board it is THE WORST thing that patients do to their bodies on a daily basis.

I always find it amazing when I am in starbucks and I here the staff call out “Steve. Non-Fat Venti Vanilla Frappuccino”   It is the non-fat part that makes no sense at all.    The amount of sugar that is in that drink is the equivalent of eating 32 vanilla wafer cookies!   Thirty-two!!!

One in three people born in the US in the year 2000 will go on to have diabetes.    Diabetes will be the leading cause of death by the year 2020.   It is already the leading cause of blindness, kidney disease and cardiovascular disease.

Most patients, if they just drank water and cut out the empty calories in sugary drinks would lose weight.  Their blood sugars, cholesterol and blood pressure would also improve.

TIP OF THE DAY: look at how many grams of sugar you are drinking every day.    Most people are getting their entire daily carbohydrate requirement in two drinks before they ever take one bite of food.

In this patient he was actually on a 27 hour sleep cycle.    This means that there are times where 1 in the afternoon feels like 1 in the morning.   Obviously it was very disruptive to his daily life and makes it very difficult for him to function at work with massive amounts of caffeine during the day and heavily sedating drugs at night.

Unfortunately caffeine has a ton of bad consequense and this patient was becoming addicted to sleeping pills.   Specifically, he was using more and more temazepam which is a benzodiazepine medication (like valium).   He came to me in search of a potential alternative.

His sleep specialist told him that he may benefit from a trial of medical marijuana.  There is more research coming out that says that indica strains that are higher in cannabinol (CBD) and lower in tertahydrocannabinol (THC) are more sedating than traditional sativa based marijuana strains.   They tend to be less psychoactive and more sedating.  Therefore patients do not get the intense head high but instead a “body relaxation” effect.

Although I have yet to see any major studies that have compared different strains of medical marijuana I do not that patients report different effects when they use indica versus sativa strains.    Much more research has to be done in order to get an answer that will undergo the rigors of scientific scrutiny but until the federal governement re-schedules marijuana it will most likely NOT happen in the United States.

Stay tuned and continue to petition your politicians to put pressure on the government to allow the safe and funded research of medical marijuana.

Medical Marijuana benefits HIV+ and Aids patients in many ways:
1. It reduces the pain associated with peripheral neuropathy that often accompanies the disease.
2. It stimulates the appetite and combats Aids wasting syndrome.
3. it reduces nausea and other gastrointestinal side effects associated with the medications used to treat HIV.
4. It helps HIV patients sleep.
5. It reduces HIV/Aids patients need for anti-anxiety medications. Many HIV+ patients have significant anxiety associated with their disease and are prescribed benzodiazepine drugs like xanax (alprazolam) and valium (diazepam).

Treating HIV+ patients with medical marijuana has been extremely rewarding as my patients get excellent results and are very grateful.

I encourage all HIV+ patients to consider using medical marijuana to treat the above symptoms and have an open conversation with their doctor.

If you have questions or would like to come in for an appointment feel free to give my office a call at 877-721-0047.

Be blessed,

I asked her about her faith and she said she was “spiritual” but I encouraged her to pray for healing as we have yet to fully comprehend the power of the minds ability to heal the body.

With that in mind I ask that if you are reading this and DO pray, maybe keep her in mind and ask that God throws her a miracle cure if that is his will.   it can be as simple as “God I ask that your will be done in pam’s life” and to “please give her the peace to know that she can handle whatever life and her doctors throw at her from now until the day she is healed”.

Thanks and God Bless!

Here is a small sample of some of the patients I evaluated:

1. Dan was a 71 year old man who suffers from post-herpetic neuralgia and has been in severe pain ever since.  He had been taking gabapentin, hydrocodone to control the pain and ambien to sleep at night.   He was not getting adequate relief and wanted to give medical marijuana a try.

2. Joann was a 84 year old women who has had a total hip replacement and left knee replacement 10 years ago.   She has significant osteoarthritis and her surgeon told her that she is no longer a candidate for surgery.  She had been taking NSAID’s but had to stop because she developed  a gastric ulcer.  She wanted to give medical marijuana a try.

3. William was a 72 year old man with HIV neuropathy and nausea/lack of appetite as a result of his HIV medication.   he said that since he started using medical marijuana a month ago he gained 20 lbs and had a significant reduction in his pain.

4. Jennifer was a 62 year old women with significant insomnia since going through menopause.  She has been reluctant to take hormones as she has a strong family history of breast cancer.   She said she has taken melatonin, trazodone, ambien and lunesta without any significant relief.   A few weeks ago a friend encouraged her to try medical marijuana and got great results!

I look forward to a long relationship with this community.  They are certainly some of THE most grateful patients that you will work with.