As New Jersey tries to implement it’s medical marijuana program, the governor has made it clear what he really feels about it. Read this quote from the newly elected governor…Christie had said there are flaws with laws in some other jurisdictions, leading to situations where there is “”a head shop in every town and quack doctors writing prescriptions for people with headaches to get marijuana.’ A find it pretty unbelievable that he label a physician who has the courage to recommend cannabis to a headache sufferer as a “quack”… especially since he has NO CLUE what he is talking about. READ ON

Today I had a VERY encouraging visit from a 52 year old women who has been suffering from Restless Legs Syndrome “my entire adult life”. Her symptoms have become so severe that she rarely gets a good night’s sleep and the pain is debilitating. Her description sounded like it was more severe than other patients with RLS that I have treated.

She has been treated with a medication called Requip for her symptoms but it causes debilitating headaches after 2 consecutive days of use so she is trying to stop it all together.

A month ago one of her friends let her try medical marijuana using a vaporizer to see if it helps and to quote her she said “It was the best night of sleep I have ever had in my life!” READ ON….

Today in my Irvine office I took care of a 71 year old man who suffers from Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) and wanted to see if medical marijuana could reduce his symptoms and decrease the amount of prednisone that he is taking. Specifically, PMR is characterized by pain in the muscles of the neck, shoulders, lower back and hips/pelvis. It’s key pathology is inflammation which in turn leads to pain. The reason why medical marijuana works so well is because the cannabinoids(medically active ingredients in the marijuana plant) have both anti-inflammatory and analgesic (pain reduction) properties.

Today I met with Steve in my Long Beach office. Steve is 62 and currently lives at the VA hospital in Long Beach. Steve is a Viet Nam war veteran and was living in a shelter prior to being admitted to the VA. The reason why he was in my office is because he was assaulted with a baseball bat and required emergency brain surgery. Obviously I’m sickened by how our Viet Nam vets were treated when they came back from the war but to see a guy like this get clobbered by a bunch of hoodlums is pretty unbelievable. Steve uses cannabis for chronic headaches as a result of his surgery.

As medical director for Medical Cannabis of Southern California see a few patients every month who present with the diagnosis of Graves Disease. Graves Disease is caused by an overactive thyroid gland (Hyperthyroidism) and can cause a great variety of symptoms. Many of these symptoms can be easily treated with cannabis.

As medical director for Medical Cannabis of Southern California I frequently evaluate women who suffer from the symptoms of perimenopause. Fortunately cannabis can be a great alternative treatment for many of the symptoms women experience during this time.