The goal of this post is to explain how medical marijuana can improve the quality of life for both cancer patients and survivors.  Over the past 4 years I have evaluated thousands of patients who want to try medical marijuana to help relieve their symptoms.  30% of my patients are diagnosed with cancer and in [...]

Lately I have been taking care a numerous patients who have been diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). They are coming in mostly because of the side effects of the medications that they have been prescribed. The three most common medications that I see are ADDERALL, STRATTERA and VYVANCE.

All of these medication are stimulants (amphetamines) and have very similar side effect profiles. The most common reasons that patients with ADHD are seeking treatment with medical marijuana are … READ ON

Today in my Irvine clinic I took care of a 40 year old women named Janice who was diagnosed with breast cancer on August 2, 2010. About 2 months prior to that she noticed a “lump” in her right armpit (axilla). She went to her primary care physician to have it evaluated and he told “it’s definitely not cancer” and just to watch it for a month. Not convinced she went to a general surgeon who also told her “I don’t think it is cancer” but scheduled her for a needle biopsy to see exactly what it was. It turned out to be primary breast cancer which had metastasized to her lymph nodes. The reason why she came to see me is that the chemotherapy was causing her terrible nausea, lack of appetite and vomiting. She wanted to use medical marijuana to ease her suffering.

Recently I have taken care a handful of HIV+ patients who are taking the medication Atripla and also using medical marijuana to combat it’s side effect. HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is a virus that attacks the bodies immune cells leaving the patients susceptible to infection. Treatment has come a long way and today patients can live practically normal life expectancies if they follow a medication regimen to keep the viral activity down and their immune cells up. Unfortunately many of these medications have severe side effects that affect a patients overall quality of life. Nausea, lack of appetite and weight loss are just a few of the ones I have been seeing patients for.

This morning in my Irvine CA office I had my annual follow up with a 22 year old female who came in last year as a result of severe Irritable Bowel Syndrome or commonly known as IBS. Her symptoms were severe nausea, lack of appetite and intermittent diarrhea. She explained that for past year her symptoms have improved tremendously. She has been medicating with a sativa strain twice per day and very rarely has nausea. Her appetite is greatly improved and she very rarely has any diarrhea.

I recently evaluated a 52 year old male patient who suffered from Nocturnal Seizures and had been placed on Dilantin (Phenytoin). He said that although the medication was working to reduce the amount of seizures he suffered from severe fatigue and “zero appetite”. He was coming for a recommendation to use medical cannabis as he has been using it with “amazing results” and wanted to “be legal”.

Today in my Irvine clinic I evaluated a 44 year old man who suffered from chronic pancreatitis. He had recently discovered that cannabis helps relieve his abdominal pain, increase his appetite and reduce any associated nausea.

Just yesterday I had a 39 year old male with diabetes come into my office for a cannabis evaluation with the complaint of gastroparesis as a result of his diabetes. Gastroparesis is also called delayed gastric emptying and is a disorder in which the stomach takes too long to empty its contents into the small intestine.