Hi I am new to kickas. I am also new to an AS diagnosis - though I've had chronic pain and disability from it for 25 years.

I was getting almost 0 relief from a combination of celebrex, codeine+paracetamol and tramadol. The only thing that worked a bit was the celebrex. The combination mostly just made me very nauseous. For which I took maxalon (which didn't help).

I started trying cannabis at night recently and have had amazing results. It seems to almost eliminate inflammation for over 24+ hours or more. And it gets rid of nerve pain and muscle spasms for 12-24 hrs.

Now I have an appt with a rheumatologist on tuesday, and I just know he is going to want me to trial more modern treatments... maybe tnf antigens or other treatments than anti inflammatories.

My dilemma is, I think maybe the cannabis is the right treatment for me. But how do I know for sure? I don't want to go on to treatments with terrible side effects when cannabis seems to only have good side effects. (I sleep better, I wake up fresher, I feel more alert the next day). But cannabis is not yet legal for medicinal purposes where I live, so I feel kind of forced to follow medical advice, even if its not ideal.

What would you do? Stick to something that finally works? Or follow drs regimen to see if something 'legal' works just as well, and hope there are not bad side effects?

My dad thinks I should follow drs treatment, purely for the legal aspect as well as because I have been very disabled by this condition so if I ever need to go to the gov't about disability, I can't really say its managed by cannabis.

Looking for all perspectives.

Also, does anyone have any easy to understand evidence of cannabis working as an anti inflammatory and tnf antigen?

Last edited by AngH; 01/24/15 06:41 AM.