A sold-out education symposium in Edmonton on Saturday, put on by the Arthritis Society, featured a number of experts in the area of medicinal cannabis.
One of those experts is Dr. Sana-Ara Ahmed, who runs medical practices in Toronto and in Calgary that use medicinal cannabis in the treatment of pain. She tells me that dealing with arthritic pain is the reason an increasing number of patients are prepared to try medicinal cannabis to ease their suffering.
“I’ve been working with patients for about four years now,” she tells me. “The challenges really are about the strain of marijuana to be used, the dosages, and the frequency of consumption. Every patient is different. So we start slowly with low dosages and study how the patient responds and whether or not the treatment is effective.”
This is still an area where much research needs to be done, but Dr. Ahmed’s work provides a clinical perspective on how patients respond to the treatment and how many of them have found it easier to live normal lives while minimizing the pain caused by arthritis.
The Arthritis Society is funding research into the risks and benefits of medicinal cannabis. It urges people not to self-medicate with a recreational product, but to seek the advice of a doctor before taking something for medical purposes.
The Edmonton event was sold out, but the Arthritis Society will be putting the seminar on its YouTube channel. It will be available on Thursday, Nov. 8th.
For those who have to deal with chronic pain, it might be useful to check out.
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