Best wishes,

rose

I ended up posting on the Vitamin Forum

http://forums.braintalk2.org/showthread.php?t=1311

Kindly, Alye

wow ! hi Alye!
it's great to meet someone finallywho not only shares first hand knowledge of our disease but is also current on the Meds we are looking forward too. I believe if i had the option and thought it would work for the pain I would pay out-of pocket for the med. I am to chicken to try the real stuff, never have and now that i am a mom with an ex husband i am too concerned with the "what if" scenerios. i do believe my ex would NOT understand if he wereto find that out; so i wait for it to be legal with Sativex.
If you don't mind my asking how did you come to have arachnoiditis and where in Canada -general-is your pain clinic? good docs are sooo hard to find. Did it take you a long time to get a diagnoisis? mine came pretty quick although i have been fighting workers comp for about 5 years now. I am really looking forward to it all being over on oct 13! Do you sleep well? just from your response above it seems we have similar issues with health. i'd love to compare notes, so to speak, and see what works for you and what all you have tried. please e-mail me if this forum is to "open" a place to speak. I believe you can find my e-mail under my profile or answer here. It's just wonderful to meet someone with the same issues...as horrible as they might be.
best wishes the pain critters stay at bay tonight for you and everyone else reading this-G

Hi all,

Sativex - I had Sativex on UK NHS prescription for 6 months & it WORKS brilliantly - no side-effects worth recording - slight lifting of mood but this is good with vicious chronic pain & disability. Tried just about everything cover to cover of BNF (the Doctor's 'Bible' for prescribing drugs), inc Morphine/even Omnopon, neuroeleptics, SSRI, NSAIDS, antiemetics, etc., & Nabilone (barely effective - just helped control nausea & get me thru the day, unlike horrendous side-effects of Domperedone - made me worse, far worse!!! - Sativex is so far the best medicine prescribed. What a pity Southend-on-Sea Primary Care Trust have removed the two GPs (Dr L Singer & Dr R Gardiner), who both prescribed it for me, on the basis that he should not have prescribed, "an unlicensed drug known to have dangerous mental health issues". It's now 21 weeks since I had the last repeat prescription!!! Back in vicious pain, illness, & basically Disabled again!

http://www.thc4ms.org.uk/sativexexperience.php

My two GPs were fired for prescribing Sativex to me and basically keeping me alive - I was in Acidosis when I got it. Two days after I started taking Sativex everyone was saying how much better I looked. 5 weeks later I was in only a fraction of the pain I had been in, I was walking around much easier, regulating body temperature, no nausea or retching, or vomiting, just eating and putting on some weight. I was loosing between 1 to 2Kg per day unless I stuffed my face with 7 to 15,000 calories per day - not easy on UK Incapacity Benefit of £ 78 a week (approx. $125 but with a much higher cost of living than in USA).

So much for our local NHS Primary Care Trust (Southend-on-Sea, Essex). Ian Stidson, Assistant.Director.Primary.Care, was the one who fired my GP and is now refusing all GPs permission to prescribe on any basis.