momofthegoons said:
You doc is your friend, who wants your foot better.
I have more doctors than I can count. Only one of them would I consider "my friend," and unfortunately, he died. The rest of them range from decent to terrible (in attitude)
Ok, perhaps more in the sense of my enemys enemy is my friend. An ally
...I don't know how it is in the U.K., maybe the doctors there are more knowledgeable or less conservative......
I expect we're all on a par in western medicine wrt general practise knowledge and the way it is shared. Access to resources might be different, and I think some of the US specialists are top in their fields. Conservative attitudes.... - I'd say perhaps more conservative here towards mj- we're light years behind on the medical mj front. It's generally just considered a soft recreational drug
....The one that I go to for pain management will test you if he suspects that you use, and then will not prescribe pills for pain.
Test you for MJ? That's pretty full on to with-hold treatment on that basis, granted. I'd guess that there must be some difference in medical ethics, because I think it's unlikely that a doc here could with-hold treatment on that basis
unless there was perhaps some kind evidence of an ongoing substance abuse problem. Is there some kind of over ruling council in the US that sets medical standards and assess a doctors work? It strikes me that a doctor would be stepping over some line to with-hold treatment for use of an unrelated substance, based upon his own personal moral judgement.
He just doesn't subscribe to the same opinion on mj as I do..... .....Then there was the doctor who treated me for HepC. He clearly hated my guts from the moment he met me. Unfortunately, he was also the best hepatologist in the area and I am one of the very few that have cleared the virus. Should I have traded this doctor for one that was inferior just because we didn't like each other?
His liking you had little to do with combating the problem ultimately. Likewise the doctors opinion on the use of marijuana shouldn't come into play, at least with an ethical doctor, unless he genuinely believes (in a way that would stand up to scrutiny) that it is relevent to the ailment/treatment.
Ultimately this judgement can only be made if the information about mj use is shared, and so I'd always share this with my doc. If I felt he misused this knowledge I could, in full confidentiality, raise this with the UK's General Medical Council which could ultimately prevent him practising.
Massive differences between our healthcare systems though. And so far I've been fortunate to avoid too much contact with either. Like you say Mom, and you've had the direct experiences;
in a perfect world.
But the power of the herb shouldn't be underestimated. And that's not necessarily stigma as suggested in the post above. Even commonly available and widely used herbal remedies and supplements have the potential to interact with prescribed medication and treatments. And MJ is actually a super powerful medicine, as many patients will testify, with wide ranging physiological effects (more so than many medications).
I think anecdotally in a majority of cases there aren't any
serious negative interactions with MJ self medication and conventional treatments, but that's not to say there aren't any. I even think there is probably a significant potential for non-beneficial interactions at some level with certain treatments, in that efficacy might be moderated
So on this basis I would certainly be sharing the info with my doc.
Cheers
