Andrea Wright, 39, from Bristol, was identified in 2013 with psoriatic arthritis and fibromyalgia, a long-term situation that causes ache all around the physique. She was in such extreme fixed ache, and unable to sleep for greater than two steady hours an evening, that she was retired on sick well being from her job at Nationwide Grid “on the grand previous age of 33”.
She says: “I needed to cease work as a result of the ache was an excessive amount of. It’s been very miserable; I actually loved my job. I attempted so many various therapies and managed to get my arthritis beneath management however for fibromyalgia, there isn’t something, no magical capsule.”
She was taking as much as 40 tablets a day, together with 14 prescriptions reminiscent of opiate painkillers, in addition to sleeping tablets and laxatives to alleviate the constipation attributable to the painkillers.
Wright would by no means contemplate smoking hashish recreationally however began inhaling medicinal hashish as a part of a research run by the non-public London ache clinic LVL Well being in January. “To start with I used to be utterly knocked out however you do get used to it. Immediately my sleep was one million instances higher. I in all probability hadn’t had a correct evening’s sleep since 2012. I finished taking any sleeping tablets. My ache ranges have utterly dropped as properly.”
Her subsequent step is to start out weaning herself off the opiate painkillers. She is going to at all times should take some remedy however is now working as an operations supervisor for Flowaime, a Cadent (beforehand Nationwide Grid) contractor. “I’m capable of work longer hours and go into the workplace. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now if it wasn’t for medical hashish. It’s been life-changing.”
