FourtySecondRip

Sorry for double dipping on this post. Its kind of time sensitive and was hoping to get as much input as possible in the next 15 hours or so before my appointment so ill copy my original post below here.

Hey everyone its been almost 2 years (20-21 months) since I have posted or smoked for that matter. I hope you are all doing well. Anyway onto the topic at hand.

How should I bring up the topic with my doctor? I am in Washington State. I have narcolepsy with cataplexy and sleep apnea and my medications cost me over 5,000 dollars a month. I lost my medical insurance when u turned 26 and contacted the company who makes the very expensive medication for narcolepsy. It’s called Xyrem and they agreed to give it to me for free for 1 year. I have been on it since I turned 18 so almost 8 full years with the same medication. I have other issues and symptoms that were handled very well when I was smoking daily while I was away at school. The symptoms include heartburn, restless leg syndrome and anxiety type symptoms.

The anxiety isn’t covered in Washington from what I can find but the heartburn and waking up multiple times in the night despite having the best sleep medication on the market were 100% helped by marijuana. I’m sure that I would benefit from smoking again but I don’t know who to go about bringing it up with my normal doctor. They are a sleep specialist, are independent and not part of a hospital or anything so I think that works in my favor but I don’t want to go in there and say hey look I used to smoke marijuana and it helped, and I want to start again can you help me avoid getting arrested?

There’s no medical marijuana card in Washington. All you need is a doctor’s recommendation stating that they educated you on the positives and negatives of using it and that it could benefit you.

I will be requesting my medical records from the front office at the same time as my appointment incase the doctor doesn’t want to sign a recommendation but this appointment is costing me $225 out of pocket and going to a "pot friendly" doctor that I've seen online will cost between another 100-150 dollars.

For WA the list of officially approved conditions is

Cancer, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), multiple sclerosis, epilepsy or other seizure disorder, or spasticity disorders; or

(b) Intractable pain, limited for the purpose of this chapter to mean pain unrelieved by standard medical treatments and medications; or

(c) Glaucoma, either acute or chronic, limited for the purpose of this chapter to mean increased intraocular pressure unrelieved by standard treatments and medications; or

(d) Crohn's disease with debilitating symptoms unrelieved by standard treatments or medications; or

(e) Hepatitis C with debilitating nausea or intractable pain unrelieved by standard treatments or medications; or

(f) Diseases, including anorexia, which result in nausea, vomiting, wasting, appetite loss, cramping, seizures, muscle spasms, or spasticity, when these symptoms are unrelieved by standard treatments or medications; or

(g) Any other medical condition duly approved by the Washington state medical quality assurance commission in consultation with the board of osteopathic medicine and surgery as directed in this chapter.

Cataplexy is a spasticity disorder where your entire body goes limp and you may not be asleep in your mind but your body goes limp and you cannot move.

It’s not identical to epilepsy but the US military combines narcolepsy and epilepsy in their medical policies and denies the ability to serve for either condition because of the risk of you having an attack while holding a live weapon.

Does anyone have any experience requesting medical marijuana from their normal doctor in Washington State? Any tips you can provide on how to bring it up and how to explain your situation? I don’t qualify straight out based on the list of qualified conditions but I feel I could 100% benefits from it anyway.

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Roach

I know nothing of Washington's marijuana laws.
It does seem odd to me that someone who is HIV positive qualifies whereas someone who has a chronic sleep disorder does not. Many people are hiv pos and live a normal life, unless they develope full blown aids, which I noticed isn't on the list either.

The cost of your current medication alone should be a qualifier for substituting it with a more holistic one.

imho.

sorry I can't be of more help.

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Terry

Ok, Washington is more lax than Montana even, so hopefully it should be relatively painless:

Honestly the pot-friendly doctor is the best choice, unless you think your current doc would be worth it, in that case just use him but if he's not open to it the pot-friendly guy is still an option. Good on you for getting records, you'll probably need them.

Tell your doctor what you told us would basically be my advice. Go through your list of complaints, if you are being prescribed sleep drugs that do not work for your condition I'm guessing they make you feel dizzy and weird, which I'm sure they do. But I think you should admit to smoking marijuana, otherwise it may seem fishy to the doc if you just bring it up out of nowhere.

I would approach it like this, wait until the appointment is almost over, or for the moment he is about to suggest another medication/raising the dosage of your current one and then say something like, "you know doctor I think it's best I tell you that I've been self-medicating with marijuana. I feel like it has fewer side effects and it helps me sleep, much more so than the pills do. Would medical marijuana maybe be the option since I don't want to be breaking the law?"

Not a script you have to memorize but approach it like that, like you're trying to plant the idea into HIS head, most important thing is to not come off as a drug seeker, but you should do fine. Tell him you vaporize the weed or eat it in cookies so he can't hit you with a "smoking is bad for you" argument. Overall stroke his ego, as a doctor he may feel bristled when you suggest his treatment doesn't work, so try to come off as apologetic, like it's your fault, to open him up towards a new idea.

But again, DON'T oversell it. If all else fails, visit the pot friendly doctor, with your medical records in toe you should be a shoe-in.

Good luck!

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There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them.

-Sylvia Plath

Harry Pothead

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FourtySecondRip

I'm not sure if this is a straight up literal I'm jealous of you or if theres some other meaning inside the lyrics of this song, but i spend like an hour trying to figure it out and that took some of my anxiety that I had toward tommrorows appointment and took it away. so either way thank i guess lol

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