Neuropathy Medicine

Buddy Talley of North Carolina: Neuropathy of the Feet

Buddy is 86 years old. He started in the tobacco business when he was 17. He didn’t retire until he was 73. A buyer for Kent, Newport and Old Gold, the fast paced, highly competitive world of a tobacco broker was the driving force for most of his life.

Buddy has outlived his wife by eighteen years. Now it’s just him and his son Tom. Tom is Buddy’s caregiver, now. Tom is also chronically ill.

Buddy has been suffering with Neuropathy of the feet for twenty years. He said that it feels like nails piercing the bottom of his feet. ” I jus’ never had anything in my life to hurt like this.”

Neuropathy encompasses more than 100 diseases and conditions affecting the peripheral nerves-the motor, sensory and autonomic nerves that connect the spinal cord to muscles, skin and internal organs. It usually affects the hands and feet, causing weakness, numbness, tingling and pain.

Buddy is a veteran. He served four years during World War II. He was told that it was probably the long walks packing heavy equipment that lead to his feet problems.

Two recent scientific studies (Headline from 2007) have confirmed what Buddy has found (that conventional narcotics don’t work for his condition) and what he has been told (that Cannabis is effective for Neuropathic foot pain).

Spinal Injury Pain Relief

Todd Walk of Missouri: Spinal Injury, Neurological Pain

Todd has a spinal cord injury at T3, that’s complete paralysis from about the mid-chest down. Because of the traumatic nature of his injury, he suffers from neurological pain.

It’s tough for Todd to describe the experience. “…strangest type of pain you can describe. You can’t understand what it’s like unless you have it.”

There can be different degrees. Todd’s is moderate to severe. “It’s like being burned or stabbed, or, anything like that…twenty-four hours a day.”

For Todd, it’s worse at night. “It’s not as bad during the day as long as I take my pharmaceutical medication.”

The pain is particularly bad when storms are coming in and when he forgets to take his medicine.

“Nothing really seems to help.” Todd is prescribed a number of anti-seizure medications. “Some, I take for the baseline pain, but they don’t help with the flare-ups.” Opiates are reserved for the flare-ups. “That doesn’t seem to do much either.”

My Chronic Pain Subsided

by Linda Yelvington of Missouri: 

Scoliosis, Chronic Pain

Linda lives outside of Joplin, Missouri.

Linda has been active in the movement for legalization for many years; since the 70’s. “It just doesn’t make since for it to be illegal – for something that is essentially harmless.”

Linda has Scoliosis. She was treated for it with a Milwaukee Brace when she was a teenager. That experience alone brought on depression.

She had her hip replaced when she was sixteen following a car accident. She also has degenerative problems in both wrists that make it difficult to work with a cane when her “bad hip” is aggravating her. She also has degenerative disc disease.

Hydrocodone, Darvon, Darvocet, Vicodin, she has run the gamete of pain killers. Such has also been the case with anti-depressants. She began taking Zoloft following the passing of her father. She has also been on Xanax.

There came a point in her life when she realized that the doctors were just “shoving more and more opiates at me – whatever they could prescribe, and it wasn’t helping – and cannabis did”.