VERY ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
Clare Hodges discovers that doctors are prevented by law from prescribing the best treatment for her multiple sclerosis
AFTER A couple of years of doctors try- ing to find out what was wrong with me, in 1983 I was diagnosed as having multiple sclerosis. I made great efforts through diet and exercise to look after myself and for a time I remained only mildly affected. I car- ried on working as a television producer for five years, married and had two chil- dren. However, in the last year or so I have become very aware that my condition is deteriorating. I need a walking-stick. I can no longer drive because my vision is impaired. I can't empty my bladder prop- erly if I don't use a catheter. I am often very sick and dizzy; I suffer from extreme fatigue. I was taking all sorts of medication which often had unpleasant side-effects such as nausea, anxiety, blurred vision and headaches.
Then, last summer, a friend showed me an article from an American journal in which some doctors advocated that they should be allowed to prescribe marijuana for MS patients. They argued that it is a much more effective drug for controlling spasticity than anything they could legally prescribe. They can prescribe morphine so why not marijuana?
Inspired by this, I thought I'd give it a go. I checked it out with the different doc- tors I see and they assured me that, in my case, it was a safer drug than those I was taking and could help me more than the medication I was already prescribed. The only problem, they said, was that it is ille- gal, and so they would not prescribe it.
As I am a middle-class, 35-year-old sub- urban housewife there was a bit of a prob- lem getting hold of some cannabis. I tentatively sounded out friends and acquaintances, which was a bit embarrass- ing, until, eventually, I found one who was a regular smoker and was happy to help me. She came round one evening when the children were in bed and smoked some with me. I asked her naïve questions how do I roll a joint, how long will the sen- sation last, will I have a hangover the next morning? — all the things which 15 years ago at university I could never ask my intense friends who smoked cannabis in darkened rooms because I was afraid I `Actually, he doesn't do anything. He's a figurehead.' would look silly.
My new friend provided some cannabis for me, but because of the secrecy that had to surround the whole endeavour I could get no medical information about what would be the right dosage to help me. I had to work it out for myself. And there was still a problem of how to get a regular sup- ply. I thought the best solution would be to grow some myself. I tried germinating some seeds, but when I found myself watering the plants in the airing cupboard in my five-year-old son's bedroom, I thought things were getting ridiculous. I abandoned the project and found a supply elsewhere.
I have been smoking cannabis regularly at night before I go to sleep for several months now and it has had a marked effect on my control of the disease. When I smoke it, my body completely relaxes, which relieves the tension and spasms that I have. It has had other beneficial effects. I am now more efficient at controlling my bladder, so I don't get the recurrent urinary infections that I was having before. It relieves my nausea and I can now sleep much better, so that I am not quite so tired all the time.
Because the effect of the cannabis is so immediate, it is easy to know when I have smoked enough. With other medications I don't feel I have as much control. I don't smoke it with tobacco, which, unlike cannabis, is addictive, so I use herbal cigarettes. Unlike the unpleasant side- effects of the legal medications prescribed to me, I actively benefit from the side- effect of the 'high'. I don't get any of the disturbing hallucinations that some people talk about; when I don't just fall asleep I usually feel very calm and positive — and it is often very hard to feel that way about having MS.
I am so enthusiastic about all the good cannabis has done me that I would love to be able to dispense it amongst other suffer- ers — like a modern-day Florence Nightin- gale. But there are lots of reasons why this is impossible. It's enough of a problem try- ing to get hold of what I need for myself. I haven't got the medical expertise to be able safely to help others with their problems. And it is illegal; I could be prosecuted for drug-pushing.
I am not saying cannabis is a cure-all — still have the symptoms of MS. I also don't know whether it would have the same effect on other MS sufferers. (Although, strangely, I have learned that the drug apparently has a similar beneficial effect of supressing the nausea experienced by those undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.) On the subject of whether cannabis should be legalised, I have nothing original to say. But there does seem to be something wrong when someone who is ill must go `underground' to get help.
The author's name has been changed in order to protect her identity.
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