I met “Mr. Z” nearly 3 years ago when he was having extreme difficulty with his Parkinson’s symptoms. Although he was in his late 80’s, had been experiencing tremors and difficulty walking for the last 5 years, he wasn’t about to give up on his projects in the garage. His work ethic was unlike any I had seen and he did not accept letting his tools sitting around gathering dust. The list of 20+ medications and supplements weren’t helping with his symptoms. The tremors didn’t allow him to use a drill anymore and being stuck in a wheel chair limited his ability to maneuver between his work stations.
His medications were messing with his circadian rhythm and his days and nights had been completely flipped. He was beginning to suffer from depression because of isolation as well. He had a very understanding and cooperative physician who worked with him and his family to try to get his medications to work more effectively, but that usually meant there were frequent trips to the pharmacy or dosage changes.
A man who had been completely able-bodied for 80 years now felt like he was, in his words, “just an experiment,” his whole life had started to revolve around his condition and medications.
Growing up in a conservative household and avoiding most medications in his adult years he never thought he would consider trying anything related to the cannabis plant, but he was desperate and was willing to try anything.
As with most of my patients it takes times to find the right product, dose, or delivery method, and it definitely took time for him. His family wanted to start with something topical at first, and although topical products can be very effective for localized issues, only specialized gels and patches will reach the blood stream. They then decided to try a sublingual oil, and without seeing immediate effects and him not really liking the taste, they stopped giving it to him on a consistent basis. It’s hard for anyone of us to continue something we don’t see results from. Especially when it’s something that can cost over a $100 a month. However, after an episode that really had the family worried they decided to take it seriously and made a commitment to giving him the CBD 3 times a day. After increasing his dose from 10 mg 3 times a day to 25 mg twice a day and 50 mg at night they started to notice an improvement.
His tremors never went away, but his chronic pain improved, he was able to get back to a regular sleeping schedule, and he stopped showing signs of depression. “Mr. Z” woke most mornings feeling rested and ready to get to work and although the addition of THC could have possibly provided some additional benefit for the tremors, he was just fine feeling good enough to get back to those projects.
To read an article on medical marijuana for the treatment of Parkinson’s, read the article below.
