Restored Self: A Phenomenological Study of Pain Relief by Cannabis

Abstract

We propose the term Restored Self to conceptualize the effect of medical cannabis. Restored Self is the experience of regaining one's sense of self, sense of normality, and sense of control over one's life.

Cannabis against chronic musculoskeletal pain: A scoping review on users and their perceptions

“…In the remaining studies, nine included exclusively "self-identi ed MC users", i.e. those patients who are using MC without the advice of a physician or without an MD con rmed diagnosis [34,73,74,77,81,84,91,94,98,99], four included both self-identi ed and quali ed MC users [51,65,79,93], seven included patients who were seeking MC certi cation or recerti cation [52,53,59,64,67,68,71,96], and eight did not provide su cient details to discriminate between the two categories [36,62,66,69,70,80,88,100].…”

“…Of the 20 studies that examined the impact of MC use on the utilization of other prescribed medications [18,34,58 Table 2). In twelve studies, it had been observed that participants discontinued their use of opioids or other prescription drugs following the start of MC consumption [34,58,64,66,68,71,72,75,[95][96][97][98][99], in a proportion varying from 6% [71] to 63% of participants [75]. Participants also reported preferring the use of MC to prescription medication [61], mainly because of the adverse effects of their prescription drugs [76].…”

Cannabis against chronic muskuloskeletal pain: A scoping review on users and their perceptions

“…Data were obtained using different approaches. Nine studies were qualitative and data were collected by interview [56,58,63,74,77,84,91,93,96]. Three studies used closed-ended questions with free space for comments or open-ended questions [60,65,98].…”

“…Participants had been recruited at different locations, with MC or cannabis dispensaries, MC associations or MC advocacy groups as the most frequent recruitment sites (reported in 20 out of the 49 included studies) [18, 54-58, 60-62, 65, 66, 70, 73, 75, 78, 81, 87, 88, 92, 97-99]. Other reported recruitment sites were MC clinics [52,53,59,71], pain or health-care clinics [36,63,64,68,69,72,76,79,80,82,86,95,96], pharmacies specialized in MC distribution [83,89], other pharmacies [85,93], newspapers, university websites, mass media, restaurants or bookstores [34,77,84,99], social media or social networks [84,91,98,99], online forum or websites of MC association [51, 74,94], a Public Health Agency [89,90] and industry-based consumers directed organizations or consumers/patients' organizations [67,91].…”

“…Perceived positive and negative effects MC smoking was described by the participants as enjoyable, easy to titrate, and procuring immediate pain relief [34,65,74,77,78,84]; however, respiratory side effects and bad smell and taste were perceived as negative effects of cannabis smoking [65,74,78,96] (Table 2). Edible MC products were considered healthier, tasty when cooked in a recipe, and with long-lasting pain relief effects [34,63] [71] to 63% of participants [75].…”