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Sprakisnolo36 karma

You are aware that the condition is a relapsing and remitting condition, and that the marijuana almost certainly has nothing to do with your improvement right? Its an inflammatory condition... I'll be blunt: marijuana is not going to fix an inflammatory problem. Steroids, TNF-alpha antagonists... these are the therapies that aid in Chron Disease. I am overjoyed to hear that you are doing well, but don't chalk it up to a drug that has no immunpsuppressing effect (at least one that wouldn't be anywhere near that of steroids or cytokine suppressors). You've gotta be realistic when thinking about this. Weed probably helped with the nausea and vomiting, but the transmural scaring, fissures, ulcerations and interspersed inflammation of your ileum are not going to be impacted by marijuana. But again, whats the most important thing, is that you are doing better now. Thats great! But lets not try to spread the idea to others that may have Chron that marijuana should be a first line treatment. We have good evidence that the other treatments work best for most patients.

Sprakisnolo10 karma

Oh I agree, and while I think it may be a fine adjunct therapy I just want everyone reading this to appreciate the need to limit or confront the offending inflammation with drugs designed to do that.

Sprakisnolo9 karma

Non-ferrous metals are chosen for a reason. MRI is a critical tool in evaluating your spinal cord after surgery. If you had ferrous (magnetic) metals, they would potentially be displaced by the strength of the magnet, but more likely they would heat up to increadible temperatures and coagulate nearby tissues (a disaster to the highest degree). A CT scan shows bone well, and it shows muscle and lungs and bowel tissue well (enough, these systems are much less touchy than the nervous system), but it really is pretty much useless in evaluating the delicacies of neural tissue, and can only let you know if anatomically something is disastrous or if tissue is infarcted.

If you ever come back to a hospital with complaints of leg or arm numbness or weakness, an MRI is going to be the best, easiest, way of looking at your spinal cord. The alternative, a myelogram, is a procedure done by an interventional radiologist and is still less useful.

Sprakisnolo1 karma

How embarrassed should I be to ask my local mechanic to retape my handlebars?