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I never smoked marijuana as a teenager. No, that’s not entirely true. Once, I took one puff, hardly inhaled, and called it quits.

Fast-forward four years or so. By this time, we’d moved to Canada, I was in university and we lived in a wonderful house with a backyard adjacent to a ravine. The guy who cut the grass told my parents that he’d found marijuana growing just on the edge of the cliff, so naturally we picked some and dried it in the oven. Then smoked it.

My friend Michele and I both got very silly. By which I mean sillier than we already were and that’s saying something. Her then-boyfriend looked at us like we were crazy as we giggled away, convinced we were high.

We weren’t. It was a weed. Not the weed, a weed. The persuasive powers of the mind are awe-inspiring.

Many years later, I got fibromyalgia. After a lifetime of living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), I thought I knew pain.

I didn’t. This was an entirely different beast. It didn’t respond to any of my tried-and-true tricks. In fact, those tried-and-true tricks just seemed to make everything worse. Medication either didn’t work or caused side effects and I was desperate.

A friend gave me a joint. I smoked a bit, but not enough to get stoned. And the pain subsided to something entirely tolerable.

For a long time, I smoked marijuana every night about an hour before going to bed. And then I’d sitI sit quietly and meditate. The combination of the two would allow me to gradually un-seize the muscles in my neck, shoulders, and back that had been clenched into a fist the entire day. And I would sleep.

Marijuana helped my fibromyalgia more than any medication I ever tried. It was not legal at the time and it was before medical marijuana happened.

I hope the statute of limitations has expired?

Fast forward another few years when I started Humira which came with a side effect that’s described as ‘warmth.’ Because of the medication suppressing my RA and because of the internal heater, my Fibro became mostly manageable. Sure, it was still there, but it no longer screamed like a banshee 24 hours a day.

So I stopped smoking pot. And although I haven’t taken it since, it’s on my list to visit a clinic to get some tincture or drops to help with my current pain levels.

I live in Canada and here, medical marijuana is legal. We are also within about two weeks of marijuana being legalized. My future looks a lot easier in terms of having access to this tool that might help me control my pain.

Although I should be clear that I haven’t tried it for my RA pain, my experience is that even a little can have a profound effect. I know people who use it for pain, anxiety, ADHD, nausea, and much more. I’m looking forward to yet again incorporating it in my pain management toolbox.

Do you do you use marijuana or CBD for pain?

This post is part of RDBlog Week. To see more posts about living with RA from other participating bloggers, check out the RDBlog Week page.