Day 25 of 30 Days of MD: Cannabis and MD

by Danielle "Dani" Liptak | September 25, 2019

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Day 25 of #30DaysOfMD Introducing Gina Salminen- I wanted to share a few things about Cannabis and Facio Scapulo Humeral Muscular Dystrophy. I was diagnosed with adult-onset Facio Scapulo Humeral Muscular Dystrophy in 2012. In November 2015, I started in the Minnesota Medical Cannabis program because I was six months post-op, on way too much pain medication that wasn’t really ever effective, losing muscle still, and not really able to continue with any physical therapy I needed to rebuild from fusion. When I started with cannabis, it wasn’t even known what it would do for me. As soon as I went to the dispensary for the first time, even though overpriced I knew it was the right thing. Over the next 18 months, I tapered off all of my prescribed pain medications, because I wanted to. I slowly added pool therapy, and Biofeedback to exercise and break my own pain cycles. As I did this, other physical therapies began to finally pay off. I have gained back 40 pounds of proper muscle. I have been walking unassisted without any AFO braces for almost 2 years now. I am still in Occupational Therapy and now some intense Neuromuscular retraining. I have had to relearn a lot of things to rebuild those Neuro pathways. It is a lot of hard work, but the results are so very worth it!!!

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