Guest Speaker Ellen Lenox Smith: Cannabis and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome

This weekend only! Ellen will be giving  a special preview of her presentation for this summers conference, if you won’t be able to travel out of state now if the time to see it!

Mrs. Ellen Lenox Smith has emerged as a leading voice for patients living with pain in Rhode Island. Featured in local and national press, Mrs. Smith brings a reasoned and compassionate perspective to the need for safe access to medicine. This year, she spoke at the ASA Unity Conference on this topic of access to proper and affordable treatment and medication. Mrs. Smith has been featured in NY Times, Washington Post, NPRI local, national, the front page of the Providence Journal twice, and more. Mrs. Smith is also an author It Hurts Like Hell!: I Live With Pain– And Have A Good Life Anyway and My Life as a Service Dog.

Mrs. Smith suffers from two rare conditions. One is Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. In 2006, she was accepted into the Connective Tissue Research at the National Institute of Health to help search a cure for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Her second condition is called Sarcoidosis, which causes enlarged lymph nodes and granulomas in her lungs. Both these conditions are currently not curable. She presently has endured twenty- three surgeries and countless visits to her doctors.

Presently, Mrs. Smith is a Rhode Island ambassador for both the US Pain Foundation, on the board of both the US Pain Foundation and the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition (RIPAC) as media coordinator, and helps with media exposure for the five-year-old EDS RI Support group. She is a staff writer for both Pain News Network and 1000 Watts. Mrs. Smith is a resident on a small farm in Scituate, Rhode Island with her husband, Stuart (and her Service Dog Maggie) Ellen and Stuart have been married for 42 years! They are proud parents of four adult children and three grandsons, with another Grandchild on the way!