A discussion of Cannabis and Common Mental Disabilties

[lbdwarrior]

Caveat: Mods, if this is in the wrong place, know I tried like hell to find the right one. And tags? Fuggedaboutit.

Hi, new kid here Jeff. I am first and foremost a medical cannabis consumer but a very old school one as in I guess I have carried forward the effects of living thru years of criminalization. As recently as 10 years ago, I already had some 30 years experience at this and before you suspect me of bragging or something, know that it is actually weeping for a simple reason: it is 30-40 years of worthless information. Why? OK to sorta explain that I gotta explain this: one common problem in software companies or huge tech conglomerates of any kind is what is called the Silo effect. In really basic terms, each company or worse, subdivision within the big name corp all keep their secrets, things they know, things they invent, problems they solve. Giving them to the competition reveals weakness in their product or lets the competition fix theirs sooner, anything for a leg up. Information is “Siloed.”

Then in the 90’s or early 00’s some genius realized that sharing that information makes the whole community more than the sum of its parts because when we can all share our little piece of the truth, a larger one cannot help but emerge.

Growing and using pot has been like that; what the guy down the street figures out, everyone else will have to discover on their own, and as wonderful as whatever he figured out is, something I figured out might elude him forever. We keep our secrets because we always have kept them about this, because keeping them was the key to avoiding incarceration, so there was a practical side to this as well…

Alas, in this open day we can discuss things normally considered taboo and maybe come out ahead for it all. That is my hope but it will only work if ppl join in.

I am sorry for such a preamble, nature of the beast. This is about cannabis and mental disorders and right out of the box I need to get out of the way, I will have a hard time with any use-case that looks like:

1. Smoke joint.
2. …
3. Cured!

I need/want/desire specifics and I will try my best to provide them myself because I think until we can start treating cannabis like real medicine, others won’t either.

I want to talk about real-world use of cannabis (any cannabis-based product) being used for the treatment of mental disabilities. Any disability, treatment or opinion is welcome; as implied above, I fear I have listened to my own opinions long enough. I will start by sharing what I know/think:

Basic facts. Please feel free debate as it doesn’t pay to build on a shaky foundation:

• All mental disabilities originate in the brain.
• One common and pervasive problem with creating drugs to treat the brain is what is known as the blood-brain barrier. Basically this is a barrier between the blood (where swallowed medication starts) and the brain itself (where the meds need to get to). Doctors have found this notoriously hard to cross and until they do, changing anything on the other side is hit and miss. This is why most medications of this type only work so-well.
• The term “dementia” is really simply a term meaning an alteration of the operation of the brain. Since much of what the brain does is noticeable, dementia is used to describe anything from memory loss to mood alteration. And of course, cognitive ability…which is kinda stupid when you think about it since everything from processing visual perception to regulating the breathing is a cognitive function. Like saying “Oh I shot off all of my toes…and the little one too!” Take away here is dementia can be used to describe what is basically Murphys Law of the Brain: anything that can screw up, will.
  
  
• The argument that goes something like: Cannabis cannot be used for medical application because there is no research…is total bullshit because no real practical research has been done…ever. In that sense, I posit the notion that we long-time users and breeders (cannabis, not ppl, those are easy to pop out) know more about the mentel effects of cannabis than the doctors and researchers at this point.

So I have nearly five decades of cannabis use and as of this writing, about 10 years of clinically-documented dementia, so I know of these two worlds and having my own condition has allowed me to use my condition as a laboratory of sorts to figure things out. I have tried my best to support this stuff with testing and facts when possible.

In no particular order:

• While there are many processes in the brain and I have problems with many of them (memory, 3d spatial orientation, speech, etc), every single one of these is made many times worse when the frontal cortex/lobe is stressed. Among other things, this is what controls what is known as executive function. Basically this is what allows you to do many things at once, or appear to. I cannot multitask anymore. Simple example: If I concentrate on something, focus on it too hard for too long, my breathing stops and soon I am left gulping for oxygen when I begin to black out. Also since my brain can’t multitask, if I am focused on something, my ears may hear someone yelling “FIRE!” in the background but the brain won’t process it in real-time if ever. Same thing for processing vision: I can walk thru a room I know and step around all furniture and exit the other side…however when that executive function is stressed, say I am in pain, and I will walk right into walls or things right in front of my eyes; I will “see” them but not process what I see in time to avoid them. I see the wall, I am coming towards it, my brain starts to say something of warning but since I hurt from falling a moment earlier, I don’t consciously see the wall and walk right into it. This is well documented.

• It stands to reason then that while memory etc are unique-looking defects, in fact I suspect that if the frontal cortex was fixed, that would most likely fix like 90% of the worst parts of dementia. To reach that however, the blood-brain barrier must be crossed.

• Based on what this med actually does and what the common pharmaceuticals like LDopa are supposed to do, I think there is a strong chance that this cannabis medication basically jacks up the dopamine levels in the brain. Raising the dopamine levels is the goal of many many dementia treatments and this brings about what they are trying to do effortlessly.

• This is based on empirical evidence: having a broken executive function is very very common in dementia patients in general and Parkinsons and LBD folks in particular.

• Ditto above: In the same way that corrupting the executive function makes dementia worse, I suspect that plays a role in PTSD and ADD as well. This would imply a correlation between the three.

• My reason for suspecting the last statement is based on two key things, both I assume to be true:
  A. I have discovered that a pretty specific preparation of cannabis can alleviate like 80% of my LBD and Parkinsons symptoms in less than 120 seconds to come to full efficacy. Speech clearer by alot, my gait is smoothed, I am able to handle more complex situations in more chaotic environments, things that would have brought me down before. This has been witnessed by my doctors, neurologist and my speech pathologist and to a one they are impressed.
  B. Because of who I am (LBD man) I have several frriends with it as well. Further because of who I am (pot grower) one of my now-oldest friends with severe PTSD has tried it too**. Finally another friend who has been on ADD meds for years, tried this for a month and hasn’t gone back to his meds since.
  ** My friend with PTSD described the effects this way: Normally his PTSD meds numbed him to the things that stressed him out which left him a zombie on regular occasions. This stuff however didn’t numb anything but rather, as he put it, allowed him to change the channel and watch something less stressful than what was stressing him before…the point is, this med had a significant impact on his quality of life with PTSD, he could enjoy life more because he wasn’t numbed to everything.

Since all of these seemingly different conditions are all improved with this single medication, would that not imply two things then, that first whatever this is, it does seem to effortlessly cross that blood brain barrier…and second and most important for this conversation, they might all share a common cause.

Now this stuff has had such an impact on my life that if I were beyond rich I would make/buy enough for every dementia patient in the US to try at least one gram. I think there is a very real chance many folks who were thought to be “lost” might wake up.

To get it out of the way, there is nothing specifically magic about this medication, it is just hard to get here in Nevada. In short it is cannabis oil that has the exact CBD:THC ration of 18:1, it is most effective when made from a handful of strains, once this stuff reaches that profile I can ingest about 50mg of it via vaporization (dabbing straw) and I am suddenly like I no longer have a disease. For a while. Currently full efficacy only lasts a few hours meaning its not good enough to last all day like on a road trip or trip to visit family. Here is what I have written on the subject, at least the high points so I don’t have to reinvent the wheel:

Cannabis and Dementia

Cannabis and Dementia Redux

These will go into detail on the oil and what my testing has revealed about it.

So my first question is does everyone agree with the points made (and pls disagree if not, that is the only way I will learn anything and the stuff we are working with isn’t written in any book)?

If so, if you can see the general connection of these conditions, are there any other conditoins that might fall into this camp?

If the dopamine connection is real, dores this imply that this medicaiton could be used to treat other maladies that also rely on raising the dopamine levels in the brain?

Stuff to think about and discuss…

[scotty17]

Honestly only thing I understand about cannabis is there are cannabinoid receptors in the brain which obviously the brain is the main frame or Operating system so to speak for the body… When activating these receptors in the brain the body reacts in most medical cases positively… The plant has proven it’s medicinal capabilities time and time again… It’s today’s society and big business that’s trying to control it in present time

[lbdwarrior]

One other related item that I would like to see discussed here is one that caught me totally by surprise. Before getting dementia myself, I thought I knew dementia but only knew what my parents generation taught me, which was painfully, embarrassingly, hideously wrong. My Grandmother died of Alzheimers, though if we knew then what we know now, I am sure it would have been Lewy Body Dementia. I thought I knew dementia but after having and living with dementia myself, I can fairly say I didn’t know shit. And for that, I am sorry Grandma. I would have treated you so much differently if I knew then what know now.

The point of all that is to say it is very easy to be wrong for things we have taken for granted as fact or worse, we never considered certain possibilities because our mistaken preconceptions about things made those possibilities …well…impossible. We never ask the right question in other words.

So being a stoner for more than 4 decades and being diagnosed with dementia for nearly 10, I feel I am in a pretty strong position when I state that having spent many many hours in the depths of a dementia fog and having spent many days wasted on my ass due to some excellent herb I am actually seeing a pretty astounding overlap or correlation of symptoms in the human brain.

Let me say that again: being stoned is a LOT like having dementia. So much so that my gut says there might be a common factor and if that factor could be isolated and explored, I really do think whole new avenues of research not to mention therapy approaches will shake up the field unlike anything in the past 100 years.

How can this be? Well I cannot yet explain the mechanisms at play here, though I don’t discount having this information next week or something. However if you take your average “really excellent buzz” and compare it it various stages and symptoms of dementia, you will find many will overlap. for example, no the giddiness of being stoned doesn’t carry over BUT the sudden and total loss of working memory explains a lot of the goofy bits of being stoned. Also, in the same way Parkinsons and dementia are interrelated, being well-stoned often produces many of the same things Parkinsons folk live with everyday. Your perception of taste, smell, hearing and visual input are all altered to varying degrees (depending on your personal dementia brain damage). Your gait becomes halting and slow when you are really whacked. Back in the day when I got really plowed, like in hour six of hitting the water pipe all night, people used to say I walked like an old man. I laughed it off then, though now I fully recognize how I was walking as the “Parkinsons Shuffle” and if you know anyone with Parkinsons, you know what I mean.
** Update: one important point that I want to make sure folks see/know is that when you look at the features of each that overlap, I am here to tell you from personal experience that when they overlap, they feel like they overlap because they feel the same, when you remember them you remember the same stuff and like so very many events that happen when you are stoned are quickly forgotten, the same exact thing can be said of dementia as well. The stuff feels precisely the same is what I want you to know…

I could go on for pages mapping feature-for-feature the similarities but my time is limited too and I wanted to get some discussion here because if they really ARE that closely related, what is to say that good strong pot might be a fantastic and yet practical treatment for any form of cognitive disorder? While I don’t think just roll them up a joint is the answer (any more than chewing on bark will get you enough aspirin to get rid of your headache, it must be processed and concentrated to be effective), I would love to see a real drug study that used not just strong (say north of 20%THC minimum) flower but wax that can be easily ingested, I would make a good portion into RSO to determine how a time-released cannabis medicine might provide sustained relief for many hours to a day, …all these but the key thing would be they would all be tried on the already diagnosed dementia patient. I would do this on thousands of patients; I think the results could be amazing and if there is something to being stoned is somehow related to being demented, I think some new doors of directed research would slam open and doctors will be forced to look outside the box…

[hoppiefrog]

Thank you so much for sharing with us man we all know or have a loved one that has or did have dementia, I also wish I understood my great aunt when she was in her end stages we moved her into our house to live with us , unfortunately it scared most of the family as we didn’t understand what was going on.i feel horrible about it to this day:(

[lbdwarrior]

Good Sir, may I submit the following on our collective fears and sensations of guilt: Learning and knowing for sure about things is so powerful because then you logically won’t obsess upon that which you cannot control no matter what you do. Let me share one thing and then we can get back to the goofy: when I first started down this road, every slight, every humiliation of losing control of your limbs, you find yourself lost or suddenly in unexpected places, you see the hallucinations right in front of you (first time a palm tree sprang up in front of our car going 85 down the I-15, I about pooed my Underoos, thats for sure)…when you realize you can no longer read books or even comic books (ahem, graphic novels), you can no longer follow a TV show anymore or even listen to an average conversation, let alone participate in it, the list goes on but man, at first I SO beat myself up when I realized that back then when we all thought Grandma has checked out, no if what I am experiencing is any indication she wasn’t, she was either time-warping or visiting her summer cottage. WTF? Well one thing that happens when your executive function + working memory gets hosed: your sense of time, ALL of it goes right into the shitter and for the most part, time speeds up, weeks become only a few days, days become a few hours if even one at all and hours themselves, minutes, the rest are so indistinguishable you aren’t even aware of them. This is tricky enough on the patient but things don’t remain constant either, which let me tell you takes some excellent weed to deal with. But checked out and time warping (where its moving many times normal speed from my POV) looks the same and the other thing i have personally done is…see dementia can be scary, scary AF, but its not the dementia itself that is scary, it is how dementia makes your perceive so-called “reality” or real life. Depending on your dementia you probably have some levels of frontal cortex damage which translates pretty damned directly to a weakening of your ability to multitask which is the only way the human mind can deal with things that are chaotic…and when you don’t have that as a shield or muscle to use, you get overwhelmed.

Regardless of why you are overwhelmed you are and you are very completely and every dementia patient I know has the equivalent of a “safe room”, a place that we can retreat to feel safe from the chaos, so we can rest and rejuvenate and pull back from the darker edges of dementia. For some it is a literal room they can close the door and feel safe in. For others it can be as simple as a beloved easy chair they can sink into and feel comfortable in like an old sweater. For me, my whole house is my safe room but here’s where grandma comes back into play: even with a safe room, our dementia progresses meaning the outer boundary of our safe room shrinks over time and you find yourself cognitively retreating further and further into the zone you feel safe in, the chaos and confusion pushing in on every side, every waking moment…until your safe room simply becomes a portion of but more importantly, a product of your mind. I and others have realized independently not only can we go there, we can make the place become exactly what we …emotionally I guess…need. Hard to explain but its a pretty cool place for me, I have written about it elsewhere but it is as real to be as the chair you are sitting in is to you.

These days I don’t need much of a reason to zip off to that place, its not confusing there, people (what few I have) make sense there and don’t overwhelm me, I understand all the TV shows. my crop never gets nutrient lock-out and the movies are all my favorites. Its peaceful though, big-time, almost like a living Quaalude from my youth, no idea if I spelt that correctly. But its a mellow, restoring place and frankly it is where I expect I will end up for good at some point but do you know what? Fine!, I am liking this reality less and less with each passing day and that one is pretty sweet. So if grandma was there, she didn’t give two shits what her grandkids did. At that point they are like dots on the shore…

So while understanding things better would have lessened her pain and frustration of daily life, in the misery loves company kind of way, nothing you could have done, nothing I could have done would have changed the course of anything, because here is the other, maybe hard truth: if you didn’t;t really understand what was going on with her at that point, I promise you that SHE probably didn’t understand what was happening to her either, not really and thats the ass-kicker, because the only way I see any situation like that improving in any quantifiable way is if not just the care-giver/family member understands fully and gets it, the patient also must truly understand what’s happening to them as well. Only when both oars are rowing in the same direction at the same time can life move forward, else (to beat the metaphor to death) you spend them spinning wildly in a circle getting nowhere until one of you quits or one of you dies. However if you both are in on the same page of music, I can see this dementia thing as not being a horror or trial to the caregiver but rather an excellent ride for you both. That is precisely what we are living out right now as I pen this. That is the secret and magic to having this disease now, you can understand your way to a far better existence, not just with the time you think you have but with what comes after as well.

[hoppiefrog]

You truly have a beautiful mind my friend, you have brought happy tears to my eyes, that is something that everyone with a family member or has dementia themselves should read!! You have a special mind I can see this,I truly wish we had met year ago you have so much to offer I will keep thanking you for sharing your precious time with us I personally have been effected for the better, your explanation of your experience is painted in a way I feel like I truly understand the picture, I do hope it can be a beautiful place that you feel comfortable in that would be easier for all involved especially you , peace love and happiness my friend and tks again

[lbdwarrior]

well you are most welcome; when first diagnosed I did what everyone did, look for more info on what was killing me. Alas, that is the catch-22 of most dementias: when they get really interesting they have lost the ability to communicate well…and so as a result there is no good information what its like from the inside, not really, not enough for me…so when I found none I decided to start a blog and capture every crazy thing that comes into my demented-assed head…its good therapy too…can get a little extreme for the casual passer-by though…