How Do I Take Medical Cannabis?

Each method of consuming cannabis medicine has its own effect, even when using the same strain of cannabis. Why? Well, different methods involve different physiological pathways.

There’s no best delivery method as each has its usefulness, drawbacks, and therapeutic effects in certain situations. Here are the most common methods for consuming cannabis medicine.

Inhalation: Onset 1-5 minutes; Duration 1-6 hours

  • Smoking it OR preferably, inhaling vaporized flower

Positives: fast onset creates ease in consuming your correct dosage and it’s convenient. It’s also ideal for people with nausea, vomiting or other conditions that make swallowing difficult.

One drawback is that inhaled cannabis is more likely to cause cardiovascular side effects, has a shorter duration, and a higher abuse potential.

Herbal vaporizers using cannabis flower are considered a healthier way to consume cannabis because it greatly reduces the number of harmful substances created compared to smoking. The vapor produced is warm and non-irritating, with little to no smell.

Ingestion by Mouth: Onset within 1-2 hours; Duration 4-12 hours

  • Edibles – Cannabis added to food or drink
  • Capsules
  • These are absorbed through your GI tract and then metabolized by your liver
  • Ingestion changes cannabinoids into a form with longer duration of action

Be very cautious when consuming edibles; start with an extremely small amount like 1 -2 milligrams. To avoid unpleasant after-effects, wait at least 2 hours before ingesting a second dose. If this small initial dose does what you want it to do, stick with it and don’t add another dose. If the effect isn’t strong enough, the next time you consume it, up the dose slightly by only 1 – 2 milligrams and continue to do so until you get a therapeutic effect. People new to cannabis should start SLOWLY with edibles.

Liquid Cannabis Extracts: Onset 10-45 minutes; Duration 2-8 hours

  • Taking liquid extracts; tinctures or oils absorbed through the mouth or swallowed
  • Measure carefully using the metered dropper provided with the bottle and place it in your mouth under your tongue; wait 60-90 seconds before swallowing

One of most versatile methods, this method works well for most people

  • Convenient, discreet and easy to dose correctly

Topicals (External; on skin):  Onset and Duration Variable

  • Applying cannabis lotions, salves or patches to the skin
  • Many can be made at home to alleviate pain, muscle spasms, inflammation, itching and various skin conditions
  • Topicals do not typically produce psychoactive effects
  • “Transdermals” – are a medicated patch you place on the painful body part, have better absorption and will have full body effect. However, they can cost more than other methods.

Raw Cannabis (THCA): Onset 2-45 minutes; Duration 2-8 hours

  • It does NOT produce psychoactive effects; it’s the raw (Acidic) plant material
  • It has a higher terpene content and a broad range of  therapeutic benefits for conditions such as arthritis, epilepsy, chronic pain, digestive disorders
  • Typically taken by mouth in a tincture or spray
  • Fresh raw cannabis flowers can be eaten directly, prepared into an oil, made into “canna cubes” or brewed into a tea

Rectal (Cannabis Suppositories): Variable Onset & Duration

  • These can be useful for treating pain in pelvis and low back
  • They can also be used for people unable or prefer not to inhale or swallow cannabis
  • Limited research shows a wide variability in absorption

Be sure to consult with a qualified Medical Cannabis healthcare provider as well as your personal healthcare provider for more information and assistance.

 

Taru Fisher, Certified NLP Health Practitioner & NLP Coach
Healer Certified Medical Cannabis Wellness Advisor

 

 

Copyright 2021 Jean Taru Fisher

Used with permission

 

How an MS Patient Found Success

Ardra Shephard is a Canadian and not well known in the US – but she is on her way to
increased recognition and fame as a blogger, script consultant, and speaker. What you don’t know about Ardra is that her award-winning blog Tripping on Air is an inside look at her life with multiple sclerosis (MS). MS grips its sufferers in the worst ways including nerve pain, spasticity, and insomnia – as well as seizing legs and fatigue. Conventional medicine often produces unwanted side effects and can lead to more pharmaceutical experiments in a continually failing attempt to find relief.

Ardra recently wrote about 7 things she learned in her journey to treat her MS woes with medicinal cannabis. On her list:

1. It’s important to consult a professional. Taking an approach to any treatment plan
without first talking with a medical professional is not only foolish, but can be dangerous.
Ardra recognized early on in her journey that she knew next to nothing about the
plant-based medicine and took it upon herself to do diligent research with the help of
clinicians and pharmacists to ensure she understood recommendations for her specific conditions.

2. Medical cannabis can be expensive. In the US, medical healthcare providers do not cover cannabis as medication and this can be an out of pocket expense which takes experimentation with different types, which can be spendy.

3. It’s possible to overdo it with medical cannabis. Ardra writes about how the dosage for her medication in Canada included instructions to “start slow.” Unfortunately, she unknowingly overdid it and although she slept, when a middle-of-the-night bathroom need interrupted her slumber, she realized she was extremely high and promptly fainted.

4. The effects of medical cannabis can last a long time. As a result of the psychoactive effects in THC, cannabis effects can be long lasting. With practice and journaling effects, one can determine the right type and dosage to serve as a solution to many conditions.

5. Medical cannabis is not without risk or side effects. Don’t misunderstand that finding – there are side effects that can result from cannabis use – but they don’t include addiction, or cancer like many pharmaceuticals do. The side effects from cannabis might include anxiety or paranoia, sedation, and increased appetite. The beauty of these side effects is that with careful use and documenting results as experimenting with different strains and products is that some of these can be easily avoided.

6. Medical cannabis is not a panacea. Ardra is quick to point out that cannabis didn’t cure her MS, but for her is a symptom management tool, used in conjunction with lifestyle modifications, diet, and some conventional medicine.

7. The benefits are worth it. Like many others who suffer from the impacts of MS, Ardra found that CBD and THC helps her to sleep better, decrease pain, and as such pain medication, and enjoy some of life’s simpler tasks without suffering.

view ardra's blog here

“I’m just calm”

Brandon Sparks, of USMC, finds calm with cannabis.

Brandon Sparks, 19, saw more at his young age than many men will see in a lifetime on a dark night in 1996.  Sparks would recall 20 years later the horror of the night when two US Marine Corps helicopters collided in mid-air claiming the lives of 14 marines.

A member of the Quick Reaction force, Sparks was called to the scene with fellow teammates to recover the bodies of the fallen and in a North Carolina swamp, that’s not an easy task in any type of weather or light conditions.  That moment in time would change his life forever, as he recalls his exposure to the sheer carnage of retrieving bodies that had literally been hacked to pieces by the tail rotor of one of the aircraft.  Sparks said of that night, “I just kinda started falling apart.”  He would leave the USMC within a year and squashed his memories of that fateful night into the corners of his mind for the next 20 years, when he was finally diagnosed with PTSD – post traumatic stress disorder.  

In 2018, Sparks would apply for and receive his medical marijuana card in an effort to lower the use of five different kinds of medication to treat his insomnia, bipolar disorder, as well as anxiety, depression, and insomnia.  Smoking cannabis flower has led him to a place where he says he has been able to reduce his medications and only take pharmaceuticals for bipolar and anxiety.  

Today, Sparks says “I wake up in the morning, I have a cup of coffee and I smoke a bowl or smoke a vape and within 20 minutes I’m just calm, I’m not over processing things in my brain.  I’m not hypervigilant, I don’t have a ton of thoughts.”  A true believer in the power of the plant medicine offered by cannabis, Sparks is now a 42-year-old father to three girls in Buffalo, New York. 

With every journal purchase we donate 20% to TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. An organization dedicated to helping veterans and their families. To order, use the link below.  



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Sexual Health

Recently while teaching “Cannabis 101” to a group of women primarily between 30 and 70 years-old the subject of sexual health came up. It was the topic everyone had the most questions about as approximately half of women suffer sexual dysfunction in some way at some point in their lives. Decreased desire, inability to orgasm, painful sex are very common. I didn’t have time to share my story with the group, but I wanted to share it here.

I am in a healthy relationship with someone I am very sexually attracted to and sex never disappoints. However, we have two kids at home and two dogs that sleep in our bed. Our lives are very busy and we are often exhausted by the time our children have gone to sleep.

Our joke is that we “need to preheat the oven,” now this can mean a variety of different things, but most often, preheating the oven is just turning down our worries and stressors. Sometimes when the house is quiet for the first time in the evening it is the first time I can think. Think about that email, my to-do list for the next day, what we need from the grocery store, and when I am doing this the oven is ice cold. My desire to get something accomplished strongly outweighs my desire for sex.

When I received my medical cannabis card it was for migraines,  nothing directly related to sexual dysfunction, I quickly noticed that a small dose of THC and CBD in the evening helped me relax and get my mind off that damn to-do list. It’s like I could instantly feel my shoulders relax for the first time all day. I wanted to experience something enjoyable, not just reply to emails or get caught up on the day’s news. I can’t say that cannabis has drastically improved my sexual health, but it has improved my ability to relax and has increased my desire.

Cannabis has been shown to improve the sexual function of both men and women and I review the research in the article below. Love, touch, and sex are important parts of who we are as humans and are clearly important to the group of women mentioned above. There aren’t a lot of options to help improve sexual function, but cannabis is one that is showing a lot of promise. 

Read the Article on page 60

No longer a “Bag of Bones”

Cheyann Shaw was a vibrant and adventurous fitness social media influencer.  That changed at 23 when she was diagnosed with stage 4 serous ovarian cancer.  Her chemotherapy regimen began in August of 2016 and thus began a series of nightmares – multiple rounds of chemo, surgeries, a temporary ileostomy bag, and an allergy to dairy. Her weight plummeted from 130 to 97 lbs, from muscle to a skeletal bag of bones. 

 

Her family and friends watched her deterioration until her parents finally broached the topic of giving medical cannabis a chance. She was initially opposed to the idea, having always led the life of an athlete and considering her body a temple.  Oddly enough her father, a previously anti-cannabis man, had seen a friend battling with back cancer have positive results by treating his own condition with medical cannabis.  Cheyann began with 1 gram each of Rick Simpson oil and CBD, distributed in pill form.  She found that the aggressive chemo she was subjected to next – seven rounds in all – was far more tolerable.  She began to see that her appetite was back and was starting to crave food again, even eating dinner and desert like a “normal” person.

 

The most difficult of the chemo side effects she had experienced previously was feeling both exhausted and wide awake simultaneously.  To combat the side effects of chemo, doctors had begun injecting her with a steroid to “help” but those would keep her awake, sometimes up to 72 hours at a time.  Both her physical and mental health were suffering and again, she started looking into how medical cannabis might help with the mental exhaustion.  She found that THC was a godsend for insomnia and began to sleep and wake up refreshed.  Not only that, but the anxiety was dissipating with the use of THC.

 

Today, Cheyann says that she’s a firm believer that medical cannabis helped her win the fight with her cancer.  She says, “Many people are closed-minded when it comes to THC and at one point, I was one of those people.  But if you keep an open mind and do just a little research, you’ll be surprised at what you might find.”    

Often times I hear patients tell me they have treated their lower abdominal issues with cannabis suppositories, either vaginally or rectally. I’ve been told they work for menstrual cramps and to treat the symptoms of Crohn’s. Click below to check out the research on cannabis suppositories and if they really work.

Do Cannabis Suppositories work?