My experience with Marijuana for depression and anxiety

[cybergenesis]

Hi Everyone.

 

I am a long term sufferer of problems with anxiety and depression, and I thought I would post my experiences about how marijuana seems to interact with my "conditions".

 

I was first hospitalized for what my doctors said was " a major depressive episode" when I was 13. after my mum died and various other disasters happened in my life.

 

Various doctors have diagnosed me as suffering from depression as well as "dysthymia" which is a sort of low grade, persistant long term depression.

 

Also from around the age of 21 I develop serious problems with anxiety, and had many years where I was quite neurotic and plagued by constant panic attacks, some lasting for hours and involving hyperventillation, pronounced shaking, rapid heart beat, and sometimes loss of control of my bowels (in severe cases).

 

In regards to anxiety, marijuana has the potential to trigger attacks.. It may have a sort of psychologically suggestive effect in some people, triggering them to "worry more" about their anxiety... So in some cases marijuana may temporarily aggrivate anxiety, and in some people with severe anxiety disorders, pot may not be a good idea (while paradoxically it may actually help some people in such circumstances). In all cases caution is recommended if you don't want to risk a severe panic attack.

 

However the panic inducing effects of THC seem most pronounced in inexperienced users, and may be due to the fact some people are especially sensitive to THC and while they get used to it require only small amounts, such as 1-2 tokes. Once tolerance develops, the effects of THC seem to become much more relaxing and indeed I find these days marijuana actually reduces my overall feelings of anxiety. Quite a lot in fact. I am almost completely devoid of anxiety problems, yet I puff on the herb every day.

 

I think to a degree I had to learn to overcome a fear I had of marijuana causing me to panic. I had to overcome a default tendency to become a bit spooked out by the effects of becoming excessively stoned.

 

However as I said these days I almost never experience any anxiety when I smoke weed. This is interesting because at the beggining I had some severe panic attacks which nearly stopped me smoking weed for good. The fact that I have now entirely overcome this problem, and indeed not had a large panic attack in a very long time, indicates that it is possible in many cases to manage cases where marijuana tends to induce anxiety. Beware though it can happen in experienced users. People who are prone to anxiety and depression genetically often end up smoking pot as teenagers, but anxiety disorders most typically develop in a persons early 20's... If you have tolerance to pot, and you stop for a week or two your tolerance may significantly reduce. If you then go suck down a couple of cones or whatever like you did before, it can trigger anxiety attacks in the vulnerable. I have heard a few stories of people smoking for a while, then having a break and finding when they smoked it, it triggered anxiety. You can get around it, just take it easy if you have had a break from smoking and have a disposition towards anxiety.

 

I recommend people who experience anxiety on marijuana (severe anxiety- moderate anxiety is common for newer users and to a degree is part of the fun) simply reduce the amount they consume significantly. In severe cases, people may find that bud is too strong for them at first, and may need to start with consuming leaf.

 

Remember it takes about 10 minutes to take full effect. So I recommend anxiety prone people take 1-2 medium inhalations, then wait a full 10 minutes before deciding if they want more.

 

Marijuana seems to have initially stimulating effects, followed by relaxing effects.. its these initial effects, which typically last between 30 minutes to 2 hours (depending on your tolerance) which seem to trigger anxiety...

 

The stimulating effects of marijuana typically last only about 30 minutes for me, unless I have consumed a great deal more than usual. After that I tend to find the effects more relaxing, and indeed overall I actually find marijuana a very effective treatment for my anxiety, even knows initially it aggrivates it.. Its not that much of a paradox, various antidepressants such as the SSRI's are known to potentially cause anxiety when you first go on them, even knows afterwards they are supposed to treat anxiety (though unfortunately they never did anything for my anxiety. No medication did except the benzodiazepines like valium which to me are extremely addictive and dangerous- I tend to binge on them)

 

In regards to feeling depressed and smoking marijuana:

 

I find that when I am severely depressed, that it is best to smoke marijuana moderately.. When I am profoundly upset and depressed over things, marijuana typically only offers mild benefit, and sometimes may seem to even somewhat magnify such feelings and make me feel somewhat disorientated.

 

The problem is, that a person may come to rely on smoking marijuana to regulate their negative moods. To a moderate degree, and in moderate cases this seems to be potentialy useful. To a degree marijuana can help certain people control and moderate their moods, and indeed in most users marijuana overall "promotes happyness".

 

However if you suffer from depression, and marijuana is effective for you, but lets say some disaster happens- ie somebody you love dies or something. What can happen is you can automatically esculate your consumption of pot to try and compensate for the sudden shift in mood. The problem is when you significantly increase your consumption of weed, the mood elevating effects reduce. THE MORE YOU SMOKE WEED, THE HIGHER THE FREQUENCY AND THE GREATER THE AMOUNT = THE LESS THE EFFECT. So if you start smoking it all the time, when you are in some sort of desperate need, the very beneficial effects it usually offers you can dissipate and reduce and indeed collapse.. Its sort of like leaning too heavily on a crutch- potentially using pot in this way can result in you crashing down and may somewhat worsten your situation.

 

So I caution people, if you are feeling extremely disturbed and depressed, SMOKE POT MODERATELY. Indeed while often times it does help- if it is not helping, it may be time to reduce your usage to lower levels for a while.

 

Its interesting though. I also take one other medication which I find helps treat my depression. Usually this gets rid of my darkest moods but leave me feeling somewhat flat, and just "empty".. Sure I don't feel awful, but I don't feel that able to enjoy things. At this level, smoking a few cones or so each night seems very beneficial.. Sometimes I have an extra cone or two in the early part of the day as well, but I never go beyond this, because I have found the mood elevating effects of pot best for depression etc, when used moderately- not heavily. I know because when I have been very depressed I have smoked so heavily that I can go through a whole ounce in around 3-4 days.

 

My advice is if you use pot somewhat to control bad moods, that you are careful not to do so too heavily and if you have some sort of emotional / depressive crisis, that you are CAREFUL not try to esculate and esculate your usage, because the mood elevating effects of pot may collapse under such circumstances, but only I feel when the person is in a very bad way indeed.

 

Overall: Pot can be quite useful indeed for depression and anxiety, but pot is a complex drug, and it needs to be used in the correct way to maximize benefit. I feel if used inappropriate it may make things somewhat worst, but nowhere near to the degree that something like alcohol would for example.

 

In people with a serious potential to harm themselves and people predisposed to the darkest moods, I recommend moderate consumption of marijuana may offer the most benefits.

 

Anyway its just my opinion based on my experience. Hope its useful to somebody... Overall what I am trying to say is people must be mindful of how they are using marijuana in regards to depression and anxiety, but for me, I really feel it has offered profound benefits... Marijuana has hugely improved the quality of my life- which is why I resent fearing being busted and losing my medicine or even going to prison. I don't consider myself depressed at all any more... I also no longer have problems with anxiety, though occasionally I do get moderate anxiety for a couple of minutes on weed or so just after I have consumed it- I don't view this as problematic and just ignore it.

 

Here is a cheesy summary for you .. Sort of thing I would like to read if marijuana were a legal medicine used for depression. I am running out of time so I'm just going to do it quickly:

 

Marijuana Prescribing Information:

 

Depression: Marijuana may be useful for depression when the dosage is moderated appropriately.

 

Warning Against Heavy Usage During an Emotional Crisis:

 

Heavy usage of marijuana may cause a decline in the mood elevating effects, therefore all users of marijuana for depression are cautioned not to suddenly increase consumption during a severe emotional crisis, as this may cause the beneficial effects of marijuana to collapse at a time when they are most needed. Also heavy usage of marijuana may further confuse and aggrivate a severely distraught person when its mood elevating effects are failing.

 

Most other medications are not contradicted in conjunction with Marijuana:

 

People who use marijuana to treat depression should not give up on trying other medications that may also help. Marijuana may be most beneficial when used in conjunction with another medication that is also beneficial. Generally prescription medications would only be recommend in severe cases of depression, in milder cases marijuana alone may be sufficient. However marijuana can definately provide addition benefit for some people on top of antidepressants. Moderate usage however is strongly recommended.

 

Marijuana usage in anxiety disorders:

 

Slow and gradual usage is recommended in persons prone to anxiety or who experience strong anxiety while on marijuana. Ideally a moderate amount of leaf may be smoked in the earlier stages until tolerance improves. Alternatively 1-2 moderate sized tokes of average grade bud per 10 minutes until desired effect is achieved.

 

Marijuana initially has stimulating phase of between 30 - 120 minutes. If this phase is too intense for a person it may increase anxiety. After this phase has passed a second relaxing phasing occurs which reducing anxiety in most people. The more tolerance a person develops to marijuana according to moderate daily smoking, the shorter and milder the simulating phase becomes and the overall better the anxiety reducing effects are. However some people who suffer from anxiety simply cannot tolerate pot under any circumstances, and such people usually soon decide to discontinue their pot usage.

 

Here is an interesting article about how the effects of marijuana DECREASE with frequency of usage. This explains why the mood elevating effects can collapse with a sudden esculation of dosage, though it may take a couple of weeks for the effect to fully occur.

 

The antidepressant and anti-anxiety effects of marijuana may be stronger at moderate doses than higher doses.

 

I strongly recommend reading the following if you haven't, its a really interesting discussion about marijuans effect on the brain in general.

 

http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/brain2.html

Edited June 25, 2010 by cybergenesis

[louise]

Can't really comment on that Frank, I've seen that sort of thing written in forums but haven't seen anything in the peer reviewed literature.

[Syb3 rm3nt41_%20]

Wow........ fascinating opinions guys

 

I am 3rd yr Psychology student myself and I did first yr cell biology and chemistry. We did learn about physiology and exactly how Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors interact at receptor sites along with other neurotransmitters such as opiates, adrenaline and others. We also study consciousness and many other topics, but knowledge is very limited because so many theories are difficult to test scientifically.

 

The most important thing to learn here is to be open-minded, to research ones topic thoroughly, and to critically assess the difference between evidence and opinion. GP's are jokers as far as I'm concerned and an open-minded intelligent Psychiatrist (can prescribe) or Psychologist (can't prescribe) is usually too expensive for the lower socioeconomic group.

 

The more we know, the more we realize we don't know!!

 

This too can be said for the human condition. Trust yourself and do your research and if conducting experiments.....be careful.

 

, yes psychologists understand what an ssri is ... i am speaking of the exact neurochemical processes involved in causing said effect when using zoloft .... very little is known about this ..there are a range of ssri's that act upon our neurochemistry differently ..... i wasnt implying psychologists dont understand the basic principles of ssri medications ....thats absurd...

 

that was a ramble first thing in the morning , i'm not sure both eyes were even open ...

 

peace n pot,

[Syb3 rm3nt41_%20]

the first thing they teach you is to not make any assumptions on the condition of a patient at all and that NO opinions/biases are included .... (because ones own neurology affects how we may percieve another's state of mind/consciousness/being) and that nothing not credited with legitimate statistical validity is ever considered .... until statistical probability models can be applied to diagnostic evaluation tests to ascertain a likelihood of a particular condition nothing is even considered with any certainty ..... this easily depicts a psychologists true understanding of the mind and consciousness ....... and the limitations of modern psychology...... the truth is ..... psychologists cant understand their own mind and consciousness accurately..... because of the limitations of language and science, which is impelled solely by corporate/institutional funding ..... by co's with their own agendas ......

 

My son is doing a PHD in psychology now. I am sure he would agree with this (highlited red). What took him on this career path was that he was diagnosed with clinical depression in his last year of college aged 18.Visiting a psychiatrist weekly, prescribed anti depressants. He is now 26 and stopped seeing his psychiatrist a few years ago, except when he needs a new scrip.

The blue highlite I am sure he would disagree with. His studies have helped him understand more about his own condition and how to cope, overcome his problem on his own, so much so that he now only takes his medication when he gets so bad he cannot cope, overcome his bad times. He thought about trying some of my cannabis but renegged due to the fact that he was not completely sure whether it would upset further, the chemical imbalance in his brain that was causing the depression which, inturn, could possibly cause his depression to get worse.

He said that one day he would try a joint but only when he was free of the prescription drugs. That way he could truly evaluate if cannabis could help him.

 

It really is a can of worms but until proper clinical studys can be carried out by open minded, unbiased people, we will never really know if cannabis can help with depression. For that to happen imo cannabis should be legalised, so they can play with the genetics to find the best one that could work. Not synthetic shit, true cannabis.

I leave off anxiety as I have serious moments myself and find a joint can reduce that to manageable proportions.

 

Hey brick,

 

any studies regarding the human mind and consciousness will allow one to gain a better understanding of themselves, their feelings, their neurosis' and so forth .... and i'm glad to hear it has assisted him in the understanding of aspects of himself that he otherwise may not have understood so easily ..... what i was suggesting is that we take whole lifetimes to understand our own mind...... a lot of students who study psychology study it to better understand their own mind (statististically very high percentage of students who study psychology because of such endeavours).... but that is also why a lot of students drop out after the first year ..... they realise what theyre taught will only give them a grassroots understanding of a complex multi-facetted topic that as a science is only still in it's infancy.... something that will take mankind many thousands of years to better understand ... the human mind/consciousness ..... I wasnt trying to completely denounce psychology, its possibly the best we have to work with ..... and its evolving as a science .....

 

peace,

[brick]

ind00r, I wasn't trying to pull you down mate, only pointing out about one individuals personal experiences in using his studies to help himself. You are right about psych students dropping out though. Which is a pity. Because as time passes and pressures of governments, schools, work places and society in general there will be more and more people requiring help.

 

It was actually his school psychologist/counsellor who suggested he see a psychatrist. That was how he got his inspiration on his career path.

[Allotropy]

I think you are thinking about CBN rather than CBD. CBN levels increase as THC degrades, resulting in higher levels of CBN in plants that have been harvested with numerous amber trichomes.

 

Cannnabiniod production begins with the combination of geranyl pyrophosphate and olivetolic acid to form CBG. CBG is converted via enzyme action to both CBD and CBC. It is hypothesized that CBD is further converted to THC, although it is more likely that THC is synthesized directly from CBG. As THC degrades it is converted to CBN.

 

No.

 

Your right when you say that CBN levels increase as the cannabanoids degrade. THC degrades and turns into CBN over the course of time but also in the presence of sunlight and heat etc.

 

CBD levels are at the the plants highest when the Trichomes are amber rather then milky or clear.

 

CBD levels are naturally higher in Indica varities as per Sativa varities. Resulting in a more mellow body stone high as per racey mental high. This so because indicas also have a larger ratio of particular terpanoids.

 

Pure CBD is also an effective anti anxiety and anti psychotic compound as previously stated. Infact there are studies in place which show it is as effective as Anti Psychotics for treating people with schitsophrenia.

 

Talk to your doctor people. THC isn't a good compound for people with severe mental health problems in most instances it will provide comfort whilst being stoned.. but as the effects wear off your particular condition could become worse.

 

Peace.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Allotropy

[Allotropy]

The same would be said for schitsoaffective disorder. A condition likewise that I know someone sufferrs from. Be good if there was a drug that replaced current anti psychotic medication.

 

Treat Bipolar disorder too.

 

And all other mental ailments.

 

Neuro protective. Increase neurogenesis in car crash survivors and people that stuffer from autism spectrum conditions including Borderline personality Disorder etc

 

Healing through weed

 

 

Edited October 3, 2012 by Allotropy

[mcquills]

I have had experience with anxiety and weed, but I don't think it sets you off I think you need to have something bothering you and it just highlights what your thinking. But I also agree you can get around it by positive thinking and understanding it is probably just the weed making you anxious.

[Kazzsam67]

I have had experience with anxiety and weed, but I don't think it sets you off I think you need to have something bothering you and it just highlights what your thinking. But I also agree you can get around it by positive thinking and understanding it is probably just the weed making you anxious.

 

I agree with that totally, but also wonder if the racing head high might accentuate it to a degree.

 

I've since tried a little butter a couple of times and found it awesome with a mild couchlock effect. I've also tried vaporizing with a pot on the stove and WOW! the most amazing clear headed effect! I'm leaving smoking as a last resort from now on.

 

Vaporizing and ingesting rule

 

Thanks for the info on the Indicas Allotropy, you're a wealth of knowledge. Your opinions keep the conversation interesting as it would be boring if we all agreed on everything, and it's good to know you care

[gremem]

cybergenesis

I only just read this post but you gave a great insight. I have been smoking for 2 years and had a big break then started having anxiety attacks when smoking (I already had anxiety prior, I have had it since about age 10) thanks for the post was very interesting.

[Lynx]

This is the first public forum i've been in where i've seen someone roll over and not create an argument.. Only on a weed site will you see such hospitality x]

 

 

 

 

 

Well first thing is your subjective opinion doesn't match up with my subjection opinion(I too [like most] have tragedy and depression in my life) which finds NO negatives with exo-Cannabinoinds. Cannabis helped cure my depression it was everyone else telling my I was bad for medicating with Cannabis that was hurting me but....Meh that's just a Subjective opinion

 

Instead of arguing the points I'm happy to agree we both have a right to our opinions.