Can Medical Marijuana Help With Sleep Apnea

A medical disorder characterized by frequent interruptions in breathing of up to 10 seconds or more during sleep, sleep apnea, is associated with many physiological disorders, including fatigue, headaches, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, heart attack, and stroke.

 

There are three types of sleep apnea: obstructive, central and mixed. Obstructive sleep apnea is the most common type and is cased by a blockage of the airway, usually when the soft tissue at the back of the throat collapses and closes during sleep. This type of sleep apnea is associated with obesity. With central sleep apnea, the airway is open, not blocked but the brain fails to tell the muscles to breathe. Mixed sleep apnea is when a person suffers from obstructive sleep apnea and central to both.

With each episode of apnea, the brain wakes usually the person with sleep apnea in order for them to start breathing again. But this type of pattern results in sleep disturbance that is of poor quality. Sleep apnea is estimated to occur in about 4% of men and 2% of women between the ages of 30 and 60. The condition is associated with other disorders such as chronic headaches, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, heart attacks, strokes and fatigue.

Doctors diagnose sleep apnea based on medical and family history, physical examination, and results of tests called sleep studies. Usually, your primary care doctor evaluates your symptoms first. He or she then decides whether you need to see a sleep specialist. Conventional therapy involves changes in lifestyle (avoiding alcohol, losing weight, changing sleeping position, smoking cessation), using a mouthpiece that keeps the airway open during sleep, using a positive pressure machine that is worn during sleep Continuous good airway pressure(CPAP), and sometimes surgery to the upper airway or tonsils.

In the June issue of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Journal, researchers at the University of Illinois, Department of Medicine reported that sleep apnea in rats that received cannabinoids (natural chemicals of cannabis) was deleted. Doses of delta-9-THC and stabilized polyamide breathing during sleep and blocked serotonin-induced exacerbation of sleep apnea. Many patients who have used the ratio of medical cannabis improved sleep quality and less fatigue the next day. It is unclear whether the problems related to sleep apnea (such as hypertension, heart attacks, irregular heartbeats, etc.) are affected by medical cannabis and other studies are needed to examine these questions.

Alternative Links:

• Get Medical Marijuana Card to use Legal Marijuana in your State
• Find Medical Marijuana Dispensaries in California

How Medical Marijuana can help Rheumatoid Arthritis

The fight is in this country on the common use of medical marijuana. There are many doctors who have completed studies that marijuana can help people to rise above many common and rare diseases. Assured circumstances such as depression, insomnia and chronic pain. Some less serious conditions that people use cannabis for. Some of the most severe conditions include cataracts, cancer and arthritis. A particular type of arthritis that marijuana has been especially careful in the treatment of arthritis is chronic and continues to worsen arthritis. Patients who were not able to get any kind of relief at the end are able to relieve pain using medical marijuana.

Although studies, there are still many people who will fight for marijuana medical causes and dagger pins because of doubts on the right. You see, marijuana was found, irrationally, that the significance of drug access if someone starts using it, they will soon begin to try new types of drugs. However, there is no technical evidence that confirms the information to all. On the other hand, there is broad technical evidence which confirms that medical marijuana can be very useful in rheumatoid arthritis. People with this release can be found in the use of medical marijuana if their condition allows.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a severe type of arthritis where the immune system of a person starts eating just went to all the joints of a person. It can start with little pain in a finger or index finger and the right to increase rapidly through the body to the knees, shoulders, elbows and hips. Some people with this type of arthritis that, some day, is unable to get out of bed because the pain is very hard. So far, only analgesic and anti-inflammatory medicine was smart to make the collapse terrible pain.

Marijuana Treats Rheumatoid Arthritis Symptoms

However, these two drugs, when taken over a long period of time, have many health consequences. In addition, medical marijuana has been proven to help this situation, the way other medicines without mastering was done. This is because lower body reaction to the disease and, of course, reduce the redness painful.

People who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis can consume medical marijuana if their state has permitted such use. There are many states where it is not yet eligible and no matter if you were given the recommendation by a physician, you are still not smart to use it in an area where it is measured in a narcotic.

Alternative Links:

* Find Medical Marijuana Doctors

* Medical Marijuana Dispensaries in California

* Get Medical Marijuana Card to use Legal Marijuana in your State

Medical Marijuana Treatment could Decrease Prescription Pain Drug Deaths

“Physicians who treat neuropathic pain with opioids should evaluate their patients for a trial of medical marijuana and prescribe it when appropriate prior to using opioids”

Sacramento, CA: Physicians who prescribe opioid drugs to patients with neuropathy (nerve pain) have to consider recommending marijuana as an alternative therapy, according to a peer-reviewed paper published online last month in the Harm Reduction Journal.

“There is sufficient evidence of safety and efficacy for the use of Medical Marijuana (Cannabinoids) in the treatment of nerve pain relative to opioids,” the commentary states. “In states where medicinal marijuana is legal, physicians who treat neuropathic pain with opioids should evaluate their patients for a trial of marijuana and prescribe it when appropriate prior to using opioids.

Prescribing medical marijuana in place of opioids for neuropathic pain may reduce the morbidity and mortality rates associated with prescription pain medications and may be an effective harm reduction strategy.”

The author notes that between the years 1999 and 2006, “approximately 65,000 people died from opioid analgesic overdose.” By contrast, he writes “No one has ever died from an overdose of marijuana.”

In clinical trials, inhaled medical marijuana has consistently been shown to reduce neuropathic pain of diverse causes in subjects unresponsive to standard pain therapies.

In November, clinical investigators at the University of California, San Francisco reported that vaporized marijuana augments the analgesic effects of opiates in subjects prescribed morphine or oxycodone. Authors of the study surmised that marijuana-specific interventions “may allow for opioid treatment at lower doses with fewer [patient] side effects.”

Neuropathy affects between five percent and 10 percent of the US population. The condition is often unresponsive to conventional analgesic medications such as opiates and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

Source: NORML.org