Another Tincture Thread - Try it, You'll like it

 
Is it down around the big toe, Stihmata, or along the bones in the foot? If so, have a podiatrist check for a bunion that may have been caused by initial bouts with gout. A simple foot xray will tell. Those will get inflammed and cause pain all over your foot. There's a simple surgery to fix that as long as the uric acid count is down. Also, google "bunion" and see if it matches your symptoms. Like I said earlier, once you've been diagnosed with gout, the doctors start blaming everything on that instead of trying to find the solution. A lot of connective tissue inflammation gets blamed on gout. It's an over used diagnosis, like ADD, that really means the doctor doesn't know. 
 
I find that my topical cream, some ibuprofen and infused coconut oil caps cuts it pretty quick.   

 

 
You're thinking about corns. A bunion is on the inside of mainly the big toe at the joint. That joint gets misshapen after some types of trauma like gout, tight shoes, broken bone not healing, lots of things. That is the joint that already juts out from the side of a normal foot. A bunion will be more exaggerated but may not be real noticeable when not inflamed. It can cause inflammation also in those metatarsals. The fact that it's not coming in full blown or lasting as long is a good indication that it is inflammation and not gout. Gout is like you were describing where a breath of air will hurt and it lasts a long time. That's because gout is caused by uric acid crystals that form in the joint. There is no medium ground. Once those crystals form, they are there in all their agony until all the crystals are gone. If you can feel it coming on and then it doesn't get as bad, that's inflammation and not real gout. It may have its origin from the gout injuring the joints but it could be set off by a misstep or run down shoes or other things. 
 
I've been dealing with the same issues for about 15 years and I'm sure I know more than the doctors, or at least most, about it and the differences. And my feet don't look any different, except when inflamed.   

 

I'm pleased to say that I am at least getting a little bit accomplished. I just took a sample of the Blue Jewel trim tincture to have tested for the second phase of the natural decarb tincture portion of the Project. The first was tested 2 months ago with no decarb and reduced by natural evaporation. Using the first test as the control, we'll be looking to see if there has been any change in ratio of THC to THCA and CBD to CBDA, etc. I even tried a little before I left and it was a really nice effect. I'll have those results and will post them then.  

 

Project Update
 
One thing that I have just learned is that you definitely need to expect that the testing results that you receive from a lab is going to be goofy. I was willing to accept that the first lab we used was right -science is infallable, right?-and the main problem had been a blending issue by the participant. I had to accept that because I was not in the immediate processing loop, being a thousand miles a way. I didn't want to place all the blame on him but had no other explanation. Sorry, guy. 
 
Now I know better. I have just gotten the results from my lab on the exact same material that I previously submitted, just 2 months older. All the numbers should have been very close in totals but there were some glaring discrepancies that cannot be answered. As I did with the previous lab's results, i've decided that the graph is the key to consistency and not the numbers only. The graphs will actually show the correct info that can be directly compared to the others instead of trying to make the number match. 
 
For now I'm going to post the 4 comparisons we're looking at:

• ​ The original dry material. In this case it is Blue Jewel trim
•  The tincture control results from the same material with no decarb and natural evaporation with no heat anywhere in the process.
• The very same tincture after sitting in the cabinet for 2 months.
• The comparison results from the same batch of tincture but with this half being a heated reduction.

I'm going to drop this in here and give you a chance to look them over. Even though the numbers are skewed, the graphs are still able to give us some great info concerning extraction rate and increases in THC activation rates in both heated reduction and 8 weeks of aging. I would like to test the GD from the 4th test again to see if the THC had risen as much as the natural after being heated. At initial viewing it seems that if the ratio remained consistent, then the non-decarbed but heated reduction should have been close to full activation by this time. Unfortunately, I didn't have another 80 bucks for another test this month but maybe next month I can squeeze that one in. The one I got today will be submitted again in 2 months. 
 
Here they are. Take a gander and let me know what you think. 
 
     

 

It's a mix of top fan leaf and sugar trim. We're not looking at the total amount of THC, just the difference between THCA and THC over the series of tests. The control is the plant material itself and it shows a fairly high level of cannabinoids. We're looking at the percentage of activation over time, whether it originally had 7% or 27%. There was no sense using prime material just for test purposes, but the whole thing was done exactly like my recipe, just using 10g instead of 7 and reduced by half. I've tried it and it is quite good even though it's not fully decarbed. 
 
The heated and natural samples were the same batch that I split in half before reduction and they were each reduced by the noted procedures to exactly the same concentration. The natural having no decarb or other heat and the no decarb, heated reduction comparison in meant to show how much decarb is accomplished just by the few minutes of heat. That comparison indicates a significant increase in the THC level and decrease of THCA.
 
The new results show an even higher percentage of THC conversion than the heated version after 2 months of sitting in a dark cabinet. Because of the good increase in the natural sample, I believe that if I had the heated sample tested again, after the same length of time, that due to the already increased THC conversion from the heat, it may have been fully decarbed.
 
There are inconsistencies in the values given by the lab but part of that is due to a change in the medium. The plant material values are given as percentages per gram of material but the tincture is measured as milligrams per milliliter. However, there are some missing cannabinoids in the total count even though there's a higher THC value. It's because of that of other previous inconsistencies that I'm using the graphs as comparison instead of just the numbers. The graph shows the changes much better. 
 
I'll give a little more analysis a little later giving a bit more detail and the significance I place on the results.   

 

 
We just needed to get a few tests completed to be able to see the trends and unfortunately, I haven't been able to get those moved along as quickly and thoroughly as I would have liked. 
 
What, you doubted me? Well, actually, I wasn't too sure myself until I saw these results. But there is a part of this series of tests that I still need to do as an offshoot of this. Before this part of the project is completed there will need to be tests using the same parameters but with one being refrigerated instead at room temperature. I think that will take much longer to decarb.
 
The THC starts degrading while it's still on the plant, so it's going to be a point to take into consideration if you plan a fully natural process. If you look at all the tests, you see that there is no measurable increase in CBN, yet. The control material sample had been harvested and air dried for 2 months at the time of that test. While the others are liquid, there still was no additional degradation to CBN for at least another 2 months and where it goes from there only time will tell. That is one of the questions I have and why I need a good material sample that can give that consistent data. I used all of this material, though, to make the GD so I can't get more dry data from it. 
 
If you've got that material jarred well, I doubt if it has degraded enough to tell except by test. I'll have a better answer for you when I've had a sample tested for that long, but I do believe there is a point in the aging process when the degradation begins to take on a quicker pace but if stored well, I doubt you'll lose too much.