MedicalCannabis:For sleeping problems

Insomnia is a pretty standard diagnosis for an MJ recommendation, so you shouldn't have any issues getting a card. I'd recommend indicas exclusively for sleep issues, probably something along the line of purple nepal or purple caddy.

 

I have insomnia but also my medical conditions make my sleep quality suck, and I wake so much easier, and feeling so much better rested, when I've vaped a little Ogre.

 

California? No prob, hon!  If you have mentioned this to your regular doctor, get a copy of your medical records. Having your medical records with you smooths the process of "getting legal".
 
If you don't have medical records, look for the cheaper clinics. They tend to be less fussy about medical records. Just run a search on the doctor's name, to see if he/she is in trouble. You don't want a doctor whose license is about to be pulled for misconduct, even if it is just to "get legal"!
 
 
Granny

 

As an alternative to prescribed drugs, medical cannabis is found to be very effective in treating sleeping disorder. Many patients report that medical cannabis works better compared to conventional sleep medicines. But you must know the exact strain to use. Talk to your local doctor and ask for permission.

 

I'm 47 and have had insomnia since I was a kid. I've tried just about everything.
Pot can reduce the time needed to fall alsleep but like other sleep medications, the quality of sleep isn't as good as unmedicated, natural sleep (but if you have honest to goodness insomnia, natural sleep is hard to some by).
I've been regularly using pot (no other sleep medications) for the past six months and I'm sleeping great. I don't have to use it every night. One study from the 1970s showed once a week to be effective.
At age 18, I'd be concerned what you will use when the pot stops working.

 

pot will not stop working if the strains are divided up across time. once tolerance develops for a particular strain switch over to a new strain and so forth so on.

 

What is the basis for this statement?
I'm not talking about one month to the next. I'm talking about after several years. Unless cannabiniod receptors are completely different from every other chemical receptor in the brain (which they aren't), eventualy pot will quit working.

 

 
Cannabis lands on cannabinoid receptors but does not and can not stop working or stop the system it interferes with from working.  If it did we would cease to function as a biological units.  We become accustom to our dose and it stops being intoxicating but that does not mean that any of the physical functions that are controlled by the system cannabis interacts with are not still functioning.
 
Endocannabinoids regulate stem cell differentiation and migration wound healing and the operation of the immune system.  CB-1 is in strict control of apatite and many metabolic processes when it stops working we stop feeling the need to eat and tend to starve our selves without feeling it. 
 
We can cause the number of neuroreceptors to decrease as the result of chronic over stimulation but there is evidence to suggest that this is a mater of using the metabolic building blocks of the cannabinoid receptor up faster than we are replacing them through our diets, rather than a physiologic response to the stimulation as was earlier thought. This is under voluntary control once we know what to eat and why we need to eat it.  The best known nutrients involved in the endocannabinoid system are Proteins, Omega-6 and Omega-3 fats.  Of the 3 most of us consume too much Omega-6 and to little Omega-3 and insufficient dietary intake of Omega-3 fats appears to be the most common reason for the reduction in the number of functioning cannabinoid receptors.  Specifically the Omega-3 fat known as DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) is required nutrient within the group of fats known as Omega-3.  Just because a patient on the board is taking a fish oil capsule does not mean they are taking a strong enough capsule or enough capsules a day to keep up with the cannabis they are using on top of their normal endocannabinoid functions which are continuing to occur and consume this critical nutrient in spite of cannabis use.
 
After that simple variation in dose size and frequency will keep the brains of those here who for what ever reason use intoxication as part of therapy from adjusting to and compensating for the presence of cannabis derived cannabinoids.  The reason that changing strains works for the patient who suggested changing strains is because different strains have different ratios of THC/CBD and other terpenes that bring enough variation in dose to prevent the brain from adjusting to the dose.

 

I understand cell biology, neurochemistry and endocrinology; it was my focus in grad school in the early 90s. I worked for several years as a research scientist. I moved in a different direction but I still keep up with this.
I don't doubt the ratio of different cannabiniods is important as well as the different terpenes. I'm not saying the endocannabinoid system is going to shut down completely. I'm saying after years of use, pot is not going to be as effective a hypnotic and then what? What's worse is when someone becomes dependent on sleep aids (it doesn't matter the type). They won't be able to fall alseep without something. Some people (myself included) have chronic insomnia that's not related to a specific problem like pain, anxiety, dependence ect.
Pot, like all sleep medications, will stop working eventually. It doesn't matter how much mixing and matching goes on. I've read several studies that demonstrate this. You can increase the dose but that is only effective to a certain point.

 

Medical marijuana, being a medicine, works like medicine.  And the part that works on insomnia is the sedative/hypnotic.  It behaves like a lot of sedatives and hypnotic, in that the body naturally gradually builds a tolerance.  Because the marijuana is not interrupting whatever the CAUSE of insomnia, only alleviating the symptom.
 
Insomnia's not a disease.  It's a symptom, and symptoms can't be cured, only treated until (hopefully) the causes are resolved.

 

All I know is that those friends I started smoking pot with during the first 1/2 of the 1970's who are still smoking pot are still getting high.
Granny still loves her medicine and she is almost 10 years older than I am.   You have time before the sun goes super nova.

 

a direct example from my personal experience. I have a few different strains in rotation. A couple of the strains are old and have been jarred for a few years. I vape all of the strains but when vaping the old pot it puts me into a barely hanging on state and about to go to sleep. that is the difference with direct real life results and I'm sure can be repeatable amongst other human bodies. 
 

 touch lightly here and there while you ride the cannabis highway. if you bump your tolerance it bumps you back

 

 
There is lots of "Ethnobotanical Knowledge" on this board related to the medical use of this plant.  Patients who don't pay attention to it do so at their own risk.  While I have less confidence in strains it is not a lack of belief in what is being said but a lack of understanding in how to apply the knowledge to what I do.  It is easier for me to insure the terpenes I need are in the hash oil by seeking them through other plant essential oils and adding them back to the hash oil I make much of my medicine from.
 
Most of the research I read at NIH about cannabis as medicine started with the ethnobotanical knowledge of a patient or group of patients telling their Dr's this works better for that than what your trying to give me.
 
Thank you Galaxy420 and Grass City for your contribution to that body of knowledge.

 

A lot of modern pharmaceuticals are based on phytochemicals and folk remedies. Several years ago I talked to the psychiatrist who treats my insomnia about using pot occasionally. At the time I used it rarely (along with my prescriptions) when I just couldn't get to sleep. She was all for it and eager to know how it works for me. I haven't had an appointment since I went to MJ regularly and exclusively but I'm certainly going to share the success. The two biggest concerns in the medical community regarding pot and sleep seem to be quality of sleep and dependence/tolerance.
I will tell you this, I've been sleeping better now than I have in a long time. My wife can't believe it. She says she gets up to go to the bathroom and I'm just, sleeping I've had trouble falling alseep maybe three or four times in the past six months and zero sleepless nights using only a low dose edible and no other sleep medications. That's really good for me. I take a very low dose; I don't just get so stoned I pass out. I have noticed a little bit of brain fog but compared to not sleeping...
And Galaxy, I know what you mean about the three year old stash. I tuck some away each year and after three years, it's incredible. To qoute one of my friends: "This is so smooth. Really, really smooth. I don't think I smoked hardly any and I'm f---ed up! And it's really smooth." LOL

 

 
So I read the better parts of the document linked below earlier this evening & thought of you guys and this conversation.  For as regularly as I need to dose to treat asthma, pain medicine and all that I feel like my tolerance is lower now than it was in 2011 and I've had no T-breaks.   The part talking about inverse agonists retaining potency at CB-1 while the test subjects were tolerant to Δ9-THC is looping in my head.  Lots of dietary polyphenols land on CB-1  The earlier literature was calling them agonists and every time I find a source strong enough to feel I've been adding it to my diet.  The newer literature is calling them inverse agonists based on symptoms of consumption particularly appetite suppression. I'm supposed to be trying to loose weight, lost 100 & stuck for a while now with 40 to go.  Green Tea, Red & Brown Seaweed, Berries, Turmeric, Resveratrol which is found in wine & grape seeds....
 
It looks a little like the receptor gets tired of sending the same old signal +/- all the time.  With all the non cannabis cannabinoids coming from food Cannabis acting as an apatite stimulant and the others an apatite suppressant an alternating pattern reflective of the normal dietary circadian rhythm may be another part of the key to keeping tolerance low and our medicine working well.
 
Eating more of these foods in addition to my Omega-3 consumption may be part of what is holding my tolerance down.
 
Chronic Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol treatment in rhesus monkeys: differential tolerance and cross-tolerance among cannabinoids
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3051379/?report=classic

 

[quote name="jamesnb" post="19427221" timestamp="1390974811"]Pot, like all sleep medications, will stop working eventually. It doesn't matter how much mixing and matching goes on. I've read several studies that demonstrate this. You can increase the dose but that is only effective to a certain point.[/quote]After over twenty years of using cannabis as a sleep aid, I can tell you it has NEVER stopped working. I'll keep waiting for it to stop working ,while I'm toking on this fat bowl of purple nepal dude. Blurring the lines between what is Unreal and real.

 

I'm 21 and developmed mild insomnia in my teenage years. The most natural sleep aid I tried before cannabis was melatonin. It gave me night terrors at first, and when i reduced the dosage, it still mafe me groggy with a headache the following day. Marijuana has worked wonders for me and I have yet to see it stop working for me. But I'm sure its different for everyone. Edibles knock me out easily within thirty minutes of feeling the high. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Grasscity Forum mobile app

 

 Thanks for thinking of us. I havn't had a chance to read the paper but I will soon. I'm particularly interested in the resveratrol effects.
 

People nip on a pint of whiskey until they pass out and call it a sleep aid and it hasn't stopped working for them. How is your statement different? There's a huge difference between sleep medication and getting plastered and passing out.
I'm interested in sleep medication, not an excuse to get plastered, dude. Come on, Granny Clampett, if you want to get high, get high. Don't claim it's "a sleep aid" or rheumatism medicine lol.

 

 
I thought I remembered something about you and resveratol but couldn't find it in this thread.  We must have been talking about it in another.
 
Since your interested in non-cannabis cannabinoids in relation to sleep, you may wish to look at Magnoila tree extracts.  I know it says benzodiazepine site in the title & body of the sleep document below but both Magnolol and Honokiol also metabolize into cannabinoids and CB-1 is part of the group of receptors known as GABA.  Chances are you can explain some of this to me.
 
Honokiol promotes non-rapid eye movement sleep via the benzodiazepine site of the GABAA receptor in mice
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3449263/
 
The Natural Product Magnolol as a Lead Structure for the Development of Potent Cannabinoid Receptor Agonists
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3813752/
 
Magnolia Extract, Magnolol, and Metabolites: Activation of Cannabinoid CB2 Receptors and Blockade of the Related GPR55
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ml300235q
 
Methylhonokiol attenuates neuroinflammation: a role for cannabinoid receptors?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3419612/