Physiological Effects of Keif

Hey blades. How's it goin?

I bought a 4 piece grinder a while ago and have been smoking keif bowls pretty regularly. I've noticed a few things after smoking a keif bowl.

- Burning in the lungs and intense coughing. Moreso than straight cannabis with no keif. It is a different feeling than a regular large-rip cough and lasts for about 30 seconds. While researching, I came across theories that this is caused by the sudden extreme bronchial dilation caused by the potent concentration of cannabinoids, causing increased surface area of the alveoli which can be irrated by movement since they aren't usually that dilated. The problem with this theory is that it is common for me to start wheezing after a keif hit and need an inhaler to clear my airways up.

- Sudden salivation. After taking a big keif rip, my mouth fills with saliva very fast. I usually end up spitting a ridiculous amount of saliva into a garbage bin after taking a hit.

- Rise in body temperature. For a couple minutes after smoking keif, I will get very hot and have to take of my sweater or shirt. After a few minutes of cooling down I'm usually cold again (Canadian winters) and I put my sweater back on.

Just wondering if anyone else gets these physiological effects from smoking trichome topped bowls. Is it my body's unique reaction or is this a common effect of keif? Any thoughts on the wheezing after keif? Many people say their airways feel very open after keif because of THC's bronchial dilating effects but I feel the opposite. I considered maybe a slight allergy because I've experienced an itchy throat before while smoking but not commonly.

Just speculating, anybody have any input?

 

The fact that THC is an irritant mixed with the extreme bronchial dilation makes sense for the cause of the "burning" cough. Your airways dilate, exposing more surface area which can then be irritated by the THC.

Water doesn't help the cough. And that can be explained by the paragraph above. The burn isn't in the throat, it is in the lungs, therefore it cannot be lessened by drinking water. Water will help your throat but will do nothing to stop a keif-cough.

Also, I have read that trichomes burn hotter than plant matter which could also contribute to the "burn". Keif also burns up very quickly compared to bud, so you get lots of very potent smoke, very fast. For this reason, when I pack bowls I generally do it like so:

I pack a layer of weed into my bowl.
I then scoop some keif on top of the bottom layer.
Next I put another layer of bud on top, enough to cover the keif.

This makes it so I don't directly expose the keif to flame. The ember from the top layer of bud will burn down and hit the keif layer followed by the bottom layer. by the time the bowl is ready to pull, all the keif is burned so none is wasted when pulling the bowl at the end. These bowls always end up pretty fat, but that's how I like it

 

Just to clarify, I'm not looking for ways to make these effects go away. I was simply curious if these symptoms were characteristic of the keif itself or rather my body's own reaction to it.

I made this thread because I found it interesting that I was experiencing different physiological effects consistently from smoking keif vs. just smoking straight bud. These are my personal observations and I'm interested in comparing them to other's observations.