Any time you combust the material, you're essentially burning away from 40-60% of the cannabinoids in the plant, leaving the rest to be inhaled/escape in smoke. It think it's that it gets too hot, so the oils that make the cannabinoids burn away before you can utilize them (by inhalation). Smoking cannabis is the absolute least efficient way to use the medicine as a result. You're also inhaling carcinogens when you combust it, although somehow the cannabinoids even out the risk from cancer from these as you can't get lung cancer from smoking weed. Still not good, though...it's basically like inhaling a campfire. More efficient, but less so than edibles, vaporizing will prevent this inital loss, because you can use the leftover material in edibles. You effectively get a second dose out of your meds! Although it's still inhalation, which goes straight to your bloodstream and bypasses the liver, people still experience symptom relief. The best method is to eat it, by extracting it into a solvent (oil/alcohol/glycerin) or into it's pure form (hash/Rick Simpson Oil/BHO) and ingesting it, either in food or in a pill or just straight, so it can pass through your liver and utilize all of the cannabinoids in the plant. You don't waste near as much when you ingest then through other methods. In fact, if you research Rick Simpson Oil, people are curing cancer by ingesting the oil, not by smoking it. I hope that helps. Like I said, go ahead and try smoking first, since it seems you have your diabetes under control, but I really do think you should try eating it. I think you're going to get better results. And be careful! Don't screw around with your medicine so much you end up in the hospital... Enjoy your Thanksgiving! EDIT: If this isn't enough info for you, or you want to know more, search around the forums for this stuff. This is all where I learned it, so all of this info is around here somewhere. You just have to look (or lurk) in the right places.
Why are you on the defensive? I've had diabetes for over 32 years, my A1c's have not been out of the 6 range for over the last 12 years. I know my body, my diet, etc very well, all while dealing with two additional chronic illnesses. So maybe, just maybe, you could learn a thing or two from someone like myself. Almost dying from an uncontrolled case of Diabetes certainly doesn't make you the "expert" now, does it?? If your sugars fluctuate that much in 15 minutes' time, you need to figure out the basics of your diabetes management before embarking on this "study" of yours. And your post was VERY lengthy and be glad that I and others DID read it. Consider for a moment that my very well managed diabetes HAS in fact been subjected to essentially the same thing you are proposing here for the last 3+ years. I am reporting my findings and you're getting snooty. Whatever.
as others have pointed out, you have many variables to your situation that would make it impossible to have medical value (by today's medical industry standards). However, as this study is for your use only, may i make these recommendations? Rather than be a "lab rat", go about your day(s) with your normal routines of eating, physical exertion etc. your current graphing ability should show you enough data to at least infer as to if your marijuana use affects your blood sugar levels. smoke/ingest the same weed or at least those that have close thc or cbd values at the same times of day (after eating, sleeping etc) and you should be able to draw a conclusion as to how your usage affects YOU. easy peezy.
Here's the problem. In a controlled study, marijuana could help blood sugar who knows? But it would even out unless the scientifically named munchy gene was singled out.
Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned before, if I exercise and go about my day as "normal" it could possibly affect my blood sugar hours later. This would make it unclear to me whether the marijuana lowered my glucose or if it was something from earlier that day. But as I will only be doing this once a week, I'll do it on Sunday's. On Sunday I'm generally very relaxed and lazy anyways, so I will not be living like a lab rat
your welcome, the exercise part of my comment was not important. I only meant to say that I thought you would be best served by just going about your usual daily routines while using "control marijuana" and see what your results are. i kinda gather you understand what I was getting at. Anyway, best of luck with your testing and of course your health.
We've never done a self study or anything but my husband is diabetic. He has always questioned marijuana lowering his blood sugar. I am currently 6 months pregnant and have trouble keeping my blood sugar up(only when I'm pregnant). I've noticed that if I smoke before I eat, my blood sugar drops pretty quickly and I get sick. It doesn't happen if I eat something first. I agree that it would affect everyone different as everything does. I do believe that it can lower blood sugar in some individuals although I don't have a reason why. I'm definitely going to be keeping up with this and I wish you the best of luck!!!
That's actually very interesting. Not everyone realizes that even if you don't have Diabetes you can get low and high blood sugars. Can smoking cannabis while pregnant affect your child at all? I'm curious. Thanks for the support by the way
[quote name='"ashpow"'] That's actually very interesting. Not everyone realizes that even if you don't have Diabetes you can get low and high blood sugars. Can smoking cannabis while pregnant affect your child at all? I'm curious. Thanks for the support by the way [/quote] I'm probably gonna get shit for this but from my personal experience, marijuana has no negitive effects on the baby. This is my 3rd baby. My first, I didn't smoke. She is VERY VERY hyperactive. She is smart but had ADD. My second, I smoked my entire pregnancy. He is extremely laid back, with not a care in the world. He is also incredibly smart. It may be just coincidence but I say weed made my son an incredibly chill kid.
Ahhh...now I understand...you are 17 years old. You are not even supposed to be on these forums, dear. Enjoy your stay for however long it lasts, and we'll take this up again when you are of age to be on here, ok??
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9WorIM0RhA]Marijuana Cannabis Use In Pregnancy Dr. Dreher - YouTube[/ame] [ame="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5229180006956120312"]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5229180006956120312[/ame] These are videos of Dr Melanie Dreher discussing her research in Jamaica on cannabis and pregnancy. You should read some of her findings/articles or what not because many of these (on going) studies have shown that baby's born to mothers who smoke cannabis before and while pregnant did not have any extra occurrences of miscarriages or low birth weight/premature births. While I have not studied this research in depth (I have no children, nor do my husband and i plan on having any so they're not personal to me-just more educational) I think that this shows a lot. However, I am not advocating that women should use cannabis while pregnant, I really don't have a stance - but there is information out there if you ever wanted to use actual medical/scientific research to back up using cannabis while pregnant.
This seems like a cool study but i can see problems because there are so many variables. But one question i have im not sure if someone has already asked but are you using the same marijuana every time you smoke and check your blood sugar. Using different strains would really throw this off possibly or even different parts of the bud have more or less thc just a thought.