Marijuana and the Brain

[Flamingl]

My husband has been a pot smoker all of his adult life and, since his motorcycle accident in June, he received his medical marijuana card. It was almost the first thing he asked for when he 'came to his senses'. I have been doing some research and found articles on a study that was done on rat brains and it said that marijuana actually promoted growth of 'new' brain cells. I also have heard of new studies being done with alzheimer patients and marijuana has shown to be helping them also. The smoking doesn't seem to make him any worse, helps him relax, helps with his appetite, and helps with his pain. He doesn't smoke for a few hours before any cognitive exercises are done with his speech therapist and seems to be doing quite well in that area. He has short-term memory loss, but even that doesn't seem any worse when he is smoking. Has anyone else had any experience with smoking? Any other feedback? Thanks. This is quite a learning experience for our whole family.

[Dan]

Until i was 48 i did not know that I had a brain injury (motorcycle accidident) 10 days  before my 16th birthday. Before the accident, i had tried smoking pot and was not impressed at all. But about a year after the injury, out of the blue, the kid i rode with to school lit up a joint and i took a puff and WOW, it made me feel SO GOOD. And ive continued, on and off (mostly on) smoking it.  It helps a lot with the pain i feel daily from the 17 broken bones that accompanied the tbi. But the biggest benefit for me is relief of the "emotional pain" that i seem to almost always be battling. From the effects of the tbi combined with my family's denial of the injury and they're not telling me i had one; instead forcing me to try to make it in the world when because of my injury i could not.

Sit around all day without motivation to do anything. Well, i do this during times when i smoke, and times when ive quit smoking. In fact, i think im more active when i do smoke. But, my truely awesome wife, says i can't smoke with threat of divorce. So i respect this for the most part. She really is awesome-accept for this.

It's messed up, in my opinion, that drinking alchohol is socially acceptable and smoking pot is not. Especially since alchohol can impair people so much more severely.

 

[Robert Rzeszut]

Marijuana can be used to treat a wide range of ailments. I hipe you are getting better with the speech pathologist

[julia]

dont do it- the one thing my doctor told me over n over n over is to never smoke- i started smoking cigs n pot for a few yrs n my health completely went down the tubes- tbi patients arent supposed to smoke bc the damage that was caused makes it hard enough for the brain to manage n maintain the connections- smoke n u kill off lots more precious brain cells

[Abbie Clayton]

what ever works it is better than a lot of the meds the docs give you, and not so poisonous on the body

[Marcus]

if it helps then its good if it does not then its bad, I have friends who it does wonders for, but for me it makes things worse overall...

[Mac]

i do sometimes but it messes with my memory makes it worse

[Joe Dub]

I don't have a card, but I still like to smoke for a few reasons. It does help with the pain slightly, I can't say it is an effective pain reliever. When my muscles are over tensed it does help calm the muscles down so they aren't as painful. My appetite hasn't been very good since my accident, and it does give me a healthy appetite... Most importantly, and well, as you so put, you ol' hippie, it does help when you sleeping is disturbed with pain. I am lucky to get a couple hrs sleep at night if I don't smoke....I went 6 months till I discovered that...and now I am sleeping 6,7,8hrs a night, so that is awsome. occasionaly before a nap too to help facilitate dreamtime:).
Also I too avoid it when I have cognitive assignments, I won't smoke that day at all, well till after. My accident also left my speech in shambles and I now have speech therapy 2x a week too(2hrs/session). I find smoking definitly helps my speech quite a bit, lol not enough to walk around stoned all day, but enough to enoy one more benifit from smoking.

[mego]

Excess is usually best in moderation. haa.

Here's mah feedback/ non-professional opinion:
for pain/movement/etc. hells yeah! it's stellar!

however, for the brain? eh. It certainly hasn't ever helped me with recall/etc. Again,
too much of something, usuuually isn't a good thing: Constant use really just seems to always
make things overall a bit more cloudy/etc.

[Flamingl]

Thank you all for the feed back. It's very interesting to me, since I don't smoke myself, I don't know how I feel about it. I only know it makes him feel better. His brain function seems to be improving (slowly), so I guess I will let him have it for now. He is physically disabled now because of the accident, so it's not like he has to hurry up and 'get well' so he can go back to work and some things from his past are better left 'unremembered' (if you know what I mean). :O)

[Lance]

i have a card too, its effects we no good for me it made my memory problems worse and my ambition disappear so it just was not for me