Doctors say Cannabis treats Meniere’s disease...

More good news about cannabis. People suffering from intense vertigo and nausea due to an inner ear problem — a condition of unknown cause and limited susceptibility to conventional medical treatment called Ménière’s disease — find significant improvement from cannabis, according to California doctors.

California doctors routinely approve the use of cannabis by Meniere’s patients who say that it helps ease their symptoms. “Meniere’s causes dizziness, dizziness causes nausea, cannabis relieves nausea,” says David Bearman, MD. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the symptoms caused Mrs. Gee to be a little depressed and of course cannabis helps that, too.”

Robert Sullivan, MD, corroborates: “I’ve issued many recommendations for Meneire’s, as well as tinnitus [ringing in the ears]. It works well enough to make a significant improvement in patients’ lives, i.e., symptoms not gone but much abated so they can function and carry on their daily activities, instead of sitting and suffering. It also aids sleep.”

R. Stephen Ellis, MD, has given some thought to how cannabis might help in the treatment of Meniere’s. “Three possible mechanisms come to mind,” he says. “Number one, the anti-anxiety effect of cannabis would be very useful to a Meniere’s patient. These people are anxious as can be when they hit the ER. When they get an attack it’s as if they are wired — that’s why Ativan is one of the treatments, to bring them down. Two would be the anti-nausea effect. Duh! You’re barfing and there’s a drug that offers relief in 10 seconds. The third is slowing down the vertigo itself — the sensation of spinning caused by the inner ear problem. My patients say cannabis is as good as Benadryl, which is the classic treatment.

 

Always looking for a reason, hey Larry?

Seriously I don't know why society doesn't get their heads out of the self-righteous asses and see it as just another pharmaceutical, and as far as pleasure it is not any more of an issue than alcohol or caffeine. It's all so stupid.

 

That's a great post. Agreed.

At the same time, this is a pretty complex and difficult issue. Some much that goes with it. If you have time, watch this on streaming video.

http://www.pot-tv.net/archive/shows/pottvshowse-3027.html


I like Williams. He always seemed to do a good job.

 

I am deleting my post. I am sorry for offending so many 420 friendly members we have on this forum. I hope none of you have to deal with the experiences I have over the past 20 years helping people because of their family members who have suffered tragedies due to your beloved drug that is so dear to you.

The undocumented points taken from High Times magazines or equivalent sources being made in this thread by the 420 friendlys are not worth arguing over. I know some of you will feel vindicated over this. If you do thats fine. Im sure some will even bash me a few more times. If that makes you feel better, thats fine too. The fact of the matter is you will argue your points to justify your drug use. Quite frankly it is not worth my time or effort.

 

Bit over the top there, hey Huck? Having a bad day?

No offense Sir, but tossing cannabis into that mix is like saying a newborn kitten as as dangerous as a Pit Bull because it's an animal too. Please, don't be a fool and assume they are the same.

NO ONE here is for abusing any substance, and people here would be especially against the use of illegal substances as recreational drugs.

If you haven't read any Medical Journals lately, you need to. Cannabis is a natural medicine that's been used SAFELY for nearly 5000 (yep thousand) years. It does not negatively interact with other med's, and is highly succesful in the control of vertigo and nausea.

Cannabis has been somewhat misused for the past 75 years as a recreational substance as well...inappropriately of course, but then, there are no records anywhere that someone has overdosed on it or the substance caused any long term physical side effects.

I used it almost daily for the 2 years preceeding my Labrynthectomy, and with little side effect. Speaking for myself, I KNOW it can STOP a vertigo attack in it's tracks...dead cold..and it did, many times. It stops the nausea too, and makes the feelings from the miserable fullness be all but unnoticable.

I've had those 8 and 10 hr. attacks Huck, Have you? Get's pretty old just laying on the toilet and puking, doesn't it? Once I started the medical cannabis the attacks would come, but be stopped before they got severe, or in the first minute (or seconds), so I didn't spend hrs. vomiting in misery. How many other MM med's can claim to do that Huck?

Many people suffer through those attacks...and I didn't have to. Should I feel bad for that? Should I be put in jail because I'm sick and you didn't like the medication I took? (....and took legally with the support of my doctor(s), I might add.)

Do you somehow think it's FUN to being made to feel like some "social castaway" because the medication that acutally worked for me is one that ignorant people still group with meth and heroin because some people are too darned lazy or prejudiced to actually do any research into the subject.?

Do you think it's "FUN" having to spend the time, effort and money to raise your own medication because that is the only way you can legally obtain it?

I won't comment on the political or recreational aspects of the issue, as that would take a book to do, but remember this Huck...(especially the next time you are in a full-blown vertigo attack and are busy heaving your guts into the toiley one more time.....) that Cannabis can, in many patients, STOP that attack and make you feel better, and without negative side effects. SAFELY.

Just in case you actually want to present some evidence to support your skewed views, please do. I'm not angry with you, just sick of ignorant comments over a substance that, if properly used, can be a huge benefit to many sufferers of this damndable disease.

Huck, just noticed your avatar image: Get up; Survive; Go to bed.

With cannabis I could do more than just get up and survive...I could operate my business and still somewhat support my family, I could enjoy a day of fishing without having it wrecked because a vertigo attack hit mid-day, feel hungry enough to want dinner, and good enough to still be able to let my wife know I love her greatly.

I did more than "survive" Huck. True, in the end it took a Laby to bring a permanent end to it, but that isn't the fault of the cannabis.

BTW Huck, do a Google search for a few of the National medical groups that support Cannabis as a medication. Maybe you'll learn something and next time someone makes a suggestion that might help one of us feel better you won't be so quick to make yourself appear so poorly informed.

Dizz

 

THERAPEUTIC USES
OF CANNABIS

Asthma

More than 15 million Americans are affected by asthma. Smoking cannabis (the “raw drug” as the AMA called it) would be beneficial for 80% of them and add 30-60 million person-years in the aggregate of extended life to current asthmatics over presently legal toxic medicines such as the Theophylline prescribed to children.

Dr. Donald Tashkin, UCLA Pulmonary Studies, stated, “Taking a hit of marijuana has been known to stop a full blown asthma attack.” The use of cannabis for asthmatics goes back thousands of years in literature. American doctors of the last century wrote glowing reports in medical papers that asthma sufferers of the world would “bless” Indian hemp (cannabis) all their lives.

Glaucoma

Fourteen percent of all blindness in America is from glaucoma, a progressive loss of vision. Cannabis smoking would benefit 90% of our 2.5 million glaucoma victims, and is two to three times as effective as any current medicines for reducing ocular pressure!

Cannabis use has no toxic side effects to the liver and kidneys; nor is there any danger of the occasional sudden death syndromes associated with the legal pharmaceutical glaucoma drugs/drops.

Many California eye doctors, through the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s discreetly advised their patients to use “street” marijuana in addition to (or to mitigate) their toxic legal glaucoma medicines.

Since November 1996, California doctors can legally recommend, advise or tacitly approve cannabis use by their glaucoma patients who may then grow and smoke their own marijuana, or go to the few remaining Cannabis Buyers’ Clubs to acquire medical marijuana.

Tumors

A tumor is a mass of swollen tissue. Researchers at the Medical College of Virginia discovered that cannabis is an incredibly successful herb for reducing many types of tumors, benign and malignant.

The DEA and other federal agencies had ordered these tumor studies done after hearing erroneous reports of possible immunicological problems associated with cannabis smoke. But, in 1975, instead of health problems, an apparent medical breakthrough occurred and successful tumor reductions were recorded!

Following this remarkably positive discovery by the Medical College of Virginia, orders were immediately handed down by the DEA and the National Institute of Health to defund all further cannabis/tumor research and reporting! Millions of Americans who might be alive today are dead because of these and other DEA orders regarding marijuana.

Since 1996, the Medical College of Virginia has again applied to receive grants for cannabis research and has been turned down by the DEA.
Nausea Relief
(AIDS, Cancer Therapy, Sea Sickness)

Though it is known to be extremely damaging to the immune system, chemotherapy is claimed by practitioners to benefit cancer and AIDS patients. But chemo has some other serious side effects too, including nausea. “Marijuana is the best agent for control of nausea in cancer chemotherapy,” according to Dr. Thomas Ungerleider who headed California’s Marijuana for Cancer research program from 1979 to 1984. This is also true in AIDS and even in the unsettled stomach common in motion sickness.

Pharmaceutical nausea-control drugs come in pills that are often swallowed by the patient only to be thrown back up. Because cannabis can be ingested as smoke, it stays in the system and keeps working even if vomiting continues.

Throughout the state’s 10-year Compassionate Marijuana Medical law, George Deukmejjan, both as attorney general and as governor, with no regard for the suffering of dying patients, made it virtually impossible for them to get cannabis. California Governor Pete Wilson was following the same course until the medical marijuana initiative passed in November 1996.
Epilepsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Back Pain, Muscle Spasms

Cannabis is beneficial for 60% of all epileptics. It is definitely the best treatment for many, but not all types of epilepsy, and for victims’ post-seizure mental traumas. Cannabis extract is more effective than Dilantin (a commonly prescribed anti-epileptic with severe side effects). Medical World News reported in 1971: “Marijuana...is probably the most potent anti-epileptic known to medicine today.”

Cannabis users’ epileptic seizures are of less intensity than the more dangerous seizures experienced by users of pharmaceuticals. Similarly, smoking cannabis has proven to be a major source of relief for multiple sclerosis, which affects the nervous system and is characterized by muscular weakness, tremors, etc.

Aside from addictive morphine, cannabis, whether smoked or applied as an herbal pack or poultice, is also the best muscle relaxant, back spasm medicine and general antispasmodic medication on our planet.

In September 1993, Santa Cruz County, California sheriffs arrested epileptic Valerie Corral and confiscated the five marijuana plants she was growing for medicine even though 77% of the citizens of Santa Cruz voted in November 1992 to instruct local law enforcement not to prosecute medical marijuana users. Charges against Corral had been dropped earlier in March 1993 because she was the first person in California to meet all six points of a medical necessity defense.

In 1997, Valerie, who runs a compassionate use club, was named Citizen of the Year in Santa Cruz.
Antibiotic CBD Disinfectants

Young un-budded hemp plants provide extractions of CBDs (cannabidiolic acids). There are many antibiotic uses of the cannabidiols, including treatment for gonorrhea. A 1990 Florida study indicated its use in treating herpes.

The acid side of tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiols occur inversely to the amount of the plant’s THC and is therefore more acceptable to prohibitionists because “it won’t get you high.” For virtually any disease or infection that can be treated with terramycin, cannabis derivatives did better in Czechoslovakian studies, 1952-1955. The Czechs in 1997 still published farm crop reports on strategies to grow cannabidiol rich hemp.
Arthritis, Herpes, Cystic Fibrosis, and Rheumatism

Cannabis is a topical analgesic. Until 1937, virtually all corn plasters, mustard plasters, muscle ointments, and fibrosis poultices were made from or with cannabis extracts. Rheumatism was treated throughout South America until the 1960s with hemp leaves and/or flower tops heated in water or alcohol and placed on painful joints. In fact, this form of herbal medicine is still widely used in rural areas of Mexico, Central and South America, and by California Latinos for relief of rheumatism and arthritis pain.

Direct contact with THC kills herpes virus in a University of South Florida (Tampa) 1990 research study by Dr. Gerald Lancz, who warns that “smoking marijuana will not cure herpes.” However, anecdotal reports indicate a faster drying and healing of the outbreak after topical application of “strong bud,” soaked in rubbing alcohol and crushed into a paste.
Lung Cleaner and Expectorant

Cannabis is the best natural expectorant to clear the human lungs of smog, dust and the phlegm associated with tobacco use.

Marijuana smoke effectively dilates the airways of the lungs, the bronchi, opening them to allow more oxygen into the lungs. It is also the best natural dilator of the tiny airways of the lungs, the bronchial tubes - making cannabis the best overall bronchial dilator for 80% of the population (the remaining 20% sometimes show minor negative reactions.)

Statistical evidence - showing up consistently as anomalies in matched populations - indicates that people who smoke tobacco cigarettes are usually better off and will live longer if they smoke cannabis moderately, too.

Millions of Americans have given up or avoided smoking tobacco products in favor of cannabis, which is not good news to the powerful tobacco lobby - Senator Jesse Helms and his cohorts. A turn-of-the-century grandfather clause in U.S. tobacco law allows 400 to 6,000 additional chemicals to be added. Additions since then to the average tobacco cigarette are unknown, and the public in the U.S. has no right to know what they are!

Many joggers and marathon runners feel cannabis use cleans their lungs, allowing better endurance.

The evidence indicates that cannabis use will probably increase these outlaw American marijuana-users’ lives by about one to two years - yet they may lose their rights, property, children, state licenses, etc., just for using that safest of substances: cannabis.
Sleep and Relaxation

Cannabis lowers blood pressure, dilates the arteries and reduces body temperature an average of one-half degree, thereby relieving stress. Evening cannabis smokers in general report more restful sleep.

Using cannabis allows most people a more complete rest with a higher amount of “alpha time” during sleep as compared with prescription or sleep-induced patent sedatives.

Prescription sleeping pills (the so called “legal, safe and effective” drugs) are often just synthesized analogs of truly dangerous plants like mandrake, henbane, and belladonna.

As late as 1991, doctors, pharmacists and drug companies were fighting off new legislation to restrict these often abused compounds.

Unlike Valium, cannabis does not potentiate the effects of alcohol. It is estimated that cannabis could replace more than 50% of Valium, Librium, Thorazine, Stelazine, other “-zine” drugs and most sleeping pills.

It is unconscionable that, over the past two decades, tens of thousands of parents have committed their own children, aged 11 to 17, to be treated by massive doses of so-called “-zine” drugs in order to get them off pot, at the urging of parent groups, the PDFA, the feds and administrators and doctors from federally approved, private and high-profit drug rehabilitation centers.

Often, “-zine” drugs do work to stop these youths from using pot. They also stop a kid from loving his or her dog, too - and children stand a one-in-four chance of suffering from uncontrollable shaking for the rest of their lives. But at least they’re not high.

Hundreds of private drug-rehabilitation centers and their leaders keep this policy alive and in front of the media, often quoting discredited reports from NIDA or the DEA - because they earn fat profits selling their useless or destructive “marijuana treatment” for children.

After all, a relapse just means using marijuana again after a number of bouts with an “authority.” This is mind-control and an attempt to destroy individual free will.
Therapeutic Emphysema Potential

Medical research indicates that light cannabis smoking might be useful for a majority of mild emphysema victims. It would improve the quality of life for millions of sufferers and extend their life spans.

The U.S. government and DEA (since 1976) say the side effect of being “high” is not acceptable, no matter how many years or lives it saves; even though some 90 million Americans have tried marijuana and 25 to 30 million still smoke marijuana relaxationally, or use it responsibly as a form of daily self-medication, without one single death from overdose - ever!

All research into the oxygen blood transfer effects caused by cannabis indicates that the chest (lung) pains, extremity pains, shallowness of breath, and headaches we may experience on heavy smog days are usually alleviated by cannabis smoking throughout the day.

Dr. Donald Tashkin, the U.S. government’s leading scientist on marijuana pulmonary research, stated that you cannot get or potentiate emphysema with cannabis smoking.
Stress and Migraine Headache Relief

Most of all: it is best for the world’s number-one killer - stress. It can safely curtail or replace Valium, Librium, alcohol, or even Prozac, for millions of Americans.

While cannabis intoxication varies with psychological set and social setting, “the most common response is a calm, mildly euphoric state in which time slows and a sensitivity to sights, sounds and touch is enhanced.”

In contrast to marijuana’s safe, therapeutic action, benzodiazephines (Valium) abuse is the number-one drug abuse problem in the country, and is responsible for more emergency room admissions in the United States than either cocaine-related problems or morphine and heroin-related admissions combined.

While tobacco constricts arteries, cannabis dilates (opens) them. Because migraine headaches are the result of artery spasms combined with over-relaxation of veins, the vascular changes cannabis causes in the covering of the brain (the meninges) usually made migraines disappear.

Evidence of vascular change caused by cannabis can be seen in the user’s red eyes, which are extensions of the brain. However, unlike most other drugs, cannabis has no apparent effect on the vascular system in general, except for a slight increased heart rate during the onset of the high.
To Increase Appetite

Users of marijuana often (but not always) experience “the munchies,” a stimulated appetite for food, which, at this time, makes cannabis the very best medicine on the planet for anorexia.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans in old age, convalescent wards or hospital situations have anorexia. Most could be helped by cannabis - yet these Americans are being denied a healthy life by governmental polic dictated by government police.

This effect can also extend the lives of victims of AIDS and pancreatic cancer (eat or die). However, the DEA and U.S. government prevented any research or use of cannabis in pancreatic cancer therapy since 1976.

They have effectively allowed tens of thousands of people to die each year, denying them the right to live otherwise normal, healthy and productive lives.
To Reduce Saliva

Marijuana smoking can help dry your mouth for the dentist. This is the best way to dry the mouth’s saliva non-toxically in what is known among smokers as its “cotton mouth” effect.

According to the Canadian Board of Dentistry in studies conducted in the 1970s, cannabis could replace the highly toxic Probathine compounds produced by Searle & Co. This may also indicate that cannabis could be good for treating peptic ulcers.
In Addition...
AIDS, Depression & Hundreds of Other Primary Medical Uses

One well known effect of THC is to lift the spirit, or make you “high.” Cannabis users in Jamaica praise ganja’s benefits for meditation, concentration, consciousness-raising and promoting a state of well-being and self assertiveness. This kind of attitude adjustment, along with a healthier appetite and better rest, often represents the difference between feeling like you are “dying of” AIDS or cancer and feeling like you are “living with” AIDS or cancer.

Cannabis also eases small pains and some big ones and helps senior citizens live with aches and pains like arthritis, insomnia and debilitating infirmities, and enjoy life in greater dignity and comfort. Legend has it, and medical evidence indicates, that cannabis is the best overall treatment for dementia, senility, and maybe Alzheimer’s disease, for long-term memory “gain” and hundreds of other benefits.

U.S. statistics of the 1970s indicated that you will live eight to 24 years longer if you substitute daily cannabis use for daily tobacco and alcohol use. New research is outlawed, of course.
Acceptable Risks

Every U.S. commission or federal judge who has studied the evidence has agreed that cannabis is one of the safest drugs known. With all its therapeutic uses, it has only one side effect that has been exaggerated as a concern: the “high.” The DEA says this is not acceptable, so cannabis continues to be totally illegal in utter disregard for both doctor and patient.

Every day we entrust physicians to determine whether the risks associated with therapeutic, yet potentially dangerous, drugs are acceptable for their patients. Yet doctors are not allowed to prescribe the herb that Federal Judge Francis Young, in 1988, called “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”

We don’t put our doctors in charge of stopping violent crimes. The police, prosecutors, and prison guards should not be in charge of which herbal therapies people may use to treat their personal health problems.

 

Man.... this has touched some nerves with the Cheech and Chong of the page...... but seriously.....

I seem to remember at one point some years back when the medical profession was indeed taking the potential of marajuana benefits seriously and had found or was working at ways to extract what was (at least at that time) considered to be the major "medicinal" component of the weed, THC (tetra-hydracanabinol...don't hold me to that spelling). Supposedly, cancer patients, glaucoma patients, etc, could get the benefit of a home rolled joint without actually getting high and without the perceived danger of sucking smoke into their lungs. Maybe not as much fun, but maybe bypassing the smoke filled room and an evening of the munchies.

Has there been any success with that approach? If so, it could provide an alternative if the medical gods and godesses are willing to think outside the box.

Tony

 

great story. Can you please share that link?

 

Direct contact with THC kills herpes virus in a University of South Florida (Tampa) 1990 research study by Dr. Gerald Lancz,

June, I'm particularly interested in this paragraph, think of the MM possibility's with more research ...

 

I don't know what constitutes 'direct contact'. I didn't think anything actually killed a virus in the body without killing the body or cells that it lives in. But the antivirals do a pretty decent job from my experience. One thing I have wondered is why wasn't I given antivirals when it was known for a fact that I had a raging cmv mono? Do they just give them out for cold sores and let everyone else struggle with their disease? Perhaps because my fevers were over ... but that doesn't make sense either.

I'm actually a middle of the roader on this subject which I suppose means I'll be caught in the cross fire. In my experience, I've seen more lives devastated by alcohol than pot and I don't think we are going to bring back prohibition anytime soon. I think before too long marijuana will be legalized and taxed and regulated like booze. I do think it is quite different from narcotics and other illegal drugs though I don't have a clue what to do about them. Nothing seems to work. Maybe we could work on true education on the subject starting very young.

I wouldn't want to use marijuana for medical purposes unless I was in pretty dire straights because regular use, ahem, I believe would make me not the most ambitious person and not much would get done. Don't ask me how I know that. However, if I were very ill or in pain and it was the best drug, then I do think it is obscene to say a person can have morphine but not weed. Not that there's anything wrong with morphine for a person in pain (except that it makes me throw up I learned in the hospital). This is one of those subjects where I think the two extreme positions are not helpful and will not be the ultimate deciders.

 

Re: Doctors say Cannabis treats Meniere’s disease...

And yet those that have no problem with their prescription drug dependencies and abuses and addictions, along with their alcohol and nicotene habits don't seem to get the same attention as an occasional recreational user of weed, or those that find relief using it for medical reasons.  I see a huge hypocrisy in society when it's Ok to get buzzed at a party with your friends on wine or beer or mixed drinks but getting a buzz from weed is a drug addiction. What a crock. All the while so many that have a bad attitude about weed have their prescription drug addiction and their nicotine habits and their over indulgence in alcohol.  Where's the balance?

I'm not saying you fit the description of the hypocrites Huck, I don't know you, all I'm saying is I hate double standards and the all too often much ado about nothing.

 

Are we talking about smoking it or does it work to eat it, too? Nothing but anecdotal, I'm sure, but my Meniere's started about the same time that I quit smoking it on a regular basis. I'm sure there's not a real connection there, though. Last time I tried smoking any I found out, 1) pot these days is WAY more potent than it was 20 years ago - wow, did I get high and 2) it made me really want to just take a nap - not exactly a spring chicken here. I wasn't having any MM symptoms at that point in time, so can't say anything about efficacy in that regard.

Personally, if it works for you and gives you ANY kind of relief from MM symptoms I think you would be crazy not to do it just because of the inane drug laws in this country. I'm not crazy about smoking anything - if you've ever cleaned out the pipe and seen that tar build-up then you know there has to be some damage to the lungs, throat, mouth, etc, but that may be worth the trade-off if you're getting real relief from MM.

Just read in the local paper today that Arizona is contemplating legalizing medicinal marijuana. If I decide to try some, I'll post the results, but I'll probably need that nap first.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Bob

 

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Make sure its in Arizona Bob

 

Hell yes, I'm moving to Arizona

 

Medical marijuana is legal in Oregon too.

Another thought too is that someone can get relief using it for medicinal reasons and not get stoned stupid like what so many prescription medications do.

 

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I see you didn't even list the serious ones.
But hey it's Ok because I know that if it can be prescribed then it's safe 'cuz the FDA has only my best interests at heart.

 

Can you take pills? I hate to smoke-even eons ago when I tried it, had to use a water pipe...AND does it still give people the "munchies"? Don't need to get any fatter. VK

 

Smoking it gets into your system really fast but out just as quickly. Making cannibutter and baking that into any recipe calling for butter works great. The effects come on slower but last a lot longer. I hear it's the same with making an extract of it using alcohol, and then mixing some of the extract to a drink.