Over the past few decades, medical marijuana has shown to be very effective at treating a number of different physical and mental conditions. That leads us to the question, is marijuana good for asthma, too?
Most people wouldn’t immediately think so due to the fact that the most popular way to ingest marijuana is by smoking it. And we have been told that any type of smoke is damaging to the lungs. However, as we already know, cannabis is an incredibly therapeutic plant that provides many surprising health benefits. Let’s take a closer look at the unexpected connection between marijuana and asthma.
What is asthma?
Most of us take our ability to breathe for granted; those with asthma do not! Asthma is a chronic lung condition that is characterized by spasmodic episodes of the airways becoming inflamed and constricted, making it much harder to breathe than normal. These episodes, which are known as asthma attacks, cause intense symptoms that include bouts of coughing, wheezing, and excessive phlegm production.
While this condition is quite common, no complete cure has yet been discovered. Prescription medications known as corticosteroids help prevent the occurrence of asthma episodes while also managing acute attack symptoms. But, who knows what long-term health effects these products can cause. This is why people suffering from asthma are becoming more interested in homeopathic asthma treatments such as using medical marijuana to help with their condition.
Is it beneficial to use medical marijuana for asthma?
It has been confirmed that cannabis use may help alleviate inflammation throughout the body. Since asthma is primarily caused by inflammation in the lungs, it would make sense that using marijuana for asthma could be quite beneficial. And recent studies have started to verify this hypothesis!
Our lungs react very different to cannabis smoke than to other types of smoke (such as tobacco). While most types of smoke cause the bronchial tubes within the lungs to become constricted and make breathing more difficult, marijuana smoke actually does the opposite and helps dilate these important airways. Since keeping open and relaxed airways is a primary objective of any asthma sufferer, cannabis has started to be used within the community to great effect.
However, marijuana hasn’t yet been able to fully replace the corticosteroids that keep asthma attacks at bay.
Why do doctors hesitate to tell their asthma patients to use marijuana?
Since cannabis is often smoked, most physicians have a tendency to frown on its use by their asthmatic patients. While studies indicate that even smoked marijuana can be beneficial in treating asthma, there are also plenty of ways to decrease (or completely eliminate) the amount of potentially lung-irritating burnt plant material inhaled when smoking marijuana.
Vaping is an equally effective option that allows therapeutic cannabis compounds to be inhaled without any of the harmful byproducts of combustion. There are also a variety of medical marijuana products that don’t even need to be inhaled at all. You can find cannabis-infused edibles, beverages, tinctures, lotions, creams, sublingual drops, and pills that provide all of the bronchial dilatory effects without any smoke ingestion!
Are you thinking about smoking weed with an asthma condition, and you are a resident of the state of Florida? Then you should make plans to get your medical marijuana card so that you can legally do so.
There is no better facility to acquire your medical cannabis paperwork than Biofit! Biofit has built a stellar reputation as the greater Miami area’s top medical marijuana evaluation center. We have done so by maintaining extremely high standards of professionalism and service.
Give Biofit a call today for more information.