High Dose Cannabis + Chronic Illness

I’ve hesitated to suggest ODing on cannabinoids because there’s zero research to back up my claim, and because the story of how I got here is kindof a bummer, but meh to yesterday’s microdosing. That was like a bandaid during the day, and definitely helped with pain - but I judge the state of my disease by my mornings and any hesitations I had about upping my dosage from the last week are gone. I firmly believe that the necessary cannabinoid dose must be equivalent or greater than the problem it’s battling to truly make a difference.

So, how I got here. In Spring 2017 I got stuck in a death flare. I was taking around 100mg a day, and surviving off green juice, protein shakes, and Boost drinks. Around the one month mark my stomach started rejecting everything and the GI office told me to go to the ER. Anyone with chronic illness/invisible illnesses will tell you, the ER is fuckedville. I ate butternut squash soup on the way, and spewed neon yellow all up in that triage, but when I got back to a room I was given Benadryl to sleep and released when my blood work wasn’t of worry. I so wish I was exaggerating. When P picked me up, he brought with him a 350mg @korovaunrivaled gluten free edible that I ate and then immediately went to sleep. For the next two days, I was able to eat whatever I wanted. That week I spent all our money at dispensaries taking roughly 500mg a day but by the next week I was out of it.

There isn’t really any research I’ve found to support this theory, but there is the Rick Simpson protocol. The Rick Simpson protocol utilizes Rick Simpson Oil - better known as RSO, a concentrated Cannabis extract, originally prepared with naphtha but now more commonly extracted with ethanol, to treat cancer.

The oil is usually thick and dark, created by a short soak and then washing of the plant material in a liquid solvent, followed by gentle heating to evaporate the solvent. (+/- a few steps, this is how all Cannabis concentrates are created. what differentiates them is the state of the starting material [fresh/aged/frozen/whole bud/etc], the solvent used [water/alcohol/co2/butane/propane], and the way in which the solvent is removed [dehydrator/rice cooker/vac oven/distillation chamber/idk concentrates aren’t my thing]).

LOL tangent, back to the protocol, which suggests ingesting 60g RSO concentrate in 90 days, starting with a small dose, doubling it every week, working up to 1g (1,000mg) daily. It’s supposedly at this level that measurable cell apoptosis (not a 🦕 like autocorrect suggested, but cell suicide) occurs. Science has shown that when THC connects to mutant cells, it causes a shift in the cells mitochondria. That shift causes the cell to release ceramide (in general*) causing the cell to die off. *This is a bit of a blanket statement for a much more complicated matter and if you’re trying to treat something like cancer do more research than an IG post/email me.*

As far as I’ve found, there’s no research to explain the mechanism of high doses, but here’s my hypothesis - which is based primarily on the fact that potent doses never get me as high as they should combined with smaller doses being highly ineffective.

Cannabinoids get preoccupied with the site of inflammation. Meaning when I eat THC and it passes through my inflamed GI, say 75% of the THC attaches to inflammation cells, making a 60mg dose feel like 15mg because that’s all that’s passing through the liver and entering the bloodstream (eventually crossing the blood brain barrier, connecting to the CB1 receptors in the brain and causing psychoactive effects). 2) Cannabinoid dosage requires being relatively equivalent/greater than problem site because inflammation/mutant (cancer) cells are often capable of “autonomous cell proliferation” which basically means they can clone themselves. Taking care of 15% of the problem with a small dose gives little relief because the other 85% are making baby shitcells. I say this based on this AM being worse than all week. That, or quinoa?

Again all my theory, with zero science to back it up, so take it with a grain of salt. I’d give a pinky toe to put a micro camera in a canna cap and find out what’s going on. All toes accounted for, an ultra high dose of THC might (probably) make you feel funny but it definitely won’t kill you (don’t drive duh) so if you’re suffering from something gnarly, take the weekend to couch lock out and report back on what happens. Now back to trying to streamline CBN extractions…