Medical Marijuana Can Dramatically Help AIDS Patients

By David Greene, MD, CEO


Medical Marijuana is very popular among patients with AIDS, with one of the main reasons being that it is able to soothe a variety of the disease symptoms. It can soothe pain, stimulate appetite, and calm nausea.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, is a disease that goes after the immune system. It can cause depression, nausea, vomiting lots of weight loss, nerve damage, and infections.

Recent combination medical treatment has advanced nicely to where AIDS people live longer and the disease is more of a chronic disorder than a rapidly fatal one. This is part of the wonders of modern medicine, but the real advancement will be when it's eradicated! These treatments have 2 effects: One is that patients get hope, the 2nd is they make patients sick. Does the fatigue, vomiting, nausea, appetite loss, and that turns into a way of life that simply has to be tolerated?

Antiviral medications are effective at controlling HIV progression. Nausea and vomiting are produced which are similar to cancer chemotherapy patients.

Loss of lean body mass may result in AIDS patients from cachexia as a result of nausea and appetite loss. The FDA n 1986 approved Marinol, called dronabinol, for weight loss from AIDS. For people suffering from HIV, losing as little as five percent of their lean body mass may be life risking.

When someone loses more than 10% of their body weight involuntarily, the CDC calls it AIDS wasting syndrome. Also this includes diarrhea and fever persisting for over 30 days. In addition to lean muscle tissue, they may lose tissue from internal organs like the liver.

Traditional medications like Marinol and Megace help with wasting. People on Megace are usually able to increase food intake by 30%. THC as Marinol increases appetite and maintains weight, although side effects include dry mouth and some psychological distress.

Mostly for these reasons, AIDS patients by and large report better results with smoking marijuana. When smoking, individuals may inhale enough just to help with the symptoms. The effect is significant, and appetite stimulation is quick.

Marijuana intake definitely has its place for the treatment of weight loss and wasting from AIDS. This place may be in conjunction with testosterone or growth hormone to restore lean tissue and prevent its deterioration.

Along with assisting AIDS patients to be able to intake more food, marijuana can have a beneficial effect on pain. In the course of the disease, patients may suffer from neuropathic types of pain, which is a burning sensation of the skin usually starting in the hands and/or feet. Marijuana has been shown to work well for neuropathic pain.

Along with this, AIDS patients report substantial mood improvement. Giving a psychological lift to AIDS patients, which represents a devastating disease, a psychological lift in addition to the other symptom improvements gives marijuana a definite advantage when compared with solo medications.

Marijuana has a definite treatment place for AIDs patients. By releiving nausea, appetite loss, anxiety, and pain it helps with multiple side effects. Smoking or vaporizing has been shown in small research studies to have a quicker onset and easier dosing than oral medications.




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