Not to mention that not everyone is affected in the same way by any given strain,
even when the condition/issue is the same.
For example, sativas in general are known to cause racing heartbeats, racing thoughts, and anxiety. I suffer from panic/anxiety attacks and certain mental issues "from time to time." When I am lucky enough to come across a good sativa that was grown to maturity before harvest, I find that it generally stops the anxiety, focuses my thoughts (whether or not they could still be said to "race"), and if I have a racing heartbeat, well, I'm too calm to notice
. And while it lessens some of my physical pain, I think it mostly is more that it allows me to "deal" with the pain that I do still have - I'm still aware of it but it is no longer the formost thing in my mind; rather, I find that it becomes just one thing among many, that I can compartmentalize it, as if I took that pain, wrote it down on a sheet of paper, and placed it on the coffee table beside me - there, but not
there if that makes any sense. My brother, OtOH, would rather treat his pain with an indica.
I have friends with various mental issues (I hate to use the term "mental illness," and don't get me started on "sanity" since it really just seems to be a measurement of how an individual fits into (or not) a given society's expectations) and some agree with me that the strongest sativas provide a calming and focusing affect, while others have found the opposite to be true. Of course, some of the latter experiences were due to interactions with "medicines" that they were taking - but not all of them.
