HigherDrifter
New Member
I was way off base with my "Smoking Marijuana - as an anti-asthmatic?" thread. 
The correct diagnosis for what ails my friend is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). In a nutshell, it is (more or less) the co-occurrence of chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
How does this pertain to Medical Marijuana? I'm not sure anymore. I was always under the impression that my friend's breathing problems were more related to Asthma.
My friend is a non-smoker...no pot, no tobacco.
So how did he wind up with COPD? Nasal polyps. His nose has been seriously obstructed by nasal polyps for a long time - longer than I've known him - I'd say 20 years or more. Until he had the polyps surgically removed (about 2.5 years ago) he had spent the last 20+ years breathing through his mouth which is NOT how our lungs (along with the Diaphram) are supposed to function physiologically. When the nose get's plugged up it often makes people use their inner chest and lung muscles to draw in air and also necessitates the more frequent lung expansion than normal breathing through the nose. Not only that, breathing through the mouth allows more foreign particles into the lungs and subsequently absorbed into the blood.
Since the steroids, more properly stated as Corticosteriods, are what he's been taking primarily, both in pill and inhaler form - they act to reduce the inflammation in the airways, in theory reducing lung damage and airway narrowing caused by inflammation. So, perhaps Marijuana, in some form (not necessarily smoking it...maybe vaporizing it) could be a viable alternative to these Corticosteroids.
I know this issue is way out of most people in here's league of thought...
Just trying to help my friend. He's the closest thing I've got to family. When he suffers, so do I.
The correct diagnosis for what ails my friend is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). In a nutshell, it is (more or less) the co-occurrence of chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
How does this pertain to Medical Marijuana? I'm not sure anymore. I was always under the impression that my friend's breathing problems were more related to Asthma.
My friend is a non-smoker...no pot, no tobacco.
So how did he wind up with COPD? Nasal polyps. His nose has been seriously obstructed by nasal polyps for a long time - longer than I've known him - I'd say 20 years or more. Until he had the polyps surgically removed (about 2.5 years ago) he had spent the last 20+ years breathing through his mouth which is NOT how our lungs (along with the Diaphram) are supposed to function physiologically. When the nose get's plugged up it often makes people use their inner chest and lung muscles to draw in air and also necessitates the more frequent lung expansion than normal breathing through the nose. Not only that, breathing through the mouth allows more foreign particles into the lungs and subsequently absorbed into the blood.
Since the steroids, more properly stated as Corticosteriods, are what he's been taking primarily, both in pill and inhaler form - they act to reduce the inflammation in the airways, in theory reducing lung damage and airway narrowing caused by inflammation. So, perhaps Marijuana, in some form (not necessarily smoking it...maybe vaporizing it) could be a viable alternative to these Corticosteroids.
I know this issue is way out of most people in here's league of thought...
Just trying to help my friend. He's the closest thing I've got to family. When he suffers, so do I.
