Medical Marijuana for Bipolar Disorder: What Science Says

A lot of patients suffering from different diseases benefit significantly from using marijuana, especially from high-quality cannabis, which you can get from a licensed online dispensary in Canada. So, does cannabis help with bipolar disorder too, or does it worsen it? Keep reading to find out. Marijuana is one of the most abused drugs, and almost 70 percent of people with bipolar disorder use marijuana at some point in their lives.

A study conducted in 2015 at Lancaster University in the UK shows that some signs of bipolar disorder such as mania and depression become even worse if you use marijuana when experiencing them. Researchers went through reports of 24 bipolar patients who had received prescribed medical marijuana from physicians for at least three times a week.

Participants were to record their mood during the treatment period to reduce bias in their memory. When researchers analysed the diary entries of the patients, they found out that even though you can associate cannabis with positive emotions, when these patients used it, marijuana increased their manic and depressive symptoms.

However, results from this study were not universal enough as the researchers did it using a few patients and did not include any control group. Furthermore, the patients used in this study weren’t going through manic or depressive episodes when they took marijuana. Also, this study didn’t consider dose amounts and delivery methods of marijuana that could help in changing the final results.

Another research done at the University of Newcastle shows that quality marijuana, which you can get in the best CBD gummies has therapeutic potential and helps in pain management as well, which means it can help in treating bipolar disorder. However, findings from this study needs more investigation to determine how different bipolar patients respond to cannabis use and also consider how complex their bipolar disease is.

What New Studies Show

The American scientists recently published a study that investigated how marijuana impacts the mood of different bipolar patients and whether cannabis has additional adverse effects on cognitive function.

During this study, researchers observed how marijuana influenced the mood of bipolar disorder patients. Researchers divided patients into four groups: 18 patients who didn’t use cannabis, 12 patients who did, 23 marijuana users without another Axis 1 pathology and 21 participants of the control group who were very healthy. All participants of this study were supposed to rate their mood thrice every day, and after every time they used marijuana for four weeks.

Researchers revealed that the patients who used cannabis experienced a certain degree of cognitive impairment when compared to participants in the control group. However, the bipolar patients who used marijuana, and the participants who didn’t use cannabis did not experience any changes in their mood states.

Also, bipolar patients who used marijuana reported that using cannabis sativa helped them to improve their mood. Researchers explained this change in mood as a partial elevation of the symptoms of bipolar that didn’t cause any additional cognitive impairment.

Even though this study shows auspicious results in using marijuana to treat bipolar disorder, more research is needed to show researchers a bigger picture of the effects of cannabis on bipolar disorder.

Marijuana users who quit smoking cannabis or reduce the amounts they use after their first psychotic episode observe a significant improvement in their bipolar disorder symptoms. This improvement happens after one year compared to those who continue using marijuana. Using cannabis for long can lead to adverse effects in the long run, especially on the clinical outcomes for people with bipolar spectrum disorders.

Cannabis users who smoke marijuana regularly have lower bipolar remission rates compared to those who don’t use it. People with bipolar disorders and use marijuana don’t do well in the long run compared to other bipolar patients who don’t use marijuana.

Key Points to Note With Marijuana and Bipolar Disorder

Here are crucial points you should remember about cannabis, co-occurring disorder treatment, and bipolar disorder:

• Cannabis is a drug that’s very abused by people who have bipolar disorder. Different people with bipolar disorder use marijuana for varying reasons. Each one of them for various benefits they claim to get from using marijuana that helps them reduce their bipolar disorder symptoms.
• It is not yet fully proved whether cannabis could treat bipolar disorder.
• Using marijuana does not lead to bipolar disorder. So, further research is required to determine if it can. However, using marijuana can worsen bipolar disorder symptoms.
• Bipolar disorder is one of the conditions that do not qualify for treatment using cannabis.
• There is an available professional treatment for people experiencing co-occurring disorders such as marijuana addiction and bipolar disorder.

All drugs have risks and side effects, and cannabis is no exception. Marijuana abuse can be quite rampant among people with bipolar disorder. Using marijuana to try and treat your bipolar disorder puts you at a higher risk, of getting a second diagnosis on top of your current bipolar diagnosis. Therefore, it’s advisable that you avoid using marijuana when going through bipolar disorder as marijuana hasn’t been proved yet to treat marijuana.