Marijuana and Depression

[BayAreaWomen]

Has anyone tried marijuana to help with feelings of depression? Can it be harmful to one while on treatment. I haven't smoked in 10 years, but the way I've been feeling lately, I've been thinking about it. It use to make me laugh alot. I just finish shot 7 and I actually don't feel bad at this time, but there's tomorrow. Has anyone's face gotten smaller during treatment. Thanks All. baw

[mikesimon]

Thanks. Mike

[bennett_st]

I use to smoke a lot when I was younger and had a good time with it.  I know I am pretty much freaked in the head about having HepC but I actually stopped smoking after finding out I had HepC as I started to have REALLY bad paranoid feelings and anxiety about dying when I smoked and I couldn't make it stop and worried something in my brain was gonna snap.  This had never happened before.  So it pretty much wasn't much fun anymore so I just stopped.  I feel to stay sane and in control with everything substance abuse is not a help.  But that's just me.

[Trish77]

merryBe, it's really important that you cite your sources when you make statements like this, please.

Here is a link to a recent study that cites the impact of marijuana use and it DOES cite the 7-fold figure, however, that is for DAILY cannabis use, not just any old marijuana use.  The study recommends that persons with HCV do not use cannabis DAILY but stopped short of saying it should not be used at all.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080128140840.htm

I think if you take a few puffs here and there and it helps you combat debilitating depression or side effects enough to stay on treatment and cure your HCV, that can be a good thing if that is the only thing that works for you or the most effective thing that works for you and it becomes the difference between getting through treatment or not.

It's clear it's not exactly harmless but it's entirely related to usage levels and it's obvious it has some benefits or I think the results of the study would have called for no marijuana use at all and it didn't. Just my own take on that information.

Trish

[lolitriqui]

i smoked a few joints down at the beach between w22 and w24 of 48; was great, helped a lot, really; lot less sideeffects; got back to NYC, stopped smoking, my thyroid function went into the ditch and had severe anxiety attacks; so now i am on two pills a day more, of all things;whether i should keep smoking or should have never smoked at all who knows....smoking pot is linked to steatosis or whatever it is called, fatty liver, i guess, so it is a counterindication duringtx; anyway.....
ciao

[mar148]

I too wonder where you get this fact.  I have read differing information on this, but never 7 times.

[mikesimon]

What is your source for that information - 7 fold fibrosis progression?
I would really be interested in the study or article or whatever on which you base that statement.
Mike