Here is a reasoning i made in response to a question about Ganja and allergies.
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http://www.quora.com/Can-smoking-cannabis-cure-a-cold-hay-fever
Don't pay attention to the previous person's imploring and fear mongering, he isn't speaking out of knowledge or experience, but only out of his own prejudice and misinformation. Some of his claims are exaggerated, some completely false and others are not proven, only claimed by poor or inconclusive studies. Many negative claims about marijuana have already been been proven false by properly performed studies. Even some insurance companies no longer consider marijuana smokers as "smokers" because it has been proven to not be so damaging to health like tobacco is. I just got approved for Sun Life life insurance as a non-smoker, and it made no difference how often or how long I smoked or otherwise made use of marijuana. I am approved to use marijuana for medical purposes (for sciatica), but even if a person isn't approved for medical, Sun Life still considers them a non-smoker, as long as they don't use tobacco. This is Sun Life in Canada, so confirm with Sun Life in other countries.
Cannabis helps people with allergies in at least two ways, through its anti inflammatory properties and through one of the roles of our Endocannabinoid system, which is to regulate the bodies immune and allergic response. A google search for Endocannabinoid system immune will show some related studies and information.
In regards to hay fever and other allergies, some people report that smoking marijuana helped their allergies, but from my own experience, if smoking or vaporizing helped, the effects were not significant enough.
On the other hand, ingesting small doses of refined and concentrated cannabis oil high in THC and CBD has been amazing for my spring allergies. This year I tried ingesting cannabis oil for the first time, and have been using it regularly since before spring started. I had hoped for a modest improvement for my allergies, but was pleasantly surprised when I got much more. Before I get into the details of how effective it is, here is some background, to show how big of a difference I have experienced with the oil.
I always had a skin allergy to cats and dogs, and developed hay fever in my early 20s and I am now 40. I have tried various over the counter allergy medications over the years and hardly notice any improvement. And when it was close to the time for my next dose, my allergies would go into overdrive and be much worse than they were before I started using the antihistamines. Since antihistamines didn't make a noticeable difference, and gave me intense allergies when a dose was close to wearing out, I stopped using them.
In the past, my allergy experience varies depending on the season. In the winter, my nose is usually partially stuffed, with some occasions of having unrestricted air flow or being completely stuffed. When spring comes, during the day my nose is partially stuffed all the time, and very itchy and running most of the time, and at night it becomes completely stuffed. I also have issues with sneezing, itchy eyes, pallette and ears. these symptoms continue into the first part of summer. During the spring, the itchiness and runniness gets so severe and frequent that it is maddening and distracting. Later on in summer, around the end of July, the itchiness and runniness stops, but the air flow is still partially restricted most of the time and other times stuffed, especially at night. Fall is essentially the same as summer. My allergies also cause me to snore at night and in the spring and early summer, it is the worst. My wife will sometimes punch or kick me at night to stop my snoring, and this happens frequently in the spring. The snoring gets so bad in the spring that many nights my wife will leave the bed and sleep somewhere else or ask me to sleep somewhere else.
This year I started using a concentrated cannabis oil with 37% THC and 24% CBD, I wanted to use it for my sciatica and had hopes that it would at least modestly help my allergies. I started before spring, so before my severe allergies started. One of the first things I noticed is that I could finally take full deep breaths through my nose, this is something that many take for granted, but for me it is something I normally only rarely experience in the winter. Normally, the only way i can take a full deep breath in a reasonable amount of time is if i use my mouth or a combination of my mouth and nose, so for me, it is a great joy to be able to breath through my nose again. When the time came when my allergies normally start, I had no symptoms, which was surprising. About three weeks ago, when my allergies would normally get severe, I started to feel some symptoms, especially when it came closer to the time for the next dose, so I started to take the oil more frequently on days where I felt more symptoms.
So as I mentioned above, normally around this time of year, during the day my nose would be partially stuffed all the time, and very itchy and running most of the time, and at night it would become completely stuffed. I would also have issues with sneezing, itchy eyes, pallette and ears.
Now, since I have been using the cannabis oil, during the day my nose is unrestricted and clear, with occasional symptoms of sneezing and runny nose, which is usually relieved by taking another dose of the oil. And the times it is not completely relieved by the oil, the symptoms are so mild and infrequent that it doesn't even come remotely close to how bad it usually is without the oil. At night my nose is unrestricted and clear, a few nights when the allergens in the air were particular high, my nose became stuffed at night but was relieved with another dose of oil. It has also prevented snoring, so I am not getting punched or kicked any more at night, which is unheard of in the spring. The only thing that takes more time to recover from is after cutting the grass. It takes multiple larger doses over time for the symptoms to be relieved. I tried a dust mask yesterday while cutting the grass and I avoided allergic symptoms.
Cannabis oil did for me what anti-histamines couldn't, actually relieve my allergy symptoms. I am completely amazed by my results and love breathing freely through my nose again. I am happy that I was never implored away from it.
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