Cannabis Is A Miracle Drug For Eczema Sufferers

[purklize]

I've had eczema over large portions of my body for 10 years now, and have been using steroid creams this entire time (triamcinolone, then hydrocortisone after I lost my health insurance). I started looking into alternatives due to the side effects - skin thinning the most obvious of them - it got so bad that simply wearing a backpack meant bleeding!

 

I've been using a glycerine cannabis tincture mixed up with a bit of lotion for the last 10 days or so, and it's amazing. I'd reckon it's more effective than any of the steroid creams, and my skin seems to be a lot healthier now.

 

I suppose my doctors didn't tell me about the systemic side effects of steroid creams as they figured I had no choice but to be on them for life. These effects aren't mild. Somehow I failed to connect the dots - a few years after I developed eczema (which was a few years after puberty), when I finally accepted I had eczema and started being diligent about using the creams daily, horrible anxiety issues developed, along with severe headaches.

 

The headaches were so vicious that my knees would buckle and I'd find myself slamming my head in doors for relief (it felt like having an iron poker stabbed in my eye while the bone behind my eyebrow was crushed.) They have abated somewhat, thankfully - this happened around the same time I switched from triamcinolone to hydrocortisone; maybe coincidence, who knows.

 

The anxiety has been truly debilitating - years spent hiding in the apartment, getting headrushes every time I hear a voice or a door slam. The only thing that helped in the past was benzos; it got so bad that cannabis was making me even more paranoid and I quit using it for years. To make things worse, the doctors all treated me as a drug seeker, and even after trying 16 migraine medications I was still denied access to pain medication. I was eventually cut off entirely from benzos. I really can't emphasize enough how much relief benzos used to provide, and how utterly exhausted I am from all the panic attacks and extreme anxiety from the awful last few years without them.

 

I've had a few other health issues develop since I started the creams, but I don't want to get too speculative here.

 

After kicking the creams it became incredibly obvious that they'd been wreaking havoc on my body. I'm actually dealing with WITHDRAWAL symptoms! They're starting to die down a bit, but as of last weekend, my muscles in my back were so swollen and spasming so severely that I felt like I was made out of overinflated inner tubes. I've also noticed my anxiety levels dropping. Perhaps this is a coincidence (PTSD sufferer here, so the steroid creams can't be the only cause of anxiety), but I cannot believe for a second the swollen and spasming muscles were a coincidence, as I've never experienced anything like that. I've had a lot of problems with muscle tension and chronic back spasms, but the swelling... was new to me. Hormone drugs suck, and as the women in the audience probably know, their negative effects tend to creep up on you over a period of years and are very difficult to trace back to the drug.

 

Has anyone else used cannabis for treating eczema? How about asthma? Asthma is treated with steroid drugs as well (Advair, etc.) I am so glad to be through with them...

[tooldini]

I can talk about the asthma as I have been using advair and others for years. The advair works good but the side effects are extreme headaches and restlesness along with just making me shaky LOL I have been using Cannabis for 1 year now and have gone from using my advair twice daily and albuterol twice daily to using advair once in the morning and a few times a month I use fast acting albuterol. I would probably use the cannabis more but my wife acts weird about it. I don't know exactly what the steriod part of the medicine in advair is doing to me but it can't be good Someday I will probably be off the advair also

[donnachris]

now as far as th asthma, do you vaporize to get the effects or use medibles??

[tooldini]

I was smoking at first but have gotten a vaporizer. I have not tried medibles yet but would like to. I only use MM about 3-5 times a week normally to keep my asthma in check.