THC test
Comments
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Eager to hear how the gummies worked out. Hope it has a positive effect .0
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Within 30 min of taking he was much calmer and had stopped demanding that I help him. It has been 2.5 hours and I said he needed to take a shower while I fixed dinner. He was laughing and acting silly (stoned) but he immediately got in the shower. This is a win!!!0
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Right on, right on, right on! Oops. Slipped back into the 70's for a minute. Seriously though, it's good to hear that you got calm compliance. Hopefully the silliness will be tolerable and not bring an unwanted side effects like stumbling awkwardness. Are you planning to try to get him to sleep before the buzz wears off? Be sure to update us all on any further thoughts. If you give it all a thumbs up, I'll be off to the local pot shop tomorrow. What mg THC did you choose?
BTW - fingers still crossed on your pup's condition...
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I will be interested to hear how long it lasts. It sounds good so far. How much did you give him? Is there some standard type or does it just depend on the crop? How do you know what to get?0
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He is still happy and cooperative. Stoned people can’t pick out clothes LOL. I don’t sense that he will have any problems sleeping. The gummie was 300mg CBD and 10mg THC. I consider this experience very successful.0
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Maggie I went to the local pot shop and explained that he had dementia. The sales person said this was the lowest strength. I am not sure if different manufacturers have different standards. I would just ask for the 30:1 proportion. If you try it I will be anxious to hear how it works for you.0
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JMlarue it is all right, all right, all right channeling Matthew McConaughey1
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So glad it’s working for you! The memory clinic where my husband is tells me he’s doing better when I’m not there. I’m going every other day now. Nice little break for me!0
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Gig - Thanks for the update. Ran the gummie idea by our #2 son tonite. He recommended a local shop that is licensed for medical marijuana to get higher quality product. For anyone interested he also said to avoid Sativa cannabis as it is thought to be more energizing/invigorating in it's effects. Indica seems to be the variety recommended for calming, relaxing, pain relief and appetite stimulation. I'm going to give it a go. Son also said that if it works well, I should consider asking DH's PCP for a medical marijuana card.0
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UPDATE: Tried 10 mg THC Gummie last night at 8pm. The hours after dinner is when aggression, anger, and refusal to cooperate start to ramp up. In an abundance of caution, I only gave him 1/2 a gummie (approx, 5mg. dose). I'm happy to report that DH had a very calm demeanor right up to bedtime. Fell asleep quickly and slept 9 hours without waking. Notably, he did not show any outward signs of intoxication - no unsteady walking, silliness, or delusions. I will continue with the smaller dosage unless and until it no longer seems effective. Then I will try giving a whole gummie (10mg dose). I may give it to him around 7pm, since it seems to take up to an hour to see any effect. It may be too soon to say it's a WIN but, over all, I'm happy with the initial outcome. I'm more comfortable with this rather than adding another psych drug. Too many bad experiences with those.0
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Gig, is your husband on any Alzheimers medications? Particularly anti-psychotic ones? My DH takes Risperidone.0
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JM that is such a good response. Maybe I will cut my husband’s dose in half and see if that is all he needs.
Maggie my husband just takes aricept and meantime but no antipsychotics.
He didn’t need any more today.
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I would love to try these for my mom and step-dad. However, I am sure the assisted living center would not be willing to administer them, and would frown on my parents administering their own. Since my parents are on medication management, they aren’t even supposed to have over the counter medications on their own. Then there is the fact that I know Mom couldn’t manage taking just one - and my step/dad wouldn’t be much better at managing it. mom couldn’t remember what medication the staff gave her tonight a few minutes after they gave it to her. She has one she has to request to get - she couldn’t remember if she requested it.
It’s too bad because I think they would both benefit from the gummies. Mom’s anxiety levels has been through the roof lately and step/dad can’t handle that,
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I’m so glad it worked for you guys! Wish I could try it for my DH. The only way we can get it is to order on line. Hope it keeps working for you.
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Good morning Day 3! DH slept in a bit so I could enjoy a 2nd cup of coffee in peace. Gave him a second dose of the 1/2 gummie last evening at 7 pm. I'm pleased to report a repeat effect of the calmer behavior he exhibited on Night 1. It was another pleasant evening of quiet TV viewing with the cat on his lap and a cup of decaffeinated tea at hand. Still no outward signs of intoxication. He was still capable of walking to the toilet without bouncing off the walls. No out-of-context laughter or silliness. There was no push-back when it came time for bed. He wasn't zoned into being non-verbal, but his attempts to relate an old memory or comment on the TV program was difficult to follow. Clearly, he'd started the conversation without me in his own head some time before, so it was hard to make sense of what he was trying to say. I don't fault the THC for this. The word salad conversations have become his new normal over the past few months. The thing is, he had a gentle smile when talking - none of the agitation, anger, or paranoia rantings I've come to expect every evening. It's such a relief.
FYI - the cost of a 1/2 gummie per day works out to about $1.50 per dose. Of course, this will be strictly private pay since cannabis isn't an "approved" pharmaceutical. So far, it's worth every penny for the respite it's given both of us. Hoping against hope the good effect continues.
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Quilting - are you close enough to visit often? Perhaps, you could bake them some bite-size "special" brownies and stay for a cup of tea while they enjoy their treat. Surely, the AL facility won't bat an eye over you bringing in a small sweet. (wink wink) It would be good if you can spend an hour monitoring your mom's response. Go lightly on the cannabis ingredient at first, since what you're going for is calm and not intoxication. Remember that Indica (NOT Sativa) is the calming variety.0
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jmlarue & Gig, what stage do you figure your husbands are at? Mine is somewhere around late stage 6. It has moved quickly. Last June/July he was still paying the bills and out walking every other day on his own. The Rispiradone has been helping but had to increase the dosage recently. With all the warnings it would sure be nice if he could get relief with something safer. From what I’ve read, you can’t mix the two. Doctors don’t seem to want to even discuss it. jmlarue, I thought it was a lot more expensive than that. We’re in CA.0
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Hi Maggie,
My husband is 5-6. Physically he can walk miles and do his ADL’s. He has to be reminded to do everything. He gets lost so never goes out alone. Does not recognize anyone but his oldest friends. Rapidly forgetting past history and can’t remember recent events. While walking from one room to another he forgets what he is doing. He can dress himself but is now starting to wear multiple pairs of underwear and tshirts. He no longer recognizes most foods and is starting to use a knife less and less. He stopped driving 4 years ago because he was getting lost. Forgot about his phone a year ago. I have noticed symptoms since 2010 but I thought he was just being lazy. It seems like this is taking forever and life has become so boring. Sounds harsh but there it is.
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Jm - it’s about a 35 minute drive each way. Because that’s the area they wanted to be in when we moved them back to our state and I was looking quickly for a place for them. They didn’t want to be in the 120,000 person city I live just east of. They wanted to be in a 10,000 person town just south of the city. I wanted to accommodate them so that Dad would complain less( didn’t work). So the combination of roundtrip and visit is not something I want to do every day. The optimal time would be after supper and evening meds so that they would stop getting agitated, stop arguing with each other and just go to bed. The front doors of the building are locked at 8pm.
However, I think I might buy some gummies and keep them here. That way if it is a particularly bad late afternoon, I will be ready to run over there. Last night was a particularly bad evening.
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Maggie - I'd place my DH around Stage 6e. He pretty much checks all the boxes except he is still able to dress, brush hair, shave and brush teeth. He can shower with assistance. He's not as adept at it as he once was. It pretty much takes him a couple of hours dithering between the bedroom and the bath every morning. He's easily distracted by the sound of a loud car, a dog barking, seeing a dog-walker, or kids walking to school. He spends a lot of time half-dressed and staring out the window. He is still vocal, but much of what he says is non-sequiturs and hard to make sense of. He no longer understands most of what I say, even if I ask him to look at me and repeat slowly. He no longer recognizes our sons or grandchildren. If a friend comes to visit, once they leave he has to ask who that person was. He is often agitated, angry, and utterly contrary about everything beginning around 3 PM all the way until bedtime. It starts out slow, more like passive-aggressive behavior, but will often ramp up to a full blown rants, sprinkled with threats. Number 1 on his hit parade is the fact that he was told not to drive 2 years ago by his doctors and I won't allow it. He goes on a rant about this daily - sometimes several times a day. I don't think he'll ever forget or forgive the offense. So far, he hasn't laid hands on me, but I'm wary of him at times and put some distance between us so he can't see me and I can't hear him. It's just about the only distraction that works. He takes a single psych drug (Prazosin) for this agitation, paranoia, and delusions. It's moderately helpful, but the geri-psych has to increase his dosage about every 3 months as his body builds a tolerance to it. Hence the reason I decided to follow Gig Harbor's lead and try the Cannabis gummies. The CBD oil did nothing for him, but adding the THC seems to be helping. I sure hope it continues to bring relief because I'm nearing caregiver burn-out and won't hesitate to place him in a care facility if his behavior can't be modified.0
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I just deleted my reply to jmlarue about possibly taking gummies to my parents myself. I happened to think about drug interactions, Both of them are on medications that interact with pot. Link below. Just to highlight - Xanax, blood pressure meds, seizure meds, anti/ depressants, nerve pain meds, etc. so basically the dementia drug list.
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Well, nuts, Quilting. I'd be cautious too if my DH had to take that witches brew of pharmaceuticals. Sorry for the disappointment.0
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Jm- oh my parents don’t take everything I highlighted, no seizure or nerve pain meds yet. But I know other people here do take those things. I just wanted to highlight that most of the common things our loved ones are on are on this list. It’s just a matter of what each of us feels ok with based on our loved ones needs.0
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Gig, I glad you are having good result with this, hope it continues working.1
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Quilting - Understand and appreciate your caution. It is important that we all remember that what may work for one PWD, won't always work for another and could actually cause harm. That being said, caregiver's frequently face difficult medical choices whenever a doctor writes a prescription, too. They hand us 5 pages of drug information detailing all the horrific side effects and call it "informed consent" when we agree to try it. My personal opinion - it always comes down to a trial run, even on prescription meds, to see if it helps more than it hurts. Lots of times on this dementia journey I've had to put things like "psych" drugs on the balance scale. Should I continue this drug because it helps modify a problem behavior, even if it also causes explosive diarrhea, falling risks, hastens cognitive decline, or causes seizures? It's often a hard call to make. We can only do the best we can for our LWD - and for us as the Caregiver. Maybe, just maybe, Cannabis is worth a try, too, and discontinued at the first sign of adverse effects - just as we do with any prescription drug. (Just the musings of a Caregiver who's been dangling at the end of her rope for some time.)0
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Here in Washington our pot shops are busy places. I would imagine most of the people who are buying and using are on a lot of drugs that are on the list. Many of the reactions happen to only a very few people. It wears off so quickly and is out of the system in a day or so that it might not hurt to try it.0
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jmlarue, are you sure that Prazosin is a physc drug? I looked it up because it’s one I haven’t heard of before or seen mentioned here. What I’m coming up with is that it’s a blood pressure med, an alpha blocker, that can also help with enlarged prostate symptoms. It doesn’t sound like it would help dementia symptoms. Is it something else he takes?
I agree that every medication comes with lots of warnings, even aspirin. The antipsychotic drugs like Seraquel and Risperidone are the ones that worry me the most with the black box warnings for people over 65. I would love to replace the Risperidone with something safer like I imagine THC to be. Respiradone is effective, but had to be increased recently.
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Treating agitation, aggression, and delusions with Pazosin is "off-label" - which basically means there's little or no scientific evidence to support it for this use. But, anecdotally, it has been used with some good effect in Alz/Dementia behaviors. It was the drug of choice from the Geri-Psych - maybe because I was pretty firm in rejecting a lot of the approved psych drugs because of the litany of ugly side effects. I'd been honest about not wanting to trade one awful problem for another equally awful problem. Lowering the blood pressure to cause fainting or creating a fall risk is pretty much all I need to look out for. It also clears the body fairly quickly so I can stop it on a dime if need be.0
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It's been an interesting few days trying my DH on THC gummies. Thought you all might like an update on what I'm seeing so far.
Days 1-3, I gave 1/2 of a 10mg. THC gummie labeled "Groovy Chews." Starting with 1/2 was a 5mg dose on the advice of the dispensary to "start out low and slow" to see how my LO responded. There was also advice to provide plenty of water to drink over the next hour as the gummie digests and begins to show effect. Cannabis is dehydrating, so this is important. Apparantly, every person metabolizes THC differently, so I was also told that if the half-dose didn't seem to be producing the calming effect I was after within an hour, I could give the other 1/2 dose - but no more. The caution is that THC can produce adverse effects in the elderly if the dose is too high. Rather than calming or providing pain relief, too much can cause pronounced symptoms of euphoric intoxication that can lead to falls, heightened agitation, more mental confusion, or even paranoia. We certainly don't need that, right?
There are choices to be made on the strain of Cannabis to use. Indica was the recommended strain for calming behavior. Sativa is the strain used to counter extreme depression and is often used by folks with PTSD. It gives a more energetic high - more physically active, talkative, and more easily amused demeanor. A mix of the two strains supposedly will counter each other to elevate mood, but not so much that the user is neither a couch potato nor bouncing off the walls excitable. I went with the recommendation to use the Indica strain. You can remember the name and the effect with the phrase, "In Da Couch," meaning you want to sit back, relax, listen to some music, go nowhere and do nothing. That makes it a good choice for sundowning behavior, agitation, anger, obsessive behavior or pacing. It also dulls pain and facilitates sleep for a lot of users.
Another choice to be made is whether to use a gummie composed of CBD oil and THC in various ratios with CBD being the greatest proportion and THC the smallest. I've read a lot of claims about the effectiveness of using CBD alone and gave it a 90-day trial for my DH. Sadly, it produced no noticeable effect on calming the angry agitation and aggressiveness I was dealing with. Remember that this is only one person with dementia and what didn't work for him, might work just fine for your LO. The advantage to CBD alone is that there is no euphoria, outward signs of intoxication, or significant risk of adverse reactions. CBD oil acts as a buffer when THC is added. It will diminish the euphoric effects of THC and still provide some of the pain relief and the calming or mood lifting effect you want. I chose to stick with the 10mg THC gummie to start with to better judge how much THC would provide a benefit without adverse reaction.
You can read my previous posts for a run down on the effects I saw on Days 1-3 but, in summary, I'm happy with the results so far. My DH is noticeably calmer and so am I. He's had no adverse side effects. His blood pressure has remained stable. He falls asleep quickly and stays asleep. He is alert and appears well-rested on waking. Of particular interest to me - on Days 4 and today, my DH did not exhibit any of the sundowning behavior that I had come to expect and dread over the past few months. Consequently, I did not give him a THC gummie on these days. I see that as a great advantage over some of the prescribed medications that we feel compelled to dispense daily out of fear of causing withdrawal symptoms. If I don't think he needs it, I won't give it to him as a prophylactic.
Lastly, I have been up front with DH's Primary doc about giving Cannabis a try. He did not accept or reject the idea (probably because of legal liability), but I took that as a tacit approval to at least give it a try. I have not had the opportunity to consult with DH's Geri-psych, yet, but I will at his next scheduled appointment. By then, I should have made my own judgement on whether this experiment is a win or a fail.
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Well I had to try this stuff. DONT drive is all I can say! I had the laughs at 4 hrs. The first 2 hrs were kinda "am I feeling anything," I have inhaled and liked it"That was a 30mg cube cut into 6 even pieces. So it was a 5 mg piece the effects started to wear off aft4 to 5 hours. I thought I would try my fave computer game Mahjongg. I lost a few but my best win placed third and one at 9th place. My tenth place time is 3 min and 15 seconds. I had a 2min 57sec game. I did this test to first of all have fun and second to check my brain under the influence. I hadn't placed in months. I don't think I would give my dw 5 mg. Maybe 2 or3? To start if at all. I have to say I could deal with dw while I was under. MUSINGS from an ole hippy0
Commonly Used Abbreviations
DH = Dear Husband
DW= Dear Wife, Darling Wife
LO = Loved One
ES = Early Stage
EO = Early Onset
FTD = Frontotemporal Dementia
VD = Vascular Dementia
MC = Memory Care
AL = Assisted Living
POA = Power of Attorney
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