Is marijauna legal in your state? Should you use it? Listen for some answers below.
https://www.uchealth.org/today/is-marijuana-safe-for-older-adults/
Welcome to knowledge for caregivers. My name is Kathy, the host of this podcast. I have been a geriatric nurse for the past 10 years, I am going to share with you the knowledge that I have learned helping seniors age in place. This is the same knowledge that I use to take care of my own age loved ones. I hope you can use this knowledge to help your own age loved ones aged with dignity, and grace.
Imagine my surprise, when somebody I knew told me that their 75 year old father was going to be going through chemotherapy for colon cancer. Then she told me they just gave him a medical marijuana license to go get a card so that he could get medical marijuana to deal with the side effects of chemotherapy. I was just really surprised I kind of feel like the medical marijuana is a little bit of the Wild West out there. Most of these marijuana shops have young people who are sort of advising many other young people who somehow got a medical marijuana card for just about anything these days and they're talking about the different levels of THC which is the kind of the one that gives you the high and all these different things.
What we're finding out is that older people are also going into the marijuana shops with their medical marijuana card. This is happening for many reasons. And when I talk about the wild west on medical marijuana, it's just that you're having to do everything by trial and error. You have to go in there and say okay, which kind of marijuana do I take. It’s all different now. There's mainly two components of marijuana that we usually talk about. One is the THC, which is like a really long word I'm not gonna even tried to pronounce but that's like I said, that gives you that kind of high. And then there's the CBD. If you ever heard of CBD oil, some of them say that they have CBD oil that has no THC. So basically, and marijuana, they'll talk about the ratio of those, the CBD tends to be what gives some of those anti inflammatory some of those therapeutic properties to marijuana that maybe do actually help older people. Older people probably tend to get the medical marijuana that has a little bit of THC, but more of that CBD, which like I said, again, has that calming effect. One of the hardest things about marijuana is that doctors are basically working on anecdotal evidence. There's just not that much studies, especially when it comes to older people and medical marijuana. The reason is, when the Drug Enforcement Agency DEA was formed, they began to classify these drugs that can be addicting into different categories. So the class one drugs were things like heroin, LSD, they put marijuana in that category, all the drugs in that category one, you can't go out and do controlled experiments. So doctors can't say okay, I'm going to use different levels of THC CBD, and see if they have a therapeutic effect for older people. There is a little exception to marijuana in that the government produced some that can be used for studies. But again, it's just something that's grown by the federal government. It's not something that the doctors can take different levels of, and go Okay, we'll see what works. As you can see, we have a high level of legalization of either recreational or medical marijuana, but we don't see that with other things like heroin or LSD. There's been a big push, and it's something that I think really should be pushed is to definitely move marijuana to a different category.
Because when you talk about scheduled to drugs, these are still drugs that have potential for abuse. These are things like your add medicine like Adderall, Ritalin, things like fentanyl, oxy codeine, as we know, oxycodone is definitely an epidemic we're struggling with in our own country, that that's definitely a problem. When you look at schedule three drugs, they're, you know, little less potential, like ketamine, some of your lower dose medications that have codeine in them. For things like Tramadol, Xanax, some of the level fives are cough syrups that have a little bit of codeine in them or something like Lyrica that helps with nerve pain. As I've said, they have begun to see older people coming in to use medical marijuana. What they're finding is that older people are wanting to use medical marijuana. Many times the same reason younger people do, they're going to see if it helps them with their pain, with insomnia, maybe with neuropathy, maybe with anxiety or depression. Again, it's still like a wild west, you people are gonna have to go in there and sort of get different levels of THC CBD combinations, and find out what happens.
The reason that I'm bringing this up, is you may go, well, we're not using medical marijuana, you better find out because you may be surprised. I am going into more and more homes, and they're like we take some gummies Okay, I know what that means. It means medical marijuana, I have no idea how much they're doing. I feel really bad for doctors who somebody comes in. It's like we're taking medical marijuana again, when you look at the concentrations, it's all over the board on how much is THC and how much is CBD. Some of the concerns if someone that you are taking care of is having medical marijuana definitely is to think about, I remember sitting in the doctor's office, and this guy was telling me guys, golly, I can't remember how many marijuana shops I passed, just trying to get here to the doctor's office. He said, but you know, My son, he's a veteran at the VA. And he went and got his medical marijuana card. He said that his son has been able to come off a lot of prescription medications by taking marijuana. Now the VA can't prescribe it, but they do put it in his record. So he gave a little bit to his father. It's actually very common for many older people to try marijuana without having a card just somebody saying, hey, let's try one of my gummies. So this father was like, I'm just gonna try a little bit. So he tore off a little piece of gummy, and it didn't do anything. The next night, he said, Well, I just took the whole gummy. He said he had the worst hallucinations. He's never had them before. He said it was scary. And he knew he just had to wait till it wore off. He said I'm not trying any medical marijuana. Unfortunately, it might be something that down the road he might need. But now he's going to be like, I'm not using any medical marijuana after what happened.
One thing to look at, if you have somebody with medical marijuana is do they have heart problems, marijuana can definitely get that high and it can cause stress on the heart. The other thing is that many older people take a lot of medications. And doctors does don't know if the mixing of the medication and the marijuana is a good thing or a bad thing. They do say to use extreme caution if taking medical marijuana with blood thinners or anti seizure medicine, those two medicines have to be very tightly regulated. If the medical marijuana interferes with that it can definitely cause a problem. Again, doctors aren't able to do a lot of research on medical marijuana. Therefore, they just don't know until they maybe see some anecdotal evidence.
They say it's very important to talk about medical marijuana when a person is going into surgery. The reason is it may affect the medicine that they give them. It's important to look at psychiatric issues because medical marijuana can definitely exacerbate that. The one thing that I would definitely be very concerned about with medical marijuana is unsteadiness. But that can also happen when a person is taking oxycodone or some of those other types of pain pills or fentanyl. I recently went to see a lady who had a knee replacement surgery. She had just taken some hydrocodone and she was literally stumbling, totally confused. It was like she was looking at her medicine cabinet didn't even know what she was supposed to be taking. I definitely have a lot of concerns about wow, you know she's walking around good, but she's in a lot of pain and she's taking this medication. Just because someone takes medical marijuana if they're having a choice, it's hard to know you know which one's a better one to manage pain. So it's important to know if somebody is doing it to make sure that you're monitoring them for falls. The other thing is that smoking medical marijuana can definitely add to lung disease. Some people think that the medical marijuana does improve their cognitive function. If they're sleeping better, they're managing their pain better and maybe taking less of other things.
Again, I just wanted to give kind of a basic overview of medical marijuana. I don't have like this great solution because we just cannot study it. It definitely is increasing among older people, it can increase appetite. So if a person is losing weight, that can be a good thing. But if they have a lot of heart disease or diabetes, and they're eating bad food that can be not such a good thing. They do know that people who use medical marijuana have an increased incidence of motor vehicle accidents. So it's very important to know if they're driving, and also using medical marijuana. As I said, it's important to know if someone is using it. And it's always very, very important with older people on any medication is start low, go slow. It doesn't matter what medicine they're on, start low, go slow, whether they're doing medical marijuana, or any kind of medication. If you have a loved one that is interested in it, or you're starting to explore it, make sure to look for things that have very, very low THC, and just watch them and don't think oh, it didn't work. You know, try it a couple of times, it may take longer for the marijuana to process out of their system and see if it is going to affect them. They'll be careful. I'm not giving any advice whether people should use it or should not use it. Again, that's a conversation to have with their physician about medical marijuana, or at least to let their physician know if they are taking it.
If you like the podcast, share it. See the show notes for more information. If you want to see resources or set up consultation services for your unique family need, go to www dot Cathy's consulting.com that is www.kathysconslting.com. Remember, all content is for informational purposes and not meant to replace consultation with a medical professional