Antidepressants and marijuana
Relaxed feelings, less stress, pleasant thoughts and happy feelings are all side effects of using marijuana.
Side effects of a prescribed antidepressant or sedative medication may include but not limited to confusion, restlessness, mood swings, and hallucinations.
Antidepressants are used to help balance out certain chemicals within the brain that affect your mood and behaviors. Some patients are administered antidepressants for anxiety disorders. They do their work by blocking the absorption of serotonin, needed to promote balance.
Marijuana contains THC which enters the brain and creates a sense of peace and relaxation that to most people is pleasurable. There are some cases of people experiencing paranoia or anxiety when consuming marijuana.
Smoking weed on antidepressants
When marijuana and antidepressants are combined there can be unwanted and dangerous side effects. Having common antidepressants like Prozac and weed or Lexapro and weed in your system is asking for trouble and ill-advised.
Cannabis consumed while taking a prescribed TCA antidepressant like Amitriptyline or Dothiepincan cause tachycardia (a faster than normal heartbeat), delirium, increase in blood pressure, mood swings and hallucinations. It is not advisable for the interaction of cannabis and this classification of drugs.
When consuming the SNRIs classification of antidepressant-like Duloxetine or Venlafaxine with marijuana, there seem to be just a few negative reactions. The amount and potency of marijuana may increase the effects to some degree. This classification seems to have the least negative reactions when combining cannabis and the antidepressants mentioned.
Can you mix sedatives and marijuana?
Sedatives although not an antidepressant can be prescribed for depression. These drugs include Lorazepam and Lonazep. Drugs of this nature can have an adverse effect when combined with marijuana. The ability to drive and operate machinery could be compromised.
Marijuana can affect the absorption rates within the bodies system. Marijuana could make some antidepressant less effective. When deciding to add marijuana to your prescribed medication,it is advisable to speak with your health provider. It is not a bad idea for you to dry out from marijuana for a while. This will enable a correct dosage of the prescribed med to be formulated. When that has been accomplished, then you could introduce the marijuana back into your system.
Marijuana does interact with other prescribed medication and it is worth considering. Cannabis ingestion has been known to decrease insulin resistance. It can improve your blood sugar control.
THC has been known to interact negatively with some blood pressure medication. A major feature of THC is its activating of CB1 and CB2 receptors this will induce stress and can raise the cardiac oxygen consumption, this will reduce the blood flow to the arteries.
Heparin a blood thinner, when combined with marijuana, slows down the metabolism of the drug.
It is not all so bad. There are some positive effects of mixing marijuana and prescribed medication.
Cannabis could be a great assistance in reducing the number of opioid users and abusers today. If cannabis is prescribed for chronic pain instead of opiates at the onset of the person’s need for the opiates, there would perhaps not be so many addicted to opiates as there is.
Weed and alcohol
The last drug I will mention that is often used with marijuana is alcohol. Alcohol is proven to increase THC levels in the blood. Problems arise when alcohol induces vomiting. Marijuana can inhibit vomiting. This could lead to alcohol toxicity.
You shouldn’t combine marijuana with other drugs, but if you do, do so very carefully.
