When THC turns on you-- Cannabis, THC concentrates, and psychiatric breakdown

Back from the Abyss: Psychiatry in Stories

Craig Heacock MD

Psychiatry, Bipolar, Suicide, Depression, Ketamine, Psychotherapy, Science, Psychedelics, Health & Fitness, Addiction, Medicine, Psychology, Mental Health

4.8 • 452 Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2023

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr. H's patient Lindsey shares her story of self-medicating her anxiety and depression with cannabis, then steadily building tolerance and moving on to THC concentrates. This led to full-blown dependence and a spiral downward into daily bouts of terrible nausea, near constant panic, and emerging hopelessness.BFTA on Instagram. @backfromtheabysspodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/backfromtheabysspodcast/BFTA/ Dr. Hhttps://www.craigheacockmd.com/podcast-page/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Back from the Abyss. I'm Dr. Craig Hecock.
0:16.3	They say that the difference between a medicine and a poison is the dose.
0:22.4	For example, water is crucial to life, but also fatal in overdose.
0:27.7	Air that is too high on oxygen can severely damage to the lungs.
0:32.2	And weed that is too high in THC, without enough counterbalancing CBD, can trigger or exacerbate psychiatric
0:40.3	symptoms. The pure THC products, the waxes and concentrates and shatter, for many vulnerable
0:46.4	people, these are even more risky and destabilizing. Today, my patient Lindsay shares her
0:52.5	journey through early onset anxiety and depression,
0:55.8	which she initially managed with weed, but then as she used more and more and her tolerance
1:00.5	increased, she transitioned to pure THC products, and then her medicine, her trusted friend,
1:07.2	steadily became her tormentor.
1:21.7	So I would say that the depression definitely came first, probably around age 12.
1:29.7	I would estimate around 12, 13 was when I first noticed the depression and feeling isolated and alone and, you know,
1:37.7	your typical depressive symptoms. I think that followed after a very tumultuous time in my life,
1:47.6	and I can go into that a little bit. Growing up, I had a mom who was very, very sick in the hospital most times and very close to death for majority of, I would say, my elementary school experience and just a very unstable
1:54.6	environment to grow up in. And once she luckily is okay, thank goodness. But I think once the fog kind of cleared,
2:03.6	I was left with a lot of trauma and confusion that I was just not able to understand a process
2:11.6	at that age. And I think that that led me to very rapidly feel a lot of depression come on around, yeah, like seventh or eighth grade. And I think that that led me to very rapidly feel a lot of depression come on around, yeah, like seventh or eighth grade.
2:21.2	And so that's really how it started.
2:23.4	And then the anxiety, I would say, came a little bit later, early high school, didn't really understand what it was at the time.
2:33.6	I didn't understand what either of them really were at the time.
2:36.0	It wasn't something very talked about in my household. The anxiety started becoming very
	...

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