TSR Health: I know many of us are stressed out during these quarantine times but if you’re turning to marijuana to help you get through it, you may want to think again.
Medical experts say smoking weed, even occasionally, can increase a person’s risk for more severe complications from Covid-19, according to CNN Health.
“What happens to your airways when you smoke cannabis is that it causes some degree of inflammation, very similar to bronchitis, very similar to the type of inflammation that cigarette smoking can cause,” said pulmonologist Dr. Albert Rizzo, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association. “Now you have some airway inflammation and you get an infection on top of it. So, yes, your chance of getting more complications is there.”
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So why is it important to rethink firing up? Well, the last thing you want during a pandemic is to make it more difficult for a doctor to diagnose your symptoms, according to Dr. Mitchell Glass, a pulmonologist and spokesperson for the American Lung Association.
“Covid-19 is a pulmonary disease,” Glass said. “Do you really want to have a confounding variable if you need to see a doctor or a healthcare worker by saying, ‘Oh, and by the way, I’m not a regular user of cannabis, but I decided to use cannabis to calm myself down.’
“You don’t want to do anything that’s going to confound the ability of healthcare workers to make a rapid, accurate assessment of what’s going on with you,” Glass added.
Smokers, people with COPD and other chronic lung diseases, as well as people with moderate to severe asthma are among those at high risk for severe illness from the coronavirus, including the worst-case scenario of being placed on a ventilator in order to continue breathing.
Smoking, even marijuana, irritates the lungs.
“So right off the bat there are those patients who would be increasingly susceptible to having a bronchospasm or cough because they have a more sensitive airway,” Glass said.
And since a dry cough is one of the key symptoms of Covid-19, any cough caused by smoking a joint of weed could easily mimic that symptom, making diagnosis more difficult.
“Because it attacks the lungs, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 could be an especially serious threat to those who smoke tobacco or marijuana or who vape,” the National Institute of Health said in its announcement.
“We need to make sure that these users are aware that marijuana is in essence an underlying health condition,” Hulsey added. “They should take extra precautions by minimizing use to the extent that is possible, and even start virtual treatment and a recovery journey while everyone’s stuck at home.”
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