Quote Originally Posted by Gandalf_The_Grey
And yet... I can consistantly say that cannabis will make an area of my spine that is mildly sore and inflamed, extremely sore and inflamed. Then that pain spreads to the rest of muscles, and bad. I don't suppose anybody yet knows why and how cannabis could do this? I've heard of a few other people with this reaction too.
I've heard about this, too, and read about it a good bit here. I know that for some people, there can be a strong rebound effect of bounce-back pain after smoking for spinal or neurological pain. I'm not sure what the reasons are, but when I've read about that bounce-back pain here, it's had to do with either headaches or spinal pain. It may have something to do with the vascular response, the vaso-constriction and then dilation that follows, which could set off nerve spasms. That makes plausible sense to me.

I'm not sure how much you've read about spinal pain, Gandalf, and I trust you've still not had your condition formally identified or diagnosed. Perhaps you have by now. For conditions like herniated disks, spondylosis, spinal stenosis, disk dessication and degeneration, nerve root impingement, and neuroforaminal stenosis, smoking of anything isn't encouraged because of the drying properties of smoking. That drying can cause shrinkage and narrowing of the blood vessels that supply the cartilaginous tissue such as disks, and the drying can cause further degeneration of disks and narrowing (stenosis) of nerves and the spinal cord, which thus puts extra strain on the vertebral bones and facet joints, which can then press on those nerves and cause more pain. Just something to think about . . . I have degenerative disk disease and everything the surgeon has given me on the subject always says no smoking of any kind. They also want me to stay as well hydrated as I can by drinking plenty of water and to faithfully take my glucosamine/chondroitin supplement to help keep those degenerating disks as strong and springy as possible.