Stuff

Short for tolerance break. It’s what recreational Cannabis users do every so often to feel the most high, when effects start to diminish after regular use over some period of time. It’s what serious medicinal users do to avoid hyperemesis, before the endocannabanoid system eventually gets pushed out of whack after chronic use.

It’s been eight months since that episode. That appears to be about how long it now takes me to get to the hyperemesis threshold at a dose amounting to around 50mg/day combined throughout the day. I know this because I could feel it coming on this time, after carefully tracking and limiting my intake. I’m on day three off the weed, and keeping a real close eye on it this time around.

Day 1 was no biggie, a little uncomfortable, sorta easing out of it. Yesterday, the stark reality of not being medicated shone through. Radiculopathy is markedly more apparent, along with noticeable jabs from that lumbar job site, moving/reaching/stretching around under a car hood. C-spine invokes the same enhanced radiculopathy in the arms from that nerve root damage, only without the extra pain. Doing PT, stretching, whatever, is just excruciating. Keeping a cane nearby always.

I noticed mild sweats/chills several times yesterday, reminding me of the hyperemesis part where I was sweating bullets and feeling freezing cold at the same time. It’s difficult describing the non-psychoactive way Cannabis affects the brain. I’m calling it headspace. it’s a sensation – an actual physical sensation – I assume might be related to CB-receptor activity, or lack thereof. I could feel it starting to get to that point where things were about to go haywire pretty soon.

The medical community needs to pick up on this. I’m not talking about quack doctors handing out med cards. The surgeons and neurologists dealing with pain and spinal injuries have a safe, effective tool they are ignoring or poo-pooing for various reasons, mostly ignorance. Alternatively, people are given Neurontin and painkillers, often leading to gawd knows what other complications.

I’ll mention my experience(s) with Neurontin, because I now believe it is a dangerous drug masquerading as a safe catch-all for anything they don’t want to actually deal with. I took it for about three years during the time I was going through the shoulder business, along with Venlafaxine, and Tramadol at some point. It does work to ease radiculopathy, but it also developed a bad reaction in me. I say developed, because I was fine with it for awhile, the first couple years. But I became increasingly unstable on my feet, literally losing my balance at times for some reason. I can now point the finger at Neurontin, because of what came next.

I got off ALL the pharmaceuticals when I finally realized I was on the drug poison road to an early death. Then a malpractice episode followed by lumbar fusion got me into another Neurontin prescription. Damned if I wasn’t stumbling around again – right away! No other drugs in the system, except Cannabis. Tried it twice this time around, two different prescriptions separated by a few weeks. – same thing. it did something to my nervous system. The only question is what?

The doctors will tell me I’m just getting older, and these type things are to be expected. Ya think? It happens alot faster and hurts alot more when you’re all beat to shyt. Neurontin, Gabapentin, or whatever brand name they are using to fill the pharma coffers with it now: STAY AWAY!

Late Update, 17 March: It takes 3-4 days for the therapeutic effect to wear completely off, after which time the entire right side of my body becomes stiff and sore with radiculopathy to the point I do not want to move. Right quad is the worst, aching acutely, due to the moderately severe L4-5 damage. I’m not even sure where to put it on the severity scale, because Donner stopped talking after they realized what happened.

Imagine that, BEFORE it was repaired, on top of a fresh hip replacement, spending almost a year trying to get help from the VA. IMAGINE THAT.