I have 17 firm kid RSVPs for Easter and I know that Noah and my kids have invited people who are not emailing me but who plan to come. I don’t know how many. I said about five more hoping that they haven’t invited more than eight people but I really don’t know.
The kids and I are weeding like mad to shape the plants for ease of hiding eggs. Right now the grass (that I didn’t plant and I don’t want) is growing like a forking jungle because of the rain. It’s good for hiding eggs if I keep it out of the plants I don’t want to choke out. Which requires a lot of hours of very careful weeding.
Oh it’s so fun. What is wrong with me? Why is yanking things out of the ground so god damn satisfying? It just is.
I’m adding plants, because that was always in my plan. I’ve avoided planting close to the house for years because I knew I wanted to paint. Flowers flowers flowers flowers. Oh golly gee my yard is so colorful and wonderful. When I walk around I feel excited. LOOK AT ALL THE COLORS OH MY GOSH THIS IS SO AWESOME.
In non-Easter news… I don’t have all the details yet, but my massage therapist wants me to host a massage party where she and some of her friends come to my house with massage chairs. She says she has done this before and it’s fun. Oh. Hunh. Well, I’ll ask around… Anyone think they might be interested in such a thing? She’s very reasonably priced ($1/minute) and one of the best therapeutic massage therapists I’ve experienced in many years of seriously hunting out body care. She can pick up my nerves and put them back into place so that my arms stop burning. She can do this grab and yank think that causes my back pain to practically go away and that injury happened when I was approximately 9 years old. Being able to make progress on my back issues is really a big deal. She’s fantastic at her job.
Let me know if you might be interested.
She’s the reason I am able to stand erect after all these months of tile work. She’s kind of a miracle worker.
I’m doing a bunch of research on Lamictal and I’m feeling kind of afraid. Yesterday I had a very sore jaw, an upset stomach, and my nose was running like a faucet. All of those are considered common side effects.
Here’s one passage of data about it and pregnancy:
So it’s not a big pregnancy risk in terms of deformity. But pot doesn’t have any increase in deformity at all. None.
I’m having a lot of mixed, cranky feelings about my med doctor disliking pot as much as she does. She says that she doesn’t want me to use it because there aren’t real studies proving that it works and there aren’t real studies PROVING that it is safer than the other drugs she wants me on. She describes my pot level as being extreme. Bud tenders call me a microdoser. That’s a hilarious combination. Also: it seems to be really common for folks to get up to the same multiple of dosage I use for pot with other psych drugs. So it’s not like her real argument is, “No one should use 20x’s the base dose of any drug.” Her argument is: “You are self selecting when you need more marijuana and obviously you can’t be trusted to evaluate your own needs.”
She doesn’t say that. But that’s what she means. And I’m feeling really cranky. Because you know what pot doesn’t do? It doesn’t increase my god damn stomach pain. It doesn’t make my nose drip. It doesn’t make my jaw ache.
BUT I SHOULD STOP BEING A DIRTY DRUG USER AND START BEING A GOOD COMPLIANT PATIENT, WHAT THE FUCK.
I’m feeling nervous and cranky and irritated because pot helps with: stomach pain, digestion issues, nausea, anxiety, depression, AND pain. Lamictal so far? Uhm… it’s supposed to flatline my emotions more, but it will otherwise have no positive and many negative effects on my body.
Why isn’t she encouraging me to do the thing that increases my quality of life substantially without causing me problems?
I have sadness.
This is what “help” looks like.
Conform and comply with demands to prove that you “trust the system” and you are a good patient. The actual impact of the help upon your life can’t be the measure of success. The measure of success is your compliance with demands.
My body is very medication resistant. I NOW HAVE GOD DAMN GENE TESTS THAT THIS SAME GOD DAMN DOCTOR PERFORMED to know this for a fact. It isn’t my imagination. I’m not making it up. I have to use a substantially higher than average amounts of any medication because my body flushes drugs like whoa. Then I have less positive effect and more side effects. THIS FUCKING WOMAN GAVE ME THE TEST THAT PROVED THAT THIS ISN’T IN MY HEAD IT IS IN MY GOD DAMN GENES.
But the drug that does the most good for me? Oh no! Due to an oppressive drug regime we haven’t Properly Studied It With Science therefore the thousands of years that people have been using it with great effect Just Doesn’t Count.
This is part of why I get so angry about the way people use science as a religion/weapon.
Instead I must use this Pharmaceutical Medication Which Science Invented And Says Is So Awesome. By The Way A White Guy Will Get Rich And Isn’t That Just How The World Should Work?
I’m way the fuck low on pot in my body because she asked me to downgrade my pot usage like whoa so I can feel the Lamictal effect. Also, because it is mildly sedating I’m not supposed to use much pot because of possible driving impact.
So my body feels like absolute shit and I’m so fucking angry I want to punch walls.
I JUST ASKED IF I COULD HAVE MORE ATIVAN FOR OCCASIONAL SLEEP HELP. WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK IS THIS MESS?
I use like 5 Ativan in a 3 month period. My usage of it is very reasonable and appropriate and good. Pot is my primary drug because it is so god damn effective.
Yes, my tolerance climbs fast. IT’S ALMOST LIKE WE KNEW THAT WAS UNAVOIDABLE.
The funny thing is: that website I quoted above with the pregnancy data? That’s prescribing Lamictal for depression which is only a subset of my mental health problems. For anxiety, which is a much much bigger chunk of my mental health problems they recommend Ativan. WHICH IS WHAT I WENT INTO THE DOCTOR ASKING FOR.
Ativan is risky with consistent use, but I use 5 pills in 3 months. I’m not at risk from it. As opposed to a daily pill. And the risk is an additional deformity in 10,000 cases instead of additional cases out of 100 patients.
That doesn’t seem like as big of a risk to me. Looking at the zeroes.
I’m so stupid with how I hate science and reference research constantly.
Oh, the pot also really helps with my ADHD impulsivity. Guess what Lamictal won’t help with?
I don’t understand doctors.
I fear drugs, all of them. No matter what it is I’m terrified that it will trigger my vertigo.
When my vertigo hasn’t spontaneously hit me it’s been triggered by pot, Prozac, and fue some reason ginkgo.
This most recent blunt of vertigo I got desperate and went to the ER. They gave me diazepam, it worked. After 30 years I finally found something that actually helps this problem.
Oooh but these pills scare me, I’ve read about the risks of getting addicted to them and holy crap I don’t want that to happen.
If I were you, I’d find another doctor. This one is obviously doing more harm than good.
I have a friend who is immune to pain killers, they just don’t work. However chili peppers seemed to help.
Medicine is based on the premise that every human on the planet is identical and can all be treated the same. If you can find a doctor who knows better then that you’d be much better off.
Thank you.
God damn it.
I would definitely find another doctor if I was in your shoes, even knowing how fraught that is.
1. My personal approach to new meds is I allow about one week to see if side effects settle, and less than that if side effects are horrible and very obviously connected. I allow exceptions for things like prednisone whuch are veryvery effective immediately but alsohave nightmare side effects. Im starting prednisone again right now, eep. I allow 2 weeks to 2 months to evaluate if a drug is actually helping. I have never had to evaluate pregnancy risks though.
2…..The measure of any mental illness and any drug abuse begins with the question of whether it causes HARM. What the fuck kind of incompetent doctor uses puritan logic instead of science? Its one thing if a doc says x drinks per day is shown to cause liver problems long term in most people. Or smoking any substance can cause lung damage pr or or. One could argue, and its a stretch, that the pot causes harm in the sense that you are taking time away from kids to use it, hypothetical legal risks and potential lung risks and cost….but I think, in terms of actual HARM, that you have so so so much evidence that it is helping and making you more functional. I don’t see memory problems, I see benefits to your nutrition, I see it benefiting your kids in so many ways, I see you use conscientiously around them, and I think you are really fucking brave to explore other scary options that might reduce costs, legal risks, dosing convenience, and make it easier and safer to travel. I hope you find something better.
3. A thought. Some, not all, VA groups are pot friendly and realistic about its benefits for PTSD. I wonder if any of them might have insight into other medications that might also help or serve as good adjuncts?
Saw your other post so I thought Id elaborate a little. Zomig I only tried once. It had me so sedated I was drooling on myself, and I thought it was dangerous. It also didnt help. Effexor was a nightmare on day one. I decided to go off of it after the 3rd dose or so, but it took 2 or 3 months because of horrific withdrawal. Prozac I tried for a year or 3? Never had any side effects, didnt help any symptoms, BUT I stayed on it so long because it made my doctors pester me less and take my physical symptoms more seriously at that time. I also used it to wean off Effexor. Other drugs…..i went off several asthma inhalers after 1 dose because they made me throw up immediately. Very glad i tried a 4th one which works great. I tried Topamax and Depakote for a few months, the Topamax made me drop a substantial amount of weight and i was not able to eat enough to regain. Doctor pulled me off finally after i explained i was eating a pint of ice cream nightly and still losing. I dont remember the depakote side effects. Keppra I stayed on for a month and doc pulled that after my hair started falling out. It didnt actually bother me though.
OTC supplements are different for me in that I want to see NO side effect and a clear positive effect because of the cost and my own skepticism. I gave glucosamine 6 months, several different forms, before stopping bc it didnt improve my knee pain or function. Lysine I stopped after a year. Cranberry I also gave a year…i switched from an iron supplement to a MVI with a small dose of iron after 2 months bc it was enough to have my blood test normal without side effects. B and d vitamins i had improved memory and energy within a week, and finally test normal, so im still on those. Its a lot of trial and error and things you wouldnt expect interact with other things.
Again I hope you can find something that works. I think the question of how long to put up with side effects (while waiting for something good) is so very personal and individual.
Thank you for sharing this information about your process.
I’ve all but stopped smoking so I’m not away from the kids like I was. At this point I take pills at meals.
That part came out wrong maybe? I wasn’t trying to say you were spending lots of time away from your kids. I was saying that if a doctor was looking at your life, and being an ethical professional, amount and quality of time spent with your kids would be a legitimate way to measure harm and benefit. Or they could be unethical and just go “pot bad illegal therefore bad”. Another measure of harm could be people you bring into your house, if there were drug dealers with guns, or people jumping fences to get pot plants. Those dont apply in your case but a medical professional who was being ethical but ignorant about you could go there, right?
I keep thinking about parallels with opiates. These are drugs with big risks, big harms, and also big benefits. An ethical doctor would look at the individual circumstances of their patient, right? Rather than a knee jerk response of “opiates always bad and this one protocol works for all patients”. A patient with pancreatic cancer is different from a patient with a broken bone. A patient who is on several sedating meds would have to be dosed more carefully. Two patients with the same diagnosis are two different people with possibly different needs. Etc etc
I really dont get why doctors are so bizarre about pot.
I didn’t take it as an aspersion. I have historically worried about that and I’ve taken steps to make sure it isn’t a problem. 🙂
Oh also ive seen several other parents who….dont have the healthy relationship with pot that you do, in my opinion. I think you are doing great in that respect. Its an honor to get to see the way you interact with your kids and learn from you.