So my Crohn's has been keeping me from getting a job for quite some time now, and the pain has only been getting worse. After a long wait for my medication to kick in and realizing it wasn't really doing anything for me, I had another long wait for them to test whether I was making antibodies against it, found out I wasn't, and am waiting yet again to see what my options are aside from "get the medicine more often" because it wasn't helping me in the first place.
Long story short, I'm in pain more often than not, constantly fatigued, and have issues with anxiety and insomnia, mostly all related to the Crohn's, and I don't anticipate those issues being gone any time terribly soon. And unfortunately, there's not really any readily available pain relief treatment for this disease. Either the main medication does its job to get you into remission, or it doesn't.
Cue the curiosity about using CBD for symptom relief! Not only is it one of the only things I've seen people say has worked for them, but a lot of people swear by it. I've never had the opportunity to try it because it's pretty expensive, and since it's not FDA-regulated, there's no specific type or dosage recommended by doctors to try.
Well, my grandma came for a visit the other day and gave me a pack of gummies she'd gotten from a friend of hers, thinking they might help. This is where we both went wrong, not doing more research into the different types and ingredients first. These particular gummies contained Delta-8, which I did not know at the time was anything special.
I took a single gummy before bed (the package said to start with only one and wait about an hour or 2 before deciding whether to take more, so I figured 1 was a safe place to start). About an hour in, I was incredibly dizzy and drowsy. I tried to lay down and go to sleep, but the room just kept spinning. I started feeling random twitches/spasms all over my body. My arms, face, and feet felt numb and kind of tingly. Nothing felt real; I was trapped somewhere between being awake and being asleep, unable to either go to sleep or fully wake up and focus. Then the anxiety set in and my heart was pounding, but I could barely move or speak. Any time I tried to focus my eyes or wake up more, the dizziness would just increase and I'd feel like I was going to pass out. My mouth was so dry it hurt.
I managed to grab my phone and tried calling and texting my friend in the other room, but she was fast asleep. Fearing some kind of severe allergic reaction that was only getting worse, I eventually called 911.
They sent cops and paramedics to the house, and they were pretty damn rude. They treated me like some kind of stupid teenage junkie, even smart-mouthing me about the laundry I had on my floor and me not remembering which pair of pants held my ID. The cop made a big show of throwing the gummies away, and they kept talking down to me as if I needed to be taught some valuable lesson about not doing drugs.
Things at the hospital weren't much better. I threw up during the ambulance ride and could still barely move, so aside from managing to wipe most of it off myself with a towel, I was stuck lying there in puke-soaked shorts for quite some time while people hovered over me and scolded me for "laying in my own vomit" and not changing into the gown... even though I still could barely move and had no way of doing it myself.
I also overhead someone talking about/describing my chest to someone else at one point. It's relevant here that I am trans (ftm) and have not had top surgery, so they seemed to find that to be a point of curiosity.
The whole experience was humiliating and stressful, made worse by the fact that I was stuck in the twilight between consciousness and unconsciousness and barely able to move the entire time. Only toward the end of my stay, when I started feeling better, did I encounter more polite and helpful people who used my chosen name, offered me a blanket, actually helped me change into the gown, and didn't talk to me like I was a child they were disappointed in.
I guess they were right about one thing, a lesson was learned here. The moral of the story is not "CBD is bad", though. It's "do more research because not all types are created equal". I also learned you can have a UTI without showing obvious symptoms. At least I got an antibiotic out of the ordeal. :^/
And I will say one thing, I didn't experience an ounce of stomach pain the entire time. Normally, that kind of stress would have me doubled over and praying for death. So hey, it technically worked.
Long story short, I'm in pain more often than not, constantly fatigued, and have issues with anxiety and insomnia, mostly all related to the Crohn's, and I don't anticipate those issues being gone any time terribly soon. And unfortunately, there's not really any readily available pain relief treatment for this disease. Either the main medication does its job to get you into remission, or it doesn't.
Cue the curiosity about using CBD for symptom relief! Not only is it one of the only things I've seen people say has worked for them, but a lot of people swear by it. I've never had the opportunity to try it because it's pretty expensive, and since it's not FDA-regulated, there's no specific type or dosage recommended by doctors to try.
Well, my grandma came for a visit the other day and gave me a pack of gummies she'd gotten from a friend of hers, thinking they might help. This is where we both went wrong, not doing more research into the different types and ingredients first. These particular gummies contained Delta-8, which I did not know at the time was anything special.
I took a single gummy before bed (the package said to start with only one and wait about an hour or 2 before deciding whether to take more, so I figured 1 was a safe place to start). About an hour in, I was incredibly dizzy and drowsy. I tried to lay down and go to sleep, but the room just kept spinning. I started feeling random twitches/spasms all over my body. My arms, face, and feet felt numb and kind of tingly. Nothing felt real; I was trapped somewhere between being awake and being asleep, unable to either go to sleep or fully wake up and focus. Then the anxiety set in and my heart was pounding, but I could barely move or speak. Any time I tried to focus my eyes or wake up more, the dizziness would just increase and I'd feel like I was going to pass out. My mouth was so dry it hurt.
I managed to grab my phone and tried calling and texting my friend in the other room, but she was fast asleep. Fearing some kind of severe allergic reaction that was only getting worse, I eventually called 911.
They sent cops and paramedics to the house, and they were pretty damn rude. They treated me like some kind of stupid teenage junkie, even smart-mouthing me about the laundry I had on my floor and me not remembering which pair of pants held my ID. The cop made a big show of throwing the gummies away, and they kept talking down to me as if I needed to be taught some valuable lesson about not doing drugs.
Things at the hospital weren't much better. I threw up during the ambulance ride and could still barely move, so aside from managing to wipe most of it off myself with a towel, I was stuck lying there in puke-soaked shorts for quite some time while people hovered over me and scolded me for "laying in my own vomit" and not changing into the gown... even though I still could barely move and had no way of doing it myself.
I also overhead someone talking about/describing my chest to someone else at one point. It's relevant here that I am trans (ftm) and have not had top surgery, so they seemed to find that to be a point of curiosity.
The whole experience was humiliating and stressful, made worse by the fact that I was stuck in the twilight between consciousness and unconsciousness and barely able to move the entire time. Only toward the end of my stay, when I started feeling better, did I encounter more polite and helpful people who used my chosen name, offered me a blanket, actually helped me change into the gown, and didn't talk to me like I was a child they were disappointed in.
I guess they were right about one thing, a lesson was learned here. The moral of the story is not "CBD is bad", though. It's "do more research because not all types are created equal". I also learned you can have a UTI without showing obvious symptoms. At least I got an antibiotic out of the ordeal. :^/
And I will say one thing, I didn't experience an ounce of stomach pain the entire time. Normally, that kind of stress would have me doubled over and praying for death. So hey, it technically worked.
