I am kind of surprised at how few threads I see on here that discuss this. I would think it would be a hot topic. I thought I would share my own experience and would be interested in your own.
I recently started smoking pot after I retired, I had gone 25 years with maybe smoking it only a few times. I use it frequently but in very small amounts and only once a day in the morning. 1/4 ounce will last me close to a year. So, I spend about 25 cents a day on it.
Side effects, in the past 3 years I can only identify a couple of side effects. A sharp reccuring pain that only lasts for a few seconds on the left side of my head. If I am only smoking a couple of times a week I don't experience it. Once I start getting the pain I have to lay off for 3 days for it to stop showing up.
The other thing is a facial twitch from the eye to the mouth mostly on the left side of my face. This is aggravated by what I term creative anxiety. I get overly excited about projects and then other commitments pull me away or interupt me and the twitch sets in. If I lay off a few days it goes away on its own.
The affect it has on me. I get a little spacey, very philosophical and creative. I prefer not to drive for several hours after smoking. It makes me horny but not to the point where I can't focus on my work.
I can stay focused but not laser focused, I tend to drift from one thought pattern to another but all in the same related field.
A high will last me for about 6 hours with lingering effects up to about 12 hours.
If for some reason I decide to smoke a little more the boost is very short lived and will pretty much end my high for the day. For example if I got a call and someone told me I had to be somewhere in 2 hours I could take one more hit and it would bring me down.
Overall I feel it has dramaticaly improved the quality and productivity of my life primarily because my attitude gets better.
Lastly, I had a big problem with choking and coughing with pot, expecially the first hit. I tried rolling pinners and smoking from a pipe but still choked and coughed. I recently discovered that if I roll a big fatty it smokes smoother and I don't cough.
I’ve enjoyed cannabis since childhood (well, late teens). When I got headaches (haven’t had one in decades) it was my go-to. An ounce can last me six weeks or so.
Smoking from a glass-pipe and taking small hits keeps me from coughing. That or vaporizing.
The eye pain and twitch could be related to sinus irritation. I used to get pain like that when I smoked certain brands of cigarettes.
I still cough when I smoke weed, my throat gets dry very quickly. For medical use their are a lot of alternatives to smoking such as brownies.
A lot of kids these days use a vaporizer, a device that heats the weed to vaporize the active ingredients without producing significant smoke. Older smokers often say it doesn’t work well, as if the harsh smoke and coughing were tied to getting high.
My 80 year old mother has suffered from Restless Leg Syndrome for several years. She’s been to many different doctors, tried all kinds of medication, exercise, acupuncture, change of diet and any other medical advise. Nothing has helped and she hasn’t has a decent night’s sleep in ten years.
I’ve suggested she try marijuana since I’ve read many articles about the benefits to Parkinson’s sufferers as well as RLS and other related disorders.
She flatly refused to try it since “pot is illegal and makes you crazy like the people in Reefer Madness. Plus, Nancy Reagan said to say No, plus it’s a gateway drug that will set me on a dangerous course with heroin and cocaine and I’ll end up murdered in a back alley. What would the neighbors think?”
I’m slightly exaggerating the last part, but her pre-hippy generation tends to not be as open to using pot for medical benefits as others might be.
This past year she had surgery for a torn rotator cuff. She was prescribed the lightest strength of hydrocodone and it wasn’t helping. One night while trying to sleep she was extremely uncomfortable with post-surgery pain along with a flare up of restless legs.
She called me up crying in unbearable pain. She refused my suggestion to take another hydrocodone for fear of ODing or going against the prescriptions instructions.
I drove to her house with a little pot and a pipe and insisted she just TRY one hit to see if it would help. Out of pain and desperation she took a hit and by the time she took 3 steps to sit down on the couch her pain was gone.
Thankfully,medical marijuana is legal in my state. She now has her own pot card and gets a full 8 hours of restful, pain free sleep every night.
It’s kinda funny when my 5 year old son and I pop over to Grandma’s for a visit. He says sometimes her house smells like “skunk farts”.
I’ve been thinking about medical marijuana quite a bit lately, actually.
I have restless leg syndrome, I guess. My legs twitch uncontrollably when I try to sleep, but I still think RLS is a wacky made-up affliction.
I do certainly have high blood pressure and a LOT of anxiety. I could easily get my doc to prescribe anti-anxiety meds for me, but I just don’t like the way those made me feel when I was on them in college.
I’ve been thinking about asking her about MMJ, but it just seems so weird. Like, do people just ask their regular doctor for an MJ card? Or do I need to go to one of those shady “clinics” in the shitty part of town to see their “doctors”? My other hesitations are that I don’t want to feel high. I work in sales, so I need to be focused and “on” at work, so being all spaced out won’t work for me. I also hate smoking anything, so I’d have to look into other ways of ingesting the weed.
Just my overall attitude and life have improved. I don’t seem to have the aches and pains as much as before which were getting me down badly. It helps with my insomnia. Helps a little too much with my appetite.
I had RLS for my whole life, until my doctor had me try Tramadol. I take 2 at bedtime and my legs do not move the whole night. For me, it really was a miracle drug.
You’re incredibly lucky if you have a low enough baseline appetite that you’d ever need to increase it, even a little.
Weed is a great drug, but I’ve struggled all my life to keep my weight/appetite in check and the last thing I need is a drug making me ravenously hungry (which weed tends to do). For that reason I stopped using it regularly a long time ago, and probably never will again (not regularly, that is - I’m still hopeful for the day when it’s legalized here).
Some strains are worse than others when it comes to munchies.
I would take a single toke in the morning, never get a buzz or munchies and not have anxiety most of the day if it was legal where I live. I can get as many benzos and ant-psychotics as my insurance will handle of course.
