Hello, all.
I'm new here. I was invited by Sweet Sue after posting in her Pain Relief thread. Though she thought she could help me there, she did invite me here.
My body presents a complex array of problems that I must manage. I'll tell you how I currently manage them later in this posting. First of all, I'll tell you about the difficulties I live with on a daily basis.
First of all, there's the back pain due to an injury from either running hard or moving. I did both on the same day and woke the next morning unable to move. Literally unable to move. I had to crawl to the bathroom to piss and cried/screamed all the way. That was almost 20 years ago, and since then I've been hospitalized for it, been taken to emergency in ambulances for it, couldn't get out of bed for weeks because of it, had to have my wife hold a jar for me to piss in while in bed because I couldn't twist enough to hold the jar myself, and a whole host of daily maintenance regimes to deal with because of everyday pain. My back presents excruciating difficulties for me. It is the reason that I have shots every week and epidurals every week at the pain clinic I attend. And it is the reason that I am about to be prescribed Medical Marijuana here in Alberta, Canada - a rare thing in this province.
The next condition I live with is my Bipolar Disorder and the debilitating depressive episodes that last months at a time. I also go manic, don't get me wrong, but I live on a daily basis with the depression. Depression that sucks the life right out of me. Depression that has me considering suicide very realistically. I've even found myself at the edges of tall buildings trying to decide whether a fall from that height and aiming for the wrought iron fence spikes would be enough to kill me or just wound me. I certainly didn't want to live with the shame of having tried to kill myself and not succeeded, but I certainly did want to succeed at killing myself. That happened more than once. That is my depression that I live with.
The third condition that I live with, and possibly the one that presents itself most noticably during my daily life, is my Generalized Anxiety Disorder. My anxiety disorder has caused me to crawl under the edges of windows to ensure that no one from outside could see me -- even when I've lived where no one could possibly see me, like now when I live on a farm in Central Alberta. No one for miles, and still I can be found crawling under the windows, terrified that someone is out there. It causes me to cry nonstop sometimes, for fear of unknown imaginings. It takes away my capacity to deal with my life, because I cannot open the mail (my wife has been doing that for years), I cannot open my emails, I cannot answer the phone, and I cannot answer the door. I'm just too terrified of what is out there to meet me head on. Just too terrified of the repurcussions of dealing with my life. My anxiety disorder I deal with on a constant basis, for I am constantly terrified of the day around me.
Currently, I deal with the back pain through a complex array of opoids and other medications and treatments. You already know i go weekly for pain shots that cause me pain in their own right. My Fentanyl patch is up to 200 mcg/hr, twice the normal dosage, and I change it every 2 days, rather than every 3 days like everyone else. I also have a running prescription for Tylenol 4s. They are used for breakout pain, for when the Fentanyl is not doing enough of a good job and pain breaks out from within. Lately, I've been popping the T4s like they are candy because there is so much breakout pain. This is a sign that the Fentanyl is not working anymore, and either needs to be upped or an alternate medication found. The doctor had been talking about Methodone for my back, until I suggested the cannabis that I'm about to be prescribed by my pain clinic.
The depression is controlled by a powerful atypical antipsychotic that does wonders in both reducing the depression and also reducing the anxiety tremendously. The mania symptoms are controlled with Lithium, and I haven't been hospitalized in the psych ward in over 3 years now because of the Lithium. The name of my powerful atypical antipsychotic is Latuda, and I take 80 mg per evening, a very large dose. The anxiety breakouts are (somewhat) controlled by Ativan (Lorazepam). I am prescribed 4 mg per day, and I usually must use it all, though I do have some in reserve in case I need it. I have the extra from days when I didn't take my full dosage for whatever reason.
And I'm here for help.
On 25 Jan 17 I will see a new doctor at the pain clinic, and he will determine a calendar schedule to reduce and eventually go off the Fentanyl patch and the T4s. If you had asked me one month ago, before considering cannabis therapy, what I would have thought of going off my Fentanyl I would have said you were crazy. Why go off a medication that has treated my pain for so long? I have an inkling of what that daily pain is like, for whenever I forget to change my patch that day is pure hell with pain. And gawd knows, I remember what life was like before the Fentanyl and T4s. Life was hard. Walking was hard. Twisting was hard. Bending was hard. Sitting was hard. You get the picture?
But that was then, and this is now. I am resigned to using cannabis to treat my pain. And if my pain, why not my anxiety and depression, too? I haven't used cannabis, apart from some isolated events where my son in law purchased me some to treat my pain, since I was 15, over 34 years ago! I'm certainly not a pothead asking for medical marijuana so that I can treat my addiction to the devil's weed legally, rather than through illegal means. And I mean to make it work for me. I plan on working as hard as I can to determine the correct dosages and the right methods of ingestion whatever they may be, whether they be sublingual, suppositories, through the gut, whatever. I just need some help if figuring it all out is all.
So I am asking the kind and generous support and help from this group of users assembled here. I'm sure my new doctor will know a lot about dosing. But I'm sure you all will know a lot more.
As I mentioned, I will not be going to see this new doctor until 25 Jan 17. I will not be allowed to use cannabis legally until then. I do, however, have an illegal grow happening in my back bedroom closet (the new tent only arrived 2 days ago and is not yet set up because I cannot lift it). I am growing 2 Big Bud seeds and 2 Pineapple Express seeds. I thought the Big Bud would be good for my pain and my anxiety, adn that the Pineapple Express would be good for my depression and some residual pain. I also thought that the Pineapple Express would help my wife-bot with her debilitating depression, too. She's willing to try any tinctures I make up for her (the girl has an inordinate amount of trust in me, methinks!). My closet girls -- or my demented little girls, as I like to call them -- are 18 days old today. One of the Big Buds is stunted because of light burn when I had my 600w LED too close to them. She is recovering, but slowly though. The others are doing fine, if a little stunted from having lived their first week and a half in 68 degree F weather, before I realized just how cold it was in that back bedroom and before I installed a small space heater in the closet to keep my DLGs warm.
So, with all that, I leave you for the night. I hope you will digest all the stuff I've had to say. Much of it is important in dealing with treating my illnesses, but I'm sure much of it could have been left unsaid.
And so, good night. Adieu. Auf Wiedersehn. Ciao. And, ta da....
That got a laugh rikvasen. Lol! 
