Any way to reduce consumption without reducing relief?

Have you ever thought about mushrooms! I feel they do more for me than bud. I’ve heard it’s good for PTSD and it takes away my anxiety.

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Well you all are thinking about where I’m at. I have a $70 vape, tastes horrible. Will be getting a Boundless set up when I can afford it, which is not soo. Running way over budget during quarantine here; partly because no income partly because of increased use. So options such as buy a new vape just aren’t realistic. Switching to CBD has been something I’ve tried twice, been burned twice. Locally CBD flower is about 20% cheaper than mids( same price on the street or medical for mids for me anyways) and the taste has always been unusable. I can spend a bit on the CBD flower but if I get something that doesn’t work I’ve massively fucked myself because I can’t buy legit flower for a while then. CBDN is new to me, haven’t been able to explore it due to budget concerns. Most of the products I buy don’t list CBN, but some are starting.

I do have a bit of wax, getting more is easy enough, 1g is the same price as 1/8 of mids. I’ve been getting Cresco popcorn for 160 per half, so I do prefer flower, but I also will be learning BHO extraction at some point, as well as pickup up a rosin press. This is well into the future though. I definitely will look into those candies; my sister wanted to make some anyways.

Shrooms, I for sure want to try. I think micro-dosing is a viable option, but legality. Caretaker is very adverse to illegal activity, so the most I can get away with is things the police aren’t concerned with. My sisters friend was selling pot, and their supplier got raided, after that she would rather never buy off the street again. I myself hate mushrooms as a whole, they creep me right the fuck out, but someone is interested in mycology (not so much the fun kind, but not super opposed). So some mushrooms of some kind will probably find a dark partition in my grow room sometime. Buying shrooms on the current budget is a flat out no, sadly.

I’d love to see extended release patches for micro-dosing; but we live in too new of times. God bless anyone studying these important potential medicines.

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Oh, and yes, I’ve tried glycerin as a tincture based over alcohol and I found it was extremely weak as a solvent. Wax liquidizers use PG and PEG, which works a lot better but tastes far less mild than the glycerin.

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I know this is kinda contrary to this entire thread, but maybe consider ingesting less weed? I also suffer from panic attacks (I fucking hate them and have no idea why they happen, since I really don’t stress about anything, ever), but when I have them, weed is not an option. For me, anyway. Almost every strain I’ve ever blazed always starts with an initial 20-30 minutes of increased heart rate, which is not a good thing when I can’t breathe and my heart’s already pounding and I feel like I’m gonna die. I wish weed worked, but it doesn’t when I’m in the throes of a panic attack. It exacerbates it.

And I agree with @Bob13: exercise, stretching, yoga etc seems to really help. The more I exercise, the better I feel. I can breathe.

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I find it’s a little more enduring the stress to prevent the panic attacks. With heavy usage of the correct strains, I find minimal panic attacks. Usually only when they are triggered. Once it is happening, I have one choice. Take a Xanax, sit down and wait for it to kick in. A bit of the right weed helps a tiny bit. I do suppose it’s ultimately not required and a small concession I can make.

Reducing over all is my current method. I’ve cut out recreational doses for a month or two now. Also days when I’m feeling better than normal, I under medicate. This leads to a poorer quality of life, but little enough to deal with for a while. I can increase my Xanax intake to compensate reduction in cannabis, but eh. That’s a purely money based choice, the actual effectiveness of the is poor.

Ultimately purging THC from your system is the only way. I’m just trying to suffer as little as possible.

PS: I do have a regular schedule to keep to for exercise, and mental health care (immersion therapy or meditation). I find meditation helps only in recovery from a panic attack (although I do regulate my breathing during to resist it) or in stress reduction which leads to far fewer panic attacks for me. Diet has been a very hard one, as I have absolutely no appetite. Nutritional shakes are what I can eat, sometimes cereals or toast. Lean meat. Anything other than that results in severe esophageal pain for 20-30min followed by the irritated esophagus being flooded in stomach acid until the food passes. Then depending what I eat, my IBS causes moderate to severe abdominal pain for… I’m not really sure yet. Maybe an hour.

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Yeah, I hate that whole “Xanax is the only thing that’ll work” thing. But really, most of the time, Xanax (or klonopin etc) is the only thing that works. Which sucks. However, I’d say purging the pharmaceuticals is more important than purging the THC. If you’re gonna purge one thing, purge the pills.

One thing I noticed, a few years ago, I started eating Xanax as prescribed, once in the morning and once at night. I usually just waited to eat one until I was actually having a panic attack, which could be several days, but I was having them so frequently at that time that I just ate one in the morning, one at night, before I even had one. But sometimes I’d forget to eat a pill, like if I woke up in the morning feeling fine, it didn’t even occur to me to eat a Xanax. So I wouldn’t. But then, a few hours later, I’d have a panic attack. It became obvious, after a few weeks of this, that NOT eating Xanax was inducing panic attacks. I think I got addicted to them, even though I wasn’t abusing them.

The pharmaceutical industry is the biggest con out there.

Anyway, once I realized what was happening, I just cold-turkey stopped eating them. Only slept three hours the first night. The second night, I didn’t sleep at all. And I felt like I was having a panic attack non-stop, for hours and hours, my heart was pounding and I couldn’t breathe, but I just rode that shit out. The third night, I was saying to my girlfriend,”This is crazy, I haven’t slept in forty hours…” but I was feeling a little better. Took a shower, got in bed and five minutes later I had a seizure. Almost to the minute, exactly 72 hours after I’d eaten my last Xanax. I don’t remember most of the seizure. The very beginning, I felt it coming on, my throat was vibrating (this all happened in like two seconds) and I knew immediately something was really wrong. Sat up in bed, grabbed my throat and tried to tell my girl,”Call 911,” but it just came out,”Ca-ca-ca-ca!” I couldn’t get it out.

My girl told me I fell out of the bed and was twitching and shit on the ground, all seized up. I don’t remember any of it except the very beginning and then when the paramedics got me in the ambulance and took me to the hospital, which was about fifteen minutes after the seizure happened, according to my GF. Scary shit. I haven’t eaten a pill since. I just deal with the panic attacks, wait it out, try to breathe, sweat for a couple hours, feeling like I’m dying. Exercise. Eat steamed broccoli and chicken for lunch haha. Oatmeal in the morning. I dunno.

I’ve found that the healthier I’m living, the easier it is to deal with the panic attacks. Because it’s all in my mind, kind of. I mean, the inability to breathe and the pounding heart and shit, that’s real, but if I’ve been living healthy, it makes it easier to go,”Dude, you’ve been working out every day, you’ve been eating ridiculously healthy, you’re not dying.” and I believe it. That fucking mantra… “You’re not dying.”

I agree with you re: meditation. It hasn’t helped me at all. In fact, it makes me focus on my heart, which is the last thing I need to be doing when I have a panic attack.

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I’ve found controlling the little things; like your breathing; is a great way to train yourself to fight off panic.(with the help of your regular meds of course; just makes sure they are the right ones)z

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This has changed my anxiety and anger. Insane physical activity to the point of exhaustion. I was so wound up after I got done with the military. That caused anxiety and anger and they will feed each other. The only way I could fix this was a workout that takes the edge off.

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Even just regular physical exertion at work (put speaker a onto speaker b, connect to amp; just lifting, walking, plugging, walking. Keeps you busy. Don’t have to worry about life, just work. I miss exercise a lot; I basically can’t eat enough. I eat maybe 800-1000 calories a day. If I do much more than sit around and get up to get food or whatever I have no energy reserve.
I’ve been doing light free weight exercise to prevent attrition, but that’s kind of about it. I try to stimulate the mind instead, but it hasn’t really helped.

Ive been having some of the same problems. Supplying myself while getting my plants going and burning the wick at both ends. Its wierd but Ive always looked at it on a law of diminishing returns. You have to reset your tolerance on a schedule paired with some stress management. Realizing this is only temporary and will pass. But here… I always start with only smoking weed for however long it takes my tolerance to change then, switch to concentrates (If you want edibles you can add edibles) If you cant change amount, switch delivery methods. You can plan “bad days” around it to stay active or exercise during transitions. Another option is to only smoke one strain for a time then switch. I hope you find some relief. Meditation and Radical Acceptance have been major in my life. Yoga can be great too!

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When you ingest an active substance the first stop is the liver, the cleaning organ, so losses and metabolizing of the substance happens.
Rectal gets around the first pass through the liver vs eating it.

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Ah ha! Thank you @Hydrlizr for bringing the basic science that I was apparently to lazy to look up, despite the fact that it would have made me look far more credible!

See everybody, I’m not totally insane… at least not in this particular case.:joy:

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Oh it made perfect sense to me, that’s why I don’t swallow the RSO but let it dissolve in the mouth. Then it’s bypassing the liver, just the same way it works rectally. RSO in large doses burns the throat so I can see getting tired of that, or with some patients who do not self administer, I guess is easier. I tried to get my Grandmother (who was well into end stage bone cancer and has dementia when she was awake. I can’t say as that would’ve helped.

Actually bypassing the liver is my goal with any product, my liver tends to just eat up drugs; it forces it through my system in one or two hours instead of three or four. Depending on the drug it either feels the same or is magnified. I can’t go near most ADD meds, it’s basically just panic in a pill. Under the tongue is a good spot; would just love it to relieve faster. DMSO is an option, although the potential to carry toxins into your body just as easy as the cannabinoids scares the shit out of me. It just moves thing right into you blood steam it sounds like, if there is any product or surface contaminant the carrier passes it through. Need to read a lot more before messing with it.

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Been using DMSO for quite a while as a pain reliever and transporter.
I wouldnt gloop my hands in engine oil or pesticides before using it, one anecdote is that a footballer used a DMSO pain cream and lay down on a field, apparently it had been sprayed with pesticides, didn’t end well.
Works really well with 50% aloe, takes away most of the sting and tickle, plus bonus salicylic acid and other goodies.

You should be fine as long as you wait a few hours before you start playing with hazardous chemicals, which I doubt you will put in your mouth :slight_smile: .
Since cannabinoids go in through mucous membranes, so do most other things.
DMSO just makes it more and faster.

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Right on man! I’ll have to give it a shot. Moms been wanting some ointment for her hands (RA) that dries fast. Is there a way to tell if it’s still active on the skin, accidental contact or s as a product? I don’t work in the cleanest conditions; heavy metals, random chemicals. That’s just at home!

In all seriousness though, I frequently work with lead and whatever other hazards are on the docket while I DIY my through life, so exposure is likely, but yeah I don’t chew on solder or anything, so would take a spill.

But a fast drying hand ointment would get use from me too if I didn’t have to worry about that. Nitrile glove wouldn’t stand up to work, so that’s pointless to even think about… Maybe bandages? My go to “bandage” is a piece of gauze (cut from a bandaid usually) and electrical tape. Works great in the rain and lets me still work, but those with more sensitive skin have suggested the idea that the adhesive burns their skin. Can’t imagine that’s good to get absorbed. Not sure what all is on conventional bandaid’s.

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Aloe/DMSO should work great for moms RA, dries in 5-10min,very light and when dry it isn’t sticky.
I would just use DMSO products after work or just before bed, its essentially a solvent, it allows active ingredients to penetrate through the fatty barrier in skin, most ibuprofen creams use similar mechanisms.
After dry I doubt it will assist transport very much. I just said hours instead of 20min as a safety.

No negatives yet after 6-7y of usage, except when using repeatedly on skin, you can get a sunburn sensation, had an evil back ache and applied 5-6x a day.

Sometimes I drink down a teaspoon full, nicely calming.

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But it’s soooooo tasty! I mean, I keep trying to stop, but it tastes so good… :woozy_face:

I wish I had something more useful to offer, research wise, science wise, but inevitably any conversation about DMSO eventually reminds me of this. What you should almost certainly, definitely probably, really NOT do with DMSO.
Cuz, just to be clear to all hideous surveillance algorithms out there I DO NOT ADVOCATE THIS.
It’s just a funny song. :smirk:

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Yeah, I often run on adrenaline alone at work, keeps the mind peaceful usually. Granted that I am hauling heavy shit around, I get sore and stiff the next day, that’s when it’s really appreciated. [quote=“Ginger_Rick, post:37, topic:35679”]
But it’s soooooo tasty! I mean, I keep trying to stop, but it tastes so good… :woozy_face:
[/quote]
I tried switching to lead free, but it just wasn’t the same.

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Yeah I hear ya, that RoHS stuff just doesn’t have any zazz. Which is funny y’know, usually the Europeans are all about that old school flavour.

Go figure.

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I did just have to chuckle to myself… how many people in the world have this problem? I can’t solder right now because I put DMSO on my hands and I have to use lead solder because the healthy stuff sucks. Such a specific problem, lmao.

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