I recently decided to stop managing my fibromyalgia pain with prescription pharmaceuticals. So over the last two weeks, I have started to use full-time cannabis to manage my pain instead.
Week 1 was the week of Thanksgiving. I visited some friends in Tacoma from Sunday, November 18 through Saturday, November 24. Although the week away was overall relaxed and restorative, my two travel days were the most difficult in terms of pain and pain management.
First of all, I had an 8.5-hour bus ride from to and from Tacoma. During my planning, I didn’t take into account how few breaks we would take along the way. Most of the trip was meh, but there were a few times I had to go to the “bathroom” (ew) to sneak a drag or two from my vape pen to calm my nauseous stomach. I already deal with nausea throughout the day, but the Bus Driver was an erratic driver and I get car sick super easily. I also couldn’t lay down, so unless I was able to stand up and stretch, my body was constantly cramping. With a sold out bus full of holiday travelers like myself, I was squished and stuck in place half the time.
Thankfully, I spent the rest of the week relaxing with my friends. We had an awesome time! My friends consume cannabis as well, so I didn’t have to be as discreet with my smoking. I took that as an opportunity to test out a few dosing options. I decided to take a proactive pain management approach, and decided to take 2 to 3, 5-second per drags from my vape pen. Both options managed my pain just fine; however, I learned the hard way that 3 drags made it difficult to function for the first hour after consumption. I also learned that 3 to 4 drags before bed helped me sleep and reduced the intensity and frequency of my muscle spasms. In the morning I took 2 to 3 drags to fight of my daily, morning nausea. No, I’m not pregnant. I just have fibro (*cries*).
My schedule was much more hectic during Week 2. My daytime consumption was far less structured than week 1. Although, I did manage to maintain my morning and bedtime routine, I seemed to consistently underestimate the dosing required for certain activities. With the vape pen, I take a few drags; with a bong, I need an entire bowl. But not always, I guess? I’ve had to do a lot of experimenting.
Which wasn’t an issue for most of the week. Then I missed the mark by a lot on Thursday. Not only did I underdose, I didn’t consume often enough for the intensity of the work I was doing. Hold on to your hats, y’all! I was a busy bee! You’ll be so impressed…
First I rode the bus as close to the grocery store as I could get, and then walked a mile to get to said grocery store. Despite my best efforts to keep myself warm with multiple layers, the cold wind pierced my clothes and sank into my muscles. Ouch. Thankfully, I was able to rest for awhile at the grocery store before I went home.
Even though I medicated every few minutes while I was walking outside, by the time I got home, I was exhausted. I didn’t worry about dosing. I wrapped myself in a few blankets, smoked a bowl of Moonshine Haze, and gave myself an hour to just be stoned and watch TV. I wanted to rest longer than that but I needed to get some cleaning done for my own mental health. After an hour, I was still feeling the buzz. I decided to just throw on my headphones and get to work. I thought it would be enough to get me through. It was not. I had to take a few smoke breaks.
My back still seized up when I laid down to rest afterwards. My left-knee joined in with some hefty throbbing a few minutes in. Eventually I peeled myself off the bed, and smoked some more flower. For the first time in a long time, I couldn’t get high enough to touch the fibro pain. I had to pack the last two bowls with about a quarter of the way with kief!
What I learned from all of this is that concentrates might be the best choice for accurate dosing as well as discreet accessibility. I’ll continue to use my vape pen in public, but I’m going to try using Rick Simpson Oil (RSO) at home. I’m going to put RSO into a dropper bottle my friend gave me. If I have success with dosing that way, I might consider trying to discreetly consume RSO in public. It’ll be a challenge. Using a dropper bottle in public is far more obvious than a vape pen. However, I’ve heard that people put it in drinks too. Maybe I could dose my water and drink that over a longer period of time? I just worry that the smell of the RSO might stain my water bottle and my breath. I guess I’ll find out when I buy some this week! From what I’ve seen so far, 1-gram of RSO ranges anywhere from $10 to $20 in my area. If RSO turns out to be more financially sustainable than cartridges, and doesn’t make me smell like the stoner I am, then I might switch to RSO exclusively. Stay tuned for next week’s update!
