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1964dodge

Has a monkey as a friend
Safety & Support
SF Supporter
I'm sorry you are in a spike right now mike. Am I hearing you correctly? that the mmj will help with the spikes? Do you have enough of the chocolate right now for yourself? And are you able to bump up the muscle relaxer if you want?
I'm glad you are seeing evidence of it working some for you*hi5*hug
thank you janis. i can squeeze through next weekend on the mmj then i can use enough to make a difference. bumping up the muscle relaxant will take time because my doctor is cautious but i hope to start to bump it up starting next month. i will always live with pain it's just a matter of degree. right now i live in the 5 or 6 range with spikes hitting 7 and 8 and occassionally 9 and 10 on the 10 scale,

my pain has been higher lately which means i had to be more aggresive with my pain meds. i have already gone through over half of my extras that took me years to build up. with no change i'll be out of extras next month. i am encouraged and believe my pain will get better. mmj between the salve and edible can bring me down 1 or 2 #s for up to 6 and 12 hours. now that i can afford the mmj and getting muscle relaxants i expect to get a lot better in the next few months

it may not happen but i'm hoping by winter to live in the 4 to 5 range with spikes on average to go to 6 and 7 possibly higher but less often. if it wasn't for hope of lowering the pain i would have given up by now. of course the right pain meds would solve this instantly it won't come so i have to think outside the box. i am lucky to have a doctor that lets me try different things. he even trusts me to set my own insulin level.
i used to take 100 units of insulin , 50 tresiba and 50 units of xo;tophy. now i take 2 on the ozempic pen ( once weekly ) and down to only 40 units of tresiba. i am losing weight slowly. i was 330 at the start and down to 293. losing weight will help with the diabetes as well as lowering pain. after my pain meds any gains are usually only 1 or less but add up those small improvements to pain they can add up. sorry this was so long janis just wanted to explain in detail

and of course thank you for caring

mike...*hug*shake
 
a little more than 5 tears ago i almost croaked, actually i croaked twice, once in the ambulance and once in the hospital, i think my wife said the ambulance was a minute or two and the hospital was 2 or 3 minuets. . god called me home and i decided to stay. god has a cruel sense of humor, now he put me on a waiting list lol

i know i'm an old broken record when it comes to my chronic pain. i think it's finally time to end the suffering. since i need to do everything myself i need to take stock of my life including chronic pain/illnesses.

the way i look at it is i have 3 choices.

1. suicide, on the surface it looks like a perfect solution but i have many reasons why i can't go through it.

2. just suffer and try to survive until i get to go home. my doctor and i discussed my time left and as of last year probably 5 to 10 years. i could go tonight and on the outside it could be 20 or 30 more years. not feasible to keep suffering if i live that long

3. rethink all of my pain solutions. i can only get so many opioids and it's not likely to increase soon. since i'm on only around 25% of the opioids i used to get i have to find something else to help.
A) opioid pain meds
B) gabapentin or a replacement for gabapentin
C) muscle relaxant. i need to increase dosage and frequency
D) tens unit. it's a pain in the ass but it does help
E) mmj. i use a 1000 mg chocolate bar, since it's so potent i get 10 to 20 doses per bar. i also use a mmj salve with thc intact.
F) miscellaneous things. i think of other ways to help. i had another pretty bad spike tonight but it's finally going down.

sometimes i have to go through things and change meds etc. i just got over a really anxious financial issue. i had to come up with over a thousand bucks so they didn't disconnect our lights. it was rough but i'm all caught up, this means we have a little extra money. those 1000 mg chocolate bars are $50 or 3/$100 which sounds like a lot but it's worth it. my mmj salve is only $20 and i use 1 or 2 a month. so worse case scenario is $140 a month and makes a big difference. i am so f$#king tired of these bad pain spikes. although when i work on it like this it gives me hope. my mood is good and i know i will win the war on pain, i may lose some battles but i will win the war. i'll probably never ever be pain free again but i know i can get it down to a safe level. and for anyone out here that suffers chronic pain or knows someone who does all i can say is never give up and fight for yourself. most important is having a doctor that works with you

mike
I'm so sorry about your pain Mike..it seems like you're having a tough time..yes you're gonna win the war with Jesus Christ by your side..HUGS Mike..
 
thank you @Lady Wolfshead . if i can keep trying it doesn't seem as hopeless. the non opioid things i try don't work nearly as well. but i look at it this way : if i even lower my pain by less than 1 point it's small but with other things bring the pain down to where i can survive it. the muscle relaxants are showing promise. it's too early to tell but i think it could make a noticable difference. with me able to afford the mmj and the muscle relaxants i have strong hope. the sad thing is it's mostly my fault. i smoked heavy from 11 to 61 so that explains my bad copd and i worked as a weaver in a textile plant. that means running straight out most of the times on concrete floors. and since i was a workaholic that usually worked from 60 to 80 hours a week and a few times over a hundred hours a week he said if it didn't cause my disability it made it a lot worse. do i desrve the chronic pain/illnesses? no but it was my fault

mike....*hug*shake
Nope it's not your fault..You're a hardworking person and done service to the world..Great work that you've done Mike..I'm so sorry about your pain tho..really..
 

1964dodge

Has a monkey as a friend
Safety & Support
SF Supporter
Nope it's not your fault..You're a hardworking person and done service to the world..Great work that you've done Mike..I'm so sorry about your pain tho..really..
thank you. but to be honest if i didn't smoke for 50 years i wouldn't have pretty bad copd, and i was a workaholic. i did work 60 to 80 hours a week minimum. some parts were for money because i had my wife and 3 kids to support plus we helped her parents and mine until the end when we took care of my mom for 12 years. my wife worked which helped so it wasn't necessary to work that much. i was a workaholic and i couldn't change that. actually i lost my fiancee because i was a workaholic. so is it my fault yes but do i deserve to suffer no. we all make mistakes in life and have to live with the consequences. and besides wishing i quit smoking earlier i don't regret my life

mike....*hug*hug*hug10*shake
 
thank you janis. i can squeeze through next weekend on the mmj then i can use enough to make a difference. bumping up the muscle relaxant will take time because my doctor is cautious but i hope to start to bump it up starting next month. i will always live with pain it's just a matter of degree. right now i live in the 5 or 6 range with spikes hitting 7 and 8 and occassionally 9 and 10 on the 10 scale,

my pain has been higher lately which means i had to be more aggresive with my pain meds. i have already gone through over half of my extras that took me years to build up. with no change i'll be out of extras next month. i am encouraged and believe my pain will get better. mmj between the salve and edible can bring me down 1 or 2 #s for up to 6 and 12 hours. now that i can afford the mmj and getting muscle relaxants i expect to get a lot better in the next few months

it may not happen but i'm hoping by winter to live in the 4 to 5 range with spikes on average to go to 6 and 7 possibly higher but less often. if it wasn't for hope of lowering the pain i would have given up by now. of course the right pain meds would solve this instantly it won't come so i have to think outside the box. i am lucky to have a doctor that lets me try different things. he even trusts me to set my own insulin level.
i used to take 100 units of insulin , 50 tresiba and 50 units of xo;tophy. now i take 2 on the ozempic pen ( once weekly ) and down to only 40 units of tresiba. i am losing weight slowly. i was 330 at the start and down to 293. losing weight will help with the diabetes as well as lowering pain. after my pain meds any gains are usually only 1 or less but add up those small improvements to pain they can add up. sorry this was so long janis just wanted to explain in detail

and of course thank you for caring

mike...*hug*shake
I have such respect for you and how you accomplish what you do. Thank you for explaining all that you did above. I'm glad you had the extras build up to tap into with the higher pain you've had but not happy to hear that your reserves got heavily used up. So glad you have the mmj available, what a godsend. Yay on the reduction in the tresiba, may that continue as time goes by. Glad to hear the ozempic seems to be working for you. That's wonderful that you are losing weight and that it will have impact on your DM numbers and pain level experience as it all comes down more. Slow is good from everything I hear on the subject. *hug*hi5
 
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1964dodge

Has a monkey as a friend
Safety & Support
SF Supporter
I have such respect for you and how you accomplish what you do. Thank you for explaining all that you did above. I'm glad you had the extras build up to tap into with the higher pain you've had but not happy to hear that your reserves got heavily used up. So glad you have the mmj available, what a godsend. Yay on the reduction in the tresiba, may that continue as time goes by. Glad to hear the ozempic seems to be working for you. That's wonderful that you are losing weight and that it will have impact on your D.M. numbers and pain level experience as it all comes down more. Slow is good from everything I hear on the subject. *hug*hi5
thank you janis

mike....*hug*shake
 
I meant of good things from the past that don't exist anymore, because of a lowering standard of what's now allowed. Like talking to a machine on the phone instead of person, things like that. People who don't care when others do in general in society
True things are more impersonal now which makes it easier to use or mistreat others. Just like scammers from overseas who scam people out of their life savings, their home etc. They don't have to face their victims.
 
thank you. but to be honest if i didn't smoke for 50 years i wouldn't have pretty bad copd, and i was a workaholic. i did work 60 to 80 hours a week minimum. some parts were for money because i had my wife and 3 kids to support plus we helped her parents and mine until the end when we took care of my mom for 12 years. my wife worked which helped so it wasn't necessary to work that much. i was a workaholic and i couldn't change that. actually i lost my fiancee because i was a workaholic. so is it my fault yes but do i deserve to suffer no. we all make mistakes in life and have to live with the consequences. and besides wishing i quit smoking earlier i don't regret my life

mike....*hug*hug*hug10*shake
Nice Mike😊😊I just hope your pain eases up..🫂🫂
 

1964dodge

Has a monkey as a friend
Safety & Support
SF Supporter
i thought i'd be nice and order out for my wife today. it took me over an hour to figure out what we wanted without breaking the bank. i was watching the progress and it said it was ready and mentioned the driver. then all of a sudden i get a text and call from doordash cancelling the order due to an issue the driver had. so i gave up on door dash and tried grubhub. we got 2 cheeseburgers and 1 large fry from 5 guys,that cost me almost $50 bucks. ouch. let's hope this order goes through

mike
 

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