Medical Marijuana Patients Support Group

At the traditional family birthday dinner so many questions applied to my recent ponderings over MMj I finally brought it up to the whole family, I was not going to do that. I was in hospital for rehab for a month when I got C&S and they came from all over the US to be involved in my treatment. I did not want to concern them with this.

It turns out they all support me in this and are not concerned. Neither am I after having given it so much thought and discussion with friends, family, you and others. A complete mind-set change.

Yesterday was a particularly good active day. I think it had to do with finally getting parts in to rebuild my espresso machine after 3 weeks of no coffee. Espresso helps me with morphine lethargy otherwise I don't think I would drink it.

I find any significant change "can" affect my RSD symptoms, even mood. Regular gentle aerobic exercise helps prevent dramatic change caused by increased activity. I am not as regular at aerobics as I should be but I try to stay prepared for trips/activities in this way because I hate being seen in pain or unable to participate as fully as I think I should be able to.

Quitting cigarettes is easy, I do it several times a week (really!) but I wish I could quit for more than a few hours. They just did not have the immediate viable impact on my life for me to have the motivation to follow through, but after reading your post I did some checking...

http://websdone.net/forms/RSD%20Severity.pdf

13. Nicotine: Recovery is made almost impossible by nicotine because it stimulates sympathetic activity and muscle spasm. No treatment for RSD/CRPS is likely to help in the presence of nicotine. Quitting is an important first step to recovery from RSD

http://whyquit.com/whyquit/LinksJBlood.html

Nicotine limits blood circulation.

I will give cigarettes a more serious try. Make me work anew on all those relaxation and tension release exercises I learned for pain. I admire you in quitting smoking... and coffee at the same time? Wow! But that makes sense and good for you! I wish you peace and endurance in your endeavors.

I leave town tomorrow to go to a meeting on MMj (with family), will be back soon.

Hugs,

Scott

If I drink a lot of caffine my back will go out on me. The nicotine part is interesting to me, bc this is actually the first time I've quit smoking without much use of the patch. I got really sick after two days, which has never happened before when I've quit. In whatever case, I am not too sure why I got sick this time.

I read the PDF you left in the last post and was struck by the detachment issues associated with RSD. I am really interested in that, bc since my accident I have noticed a particular tendency that I have to not make new friends. It isn't that the opportunity is there, and it isn't like I ever had issues with that before. I just really have an aversion to trusting new people, but I never thought this was a common thing with RSD. In a strange, unrelated way, MMj actually helps me with this. It doesn't make me trust people so much as give me a common interest with others. Part of this comes from the fact that I feel really isolated as an RSD patient, bc it is so rare to come across anyone else with it. Another part comes from the abandonment I feel from most of the friends I had when everything went sour. Researchers say social support is a key factor in RSD prevention, so maybe that has something to do with something. I think it's possible that my near-death experience has contributed to a lot of this. Whatever it may be, a commonality I've noticed in all the research I've read is that stress has an impact of healing. Stress will mess up just about anything in fact.

As far as making friends online, that has never been an issue, and still isn't. I think I feel safer, and more detached. I also feel like I can be more open about who I am on here for some reason I still don't know yet. Myabe it goes back to the underlying detached=safe thing I have going on. I hope as I get older this is just something that changes about me. It is pretty lame that I care so much about things that really don't matter.

You will quit smoking when you have the motivation you need. Everyone can do it, it just takes motivation and self-awareness. Once you get through the first two weeks, you will have started creating other patterns of behavior. Something I learned from a book about highly effective people is to be prepared before starting something. For quitting smoking, this is really applicable. Just do it on your terms, and when you are ready.

Bill

Also one piece of advice to get replies a bit faster. I would of made a new post if I were you instead of replying to an old post like this. You deserve to have your own thread If you need assistance whenever you choose to do that, you can always ask me how to do it or any member will be glad to help. Everybody on here is rather quite nice!