Help Needed - Fibromyalgia

[Old School]

Hi folks,

 

I'm new here and just wanted to find out if any of you suffer with Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and have treated it with weed. I was a smoker back in the day but have not used any in probably 28 years. I'm in pain daily and often it is 24/7, I kid you not. I can get all the pain killers known to man through the doctor but they come with unneeded or wanted side effects. So I am at the point where I am going to take my pain managment into my own hands by growing some weed that will help. I found an Australian place to buy seed, it called Marijuana by Robert Bergman, probably many of you would have heard of this place. Anyway, on their list for medical weed it has Blueberry Autoflower and Strawberry Kuch as two good herbs that help with pain. So is this the general thought or do you guys have other suggestions. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Peace....

Edited July 23, 2016 by Old School

[DONALD DUCK]

hey there old school..welcome to the growing realm not only will it provide pain relief but i believe it is an amazing mental therepy asweell..so much pleasure in growing healthy happy plants and so many avenues to experiment and improve on to constantly learn more and see your results..i dont even smoke anymore but i am truelly addicted to growing..anyway I only have two suggestions....do not buy an auto flower as you need a bit of experience before you can be successful with auto's... and also buying seeds from aus. company's will be quite a bit more expensive usually so if you can i would use an overseas online company such as....www.marijuana-seeds-nl.com....i have used them before and all went well, but there are many others to choose from...other than that your main choice is to buy femanised seeds or not....they may be more expensive but all plants will be female, producing smokable buds...if you get regular seeds you will end up with 50% male/female plants...this is only good if you want to produce more seeds to plant later on.....also research cloning tecniques so that you can get many many plants from one mother plant...thats me done...best of luck...be patient..and have fun!!

[Old School]

Thanks Donald Duck, that was a big help. I do not know anything about "autos" so now at least I can keep away from them for now. Thanks also for giving me the heads up on buying overseas. Have a good one!

[Sir PsychoHashy]

Hey Old School, welcome to Oz Stoners.

 

I suffer from both, and treat medicinally with canna.  Too busy today, but I'll get back to you with my experiences later on.

[Old School]

Hey Old School, welcome to Oz Stoners.

 

I suffer from both, and treat medicinally with canna.  Too busy today, but I'll get back to you with my experiences later on.

 

Thanks Sir, would very much appreciate your take on it!

[Sir PsychoHashy]

First up, I believe that Robert Bergman is from Amsterdam, not Aus, so I'd be extremely dubious about any Aussie seed site using that name, or any other Oz site for that matter.  Search around the site and you'll find one or 2 Aussie seed sites people have successfully purchased from, but it is a potentially risky venture that can be overpriced etc.  Search the site for safe seed ordering from overseas and buy from preferably a UK site as they get less customs scrutiny than Dutch sites for example.  Better prices and range at sites like cannabisseedsforsale, Herbies, Bonza etc.  I'll make some genetics suggestions later.

 

I was an excessive recreational toker when I first got sick, started with Glandular Fever apparently, and found then that if I smoked too much it actually made me feel worse, so I cut back for a while until it became apparent that I wasn't going to get over whatever was wrong with me, and the doctors couldn't find what was actually wrong with me, at which point I quit.  Came back to it and quit again a few times for up to a few years while trying to figure out if it was helping, or causing problems.  Looking back on things I have come to the conclusion that good weed helps, but that commercial hydro shite makes things worse.

 

I want to put a caveat in here for 2 reasons.  1, everybody's reactions/experiences with canna can be different.  2, my diagnosis is based on the medical professions inability to find evidence of anything, or as I see it, there's something wrong with me that they can't find, so it could be anything meaning the labels they have given me are meaningless, so it's probably the same for you.  On that basis my experiences could be vastly different to yours.

 

Constant pain of varying degrees and locations is my life as well, along with various other issues.  Does canna help, yes.  Does it treat fully or help with all my issues, absolutely not.  Tempting as it is, I do not puff away all day, and only hook into it in the evenings.  Main treatments I'm looking for are pain relief, relaxation, and to settle my guts, and it does help with those things.  I also find a big benefit is that by getting nicely mellow and relaxed it seems to help my muscles and joints recover better while I'm resting, so I'm better able to face the following day.  Unfortunately it doesn't wipe my pain out, certainly takes the edge off it, and my mind as well, with some pains taken away nearly completely.  I do on occasion find some pains exacerbated by weed, but thankfully not often and I usually know when that's likely and which strains are more risky for it.

 

For those outcomes I have found that vapourising or edibles seem to help get a deeper body stone than smoking.  Further to that I basically stick to hash as well, for the same reason, and use my lower grades of hash to make coconut oil infusions for edibles, and vape the good shit.  I also like to slightly over mature my plants to at least 30% amber trichomes, again for a deeper body stone.  I'm chasing a nice numb body stone rather than a trippy high, though it's nice to have some variety in the stash for when I'm in a recreational mood occassionally.

 

As for strains, again everyone is different, so I would encourage a bit of experimentation to find what you like.  But I'll give you a guide to what works for me:  Pretty much indica dominant hybrids through to pure indicas, particularly what some people refer to as "Afghanicas", but I have had degrees of good effects from sativas, and have had one particular sat dom hybrid which worked very well.  Be wary with "Kush's", as it has become a marketing label for many a hybrid, and some of them are sativa dominant hybrids with next to no relation to anything from the Kush region, whereas the proper ones are basically Afghanica's and work very nicely, so look into their background before buying, the seedfinder website can be good for finding that info.  I haven't had a pure Blueberry yet, which I understand to be a sati dom hybrid, but I have had several strains with Blueberry in them, and every one of them has been a nice mellow body stone, so I can recommend it for a try.

 

For me personally, I find Skunks and Cheeses to be generally a little disagreeable.  They are the ones I avoid when I'm worried it will make pain worse as the stone from them seems to have a harsh edge to it that makes my body feel a bit like I've been working a jackhammer for a few hours.  Having said that, I just grew a Skunk Auto I got as a free seed which does agree with me.  Which brings me to another suggestion, every autoflower plant I've grown has had a really mellow edge to the stone which I find helpful, I believe it's a quirk from the Ruderalis genetics.  So whilst they don't produce as well, and don't quite get the potency of their photoperiod namesakes, I find them very worthwhile to grow as well, but you need to know what you're doing to grow them well.

 

A few strains that work well for me are: - Sensi's Afghan #1, Sensi Hindu Kush, Sensi Northern Lights, World of Seeds Pakistan Valley (could be my new favourite), Delicious Seeds Northern Light Blue, Original Sensible Seed Co's Blueberry OG, and Barney's CBD Critical Cure.  My suggestion would be to do what I've been doing, and buy a range of seeds based on a few different base genetics, try them out and figure out which base genetics seem to work well and make more purchases based on that, etc etc.  Do a few crosses looking to match up traits from different strains, and generally have a lot of fun while searching for a few good strains.

 

I find spending time with my plants helps with overall health and wellbeing as well, it's a very calming plant to be around. 

 

And on a non canna medical advice suggestion.  I know it might sound counter intuitive, but I find regular exercise helps.  The trick is to not push it too far and fuck yourself up worse than you already were, which I do all the fucking time because I'm too stupid for my own good .  Regular low impact aerobic type exercise seems to be the trick, so I do a lot of walking, particularly bush walking as I love the Aussie bush and I can occassionally play guerilla grower as part of that, which is a guaranteed way to push it too far .

 

Hope that helps, but use it only as a rough guide and find your own path.  Best of luck

[Old School]

First up, I believe that Robert Bergman is from Amsterdam, not Aus, so I'd be extremely dubious about any Aussie seed site using that name, or any other Oz site for that matter.  Search around the site and you'll find one or 2 Aussie seed sites people have successfully purchased from, but it is a potentially risky venture that can be overpriced etc.  Search the site for safe seed ordering from overseas and buy from preferably a UK site as they get less customs scrutiny than Dutch sites for example.  Better prices and range at sites like cannabisseedsforsale, Herbies, Bonza etc.  I'll make some genetics suggestions later.

 

I was an excessive recreational toker when I first got sick, started with Glandular Fever apparently, and found then that if I smoked too much it actually made me feel worse, so I cut back for a while until it became apparent that I wasn't going to get over whatever was wrong with me, and the doctors couldn't find what was actually wrong with me, at which point I quit.  Came back to it and quit again a few times for up to a few years while trying to figure out if it was helping, or causing problems.  Looking back on things I have come to the conclusion that good weed helps, but that commercial hydro shite makes things worse.

 

I want to put a caveat in here for 2 reasons.  1, everybody's reactions/experiences with canna can be different.  2, my diagnosis is based on the medical professions inability to find evidence of anything, or as I see it, there's something wrong with me that they can't find, so it could be anything meaning the labels they have given me are meaningless, so it's probably the same for you.  On that basis my experiences could be vastly different to yours.

 

Constant pain of varying degrees and locations is my life as well, along with various other issues.  Does canna help, yes.  Does it treat fully or help with all my issues, absolutely not.  Tempting as it is, I do not puff away all day, and only hook into it in the evenings.  Main treatments I'm looking for are pain relief, relaxation, and to settle my guts, and it does help with those things.  I also find a big benefit is that by getting nicely mellow and relaxed it seems to help my muscles and joints recover better while I'm resting, so I'm better able to face the following day.  Unfortunately it doesn't wipe my pain out, certainly takes the edge off it, and my mind as well, with some pains taken away nearly completely.  I do on occasion find some pains exacerbated by weed, but thankfully not often and I usually know when that's likely and which strains are more risky for it.

 

For those outcomes I have found that vapourising or edibles seem to help get a deeper body stone than smoking.  Further to that I basically stick to hash as well, for the same reason, and use my lower grades of hash to make coconut oil infusions for edibles, and vape the good shit.  I also like to slightly over mature my plants to at least 30% amber trichomes, again for a deeper body stone.  I'm chasing a nice numb body stone rather than a trippy high, though it's nice to have some variety in the stash for when I'm in a recreational mood occassionally.

 

As for strains, again everyone is different, so I would encourage a bit of experimentation to find what you like.  But I'll give you a guide to what works for me:  Pretty much indica dominant hybrids through to pure indicas, particularly what some people refer to as "Afghanicas", but I have had degrees of good effects from sativas, and have had one particular sat dom hybrid which worked very well.  Be wary with "Kush's", as it has become a marketing label for many a hybrid, and some of them are sativa dominant hybrids with next to no relation to anything from the Kush region, whereas the proper ones are basically Afghanica's and work very nicely, so look into their background before buying, the seedfinder website can be good for finding that info.  I haven't had a pure Blueberry yet, which I understand to be a sati dom hybrid, but I have had several strains with Blueberry in them, and every one of them has been a nice mellow body stone, so I can recommend it for a try.

 

For me personally, I find Skunks and Cheeses to be generally a little disagreeable.  They are the ones I avoid when I'm worried it will make pain worse as the stone from them seems to have a harsh edge to it that makes my body feel a bit like I've been working a jackhammer for a few hours.  Having said that, I just grew a Skunk Auto I got as a free seed which does agree with me.  Which brings me to another suggestion, every autoflower plant I've grown has had a really mellow edge to the stone which I find helpful, I believe it's a quirk from the Ruderalis genetics.  So whilst they don't produce as well, and don't quite get the potency of their photoperiod namesakes, I find them very worthwhile to grow as well, but you need to know what you're doing to grow them well.

 

A few strains that work well for me are: - Sensi's Afghan #1, Sensi Hindu Kush, Sensi Northern Lights, World of Seeds Pakistan Valley (could be my new favourite), Delicious Seeds Northern Light Blue, Original Sensible Seed Co's Blueberry OG, and Barney's CBD Critical Cure.  My suggestion would be to do what I've been doing, and buy a range of seeds based on a few different base genetics, try them out and figure out which base genetics seem to work well and make more purchases based on that, etc etc.  Do a few crosses looking to match up traits from different strains, and generally have a lot of fun while searching for a few good strains.

 

I find spending time with my plants helps with overall health and wellbeing as well, it's a very calming plant to be around. 

 

And on a non canna medical advice suggestion.  I know it might sound counter intuitive, but I find regular exercise helps.  The trick is to not push it too far and fuck yourself up worse than you already were, which I do all the fucking time because I'm too stupid for my own good .  Regular low impact aerobic type exercise seems to be the trick, so I do a lot of walking, particularly bush walking as I love the Aussie bush and I can occassionally play guerilla grower as part of that, which is a guaranteed way to push it too far .

 

Hope that helps, but use it only as a rough guide and find your own path.  Best of luck

Hey, I really appreciate the great response you gave me Sir!

 

Sounds like we have had the same old same old from doctors. My problems stem from a motor cycle accident I had 28 years ago, landed on my head. I thought I was fine other feeling banged up so I had three weeks off work and went back. It all went down hill from there, being the "man" it was the attitude just to suck it up, you had a bad crash so sure I'm in pain, get on with it. Unfortunately that probably exasperated it so here I am today.

 

Like you my pain goes throughout the run of my body and in blocks of time. So one time it will be pain in the balls and that lasted six months then onto middle back and rib pain for similar periods (going through that at the moment) then severe nausea and the list goes on and on, I'm sure you know what I mean.

 

Over the years I have had countless doctors and pain specialists deal with me with no success and like you that just found the name of FM-CFS to work with what I have and slapped it on. Normally I would be overseeing cattle and sheep stations but now I am on DSP after taking them to court and winning back in 1996, that's to long a story to go into. Some of the doctors I had are now friends and they have said I could get Oxy or a number of other hard hitting drugs but they said over time they will make you worse so I have held off all these years with minimal use of pain relief. Which has bought me to this place in time!!

 

I guess I have just got fed up with people in government tell me what I can or cannot do to help control my pain. I see it on the news, where little kids are stopped having medical cannabis because the government see it as a bad drug! Stuff me drunk, if they want to go postal on a bad drug have they heard of alcohol!! So I thought I am not going to sit here in pain each day if I can find some weed that would be beneficial to take the edge off my pain just because they say weed is the big bad drug at their discretion.

 

Thanks for the advice on strains of weed as I don't know what the hell is doing at the moment. I don't really want to smoke it I would rather use it in edibles and get a more mellow stone/pain relief out of it than tripping of my head. I gave weed a good push when I was growing up in Manly NSW as a kid in the 70s so I'm not after recreating my young stoner times, I just want some relief from the pain. I also like the idea of growing a couple of plants, the process more than anything, it will go well with my vegetable growing.

 

I guess I will check out Herbies and see what they have. I am in WA now so the weather can be a little harsh in summer, that's the other thing I have to research, when to plant in this climate.

 

Thanks again man, I do appreciate you spending the time getting this info to me. I hope your battle with this FB continues on a better pain free/reduction path. Cheers!

[Sir PsychoHashy]

There's a couple of good threads on the site about making coconut oil infusions and ways of imbibing etc, I prefer to make mine with hash rather than buds as it simplifies dosage calculations and sorta removes the need to filter the final product (very important if you use buds and leaves).  But it is worthwhile for improving medicinal benefits, so I would encourage you to look into it.  Vaping is good, and definitely better and healthier than smoking, but I do still worry about lung damage a little as the research hasn't really been done.

 

Hot weather isn't a problem if you grow outdoors, so long as you keep the water up to them they love it.  Problem you may have is that WA seems to be a close 2nd to QLD for difficulty getting seeds through.  I'm not a fan of Bonza, but in those States I would have a good look at using them and utilising their Buddy delivery system or whatever it's called.

 

If you want weed suitable for medicinal (or rec) use, you will need to grow your own as the bulk of black market buds are unsuitable for human consumption.

 

Will be keen to hear how it works out for you, and would appreciate it if you share any helpful findings.  Best of luck.

[Old School]

Thanks for the heads up about the problems of getting seed through WA. I will look into things with Bonza and see how it goes. It's a pain in the backside people have to run around like thieves in the night just to get some pain relief. Of course I could just go get plastered all the time and that's fine with the law, as long as I'm not hurting anyone.....idiots! I will be sure to get back to you concerning my experience with all this, it may take some sorting out but I'm heading forward with it. Thanks again man!

[Koren55]

Wow, lots of, info/advice.

 

Like you two, I was diagnosed with FMS/CFS, in my case back in 2001. Finally was forced to go on Disability Retirement in July 2004.

 

I started getting Fibromyalgia pain in the mid-nineties, and after a particularly difficult sinus surgery, with pain levels through the roof, full blown Fibromyalgia settled in. Over the next couple of years my Docs tried everything, from physical therapy, to anti-inflammatory meds, to antidepressants, antiseizure, etc. But because I have a number of medical problems, none really worked. I know you mentioned exercise, but when there are other conditions that prevent you from exercising, there's not much you can do.

 

In 98 they added tramadol to my regimen and it worked for a few years. Then pain levels got so bad I'd be nauseous all the time and running to bathroom to vomit. It was not a good situation. That's when my doctor put me on a Fentanyl patch. And it worked after figuring the right dosage. I've been at the same dosage now for well over a decade and yes I've tried to get off of it, but without a substitute I'm screwed.

 

I did have to add Oxycodone to my regimen back about 8 years ago. It was either taking a low dose of it, or going up on the patch. But going to higher levels of fentanyl just made me so so tired. Couldn't do it.

 

Now my State has approved legal Medical Marijuana, or MedMar as I prefer calling it (I don't like "canna" because there's already a "canna" plant, a flowering tuber, and medical marijuana or medical pot sounds too druggie). They've been slow on its roll out, but I've already advised my doc that I want to try it to see if it will work. I realize it won't fully replace everything, but if I could do away with the fentanyl, I'd be blessed.

 

Anyway, I've done my own research and settled on trying sweet Afghani Delicious as my trial. When I was in Barcelona in May I picked up a four seed packet to bring back. The seeds themselves were stored in an airtight vial, small enough to mix in with my other medications as carryon luggage.

 

Planted two seeds, each two weeks apart. Each sprouted into a seedling on the third day. They're now 47 days and 33 days and doing very well in the middle of my vegetable garden. They're both growing like weeds now, and have been relatively pest free. But today I noticed some spider mite damage, so tomorrow I'll be spraying them with a neem oil mix. Followed up with a miticide dust in a few days to get rid of what survives. I've used this two stage approach before on ornamental plants.

 

Oh, Sweet Seeds just came out with a new version of Sweet Afghani Delicious, this one with a higher CBD ratio, specifically for those with chronic pain.