Drug Tripping: My Latest Adventure (Or, the importance of REM sleep)

[Mal12345]

My podiatrist is good, but he isn't THAT good.

He told me that the night splint for my feet is ambidextrous, so to speak. But it's definitely a rightie. It's shaped for the right foot, and it even looks like it's shaped for the right foot. Moreover, it feels terrible on my left foot.

The doctor's assistant told me if I walk on it I will break it. Bullshit. I've walked on it a lot and it hasn't broken, and it's made of thick, hard plastic anyway.

 

[Mal12345]

Melatonin can cause some really wild sex dreams.

 

[OptoGypsy]

Melatonin can cause some really wild sex dreams.

So Melatonin is the best by default

 

[Mal12345]

So Melatonin is the best by default

No, by reason that it causes some really wild sex dreams.

 

[Mal12345]

This is my favorite "doctor" story. My wife has heard it so many times she's sick of it. She literally puts her hands to her ears and says "lalalalal!"

Many moons ago, perhaps 180 moons or so, I was experiencing stomach pain for two days straight. It was right in the pit of my stomach, and although it wasn't severe, it wouldn't go away.

So I went to the local clinic and visited my favorite (and locally popular) FNP. When I told her I was having stomach pain for two days, she circled her entire abdomen with her hand and asked, "Which part of your stomach?"

Which part of my stomach?

I pointed directly to my stomach, and replied, "My stomach."

 

[Mal12345]

Adventures with dietary supplements.

After my experience with Trazadone, prescribed to me by a local quack for insomnia and which caused hallucinations instead, I gave up on most Rx drugs and decided to experiment with over-the-counter dietary supplements through GNC.

I bought zinc and magnesium, based on a study regarding their combined effect on the immune system; and melatonin to help me sleep. (I also take multi-vitamins and vitamin C.)

The zinc and magnesium work great. I experienced a head cold last January but I barely felt it at all. However, lately I'm becoming nauseated after taking my daily cocktail of drugs. So I decided to take one out of the mixture every day until I determined which was the culprit.

I started with Vitamin C (based merely on its location on the shelf), and removing that one had no effect. Zinc is next on the shelf, so I stopped taking that one. The nausea went away. I took one the next day, and the nausea returned.

So it was the zinc all along, 50 mg p.d. for the last 6 months. I Googled the possible hazards of taking zinc, and it turned out that ZINC HAS A 40 MG UL, MEANING THAT I SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAKING 40 MG P.D. AT THE MOST!

Over the months, zinc has been slowly building up in my system to toxic levels.

But zinc is being sold at GNC in 50 mg doses, so I'm not sure what to do.

 

[Jaguar]

Zinc is next on the shelf, so I stopped taking that one. The nausea went away. I took one the next day, and the nausea returned.

So it was the zinc all along, 50 mg p.d. for the last 6 months. I Googled the possible hazards of taking zinc, and it turned out that ZINC HAS A 40 MG UL, MEANING THAT I SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAKING 40 MG P.D. AT THE MOST!

Over the months, zinc has been slowly building up in my system to toxic levels.

But zinc is being sold at GNC in 50 mg doses, so I'm not sure what to do.

Do yourself a favor and go have your serum zinc and copper levels checked as well as your RBC (red blood cell) zinc and copper levels checked. A zinc to copper ratio of roughly 10 to 1 is needed.
Since you have been blasting yourself with so much zinc, in addition to zinc toxicity, checking for a possible copper deficiency and/or zinc-copper imbalance is also warranted. (Don't just run out and blast yourself with copper, either.)
You need to find out what you're actually dealing with, first.

Edit: Conventional doctors don't usually deal with these types of problems. Find yourself a decent alternative doctor in your area with a focus on functional medicine.

 

[Mal12345]

Do yourself a favor and go have your serum zinc and copper levels checked as well as your RBC (red blood cell) zinc and copper levels checked. A zinc to copper ratio of roughly 10 to 1 is needed.
Since you have been blasting yourself with so much zinc, in addition to zinc toxicity, checking for a possible copper deficiency and/or zinc-copper imbalance is also warranted. (Don't just run out and blast yourself with copper, either.)
You need to find out what you're actually dealing with, first.

Edit: Conventional doctors don't usually deal with these types of problems. Find yourself a decent alternative doctor in your area with a focus on functional medicine.

Obama said that if I like my health insurance plan then I can keep my health insurance plan. He let me keep it for about a year until he declared it illegal, and now I can't afford a good doctor. I didn't know that his promise was only valid until ACA went into effect.

The last few days have been an adventure in finding out what foods I'm allergic too. This was prompted by problems at work, where I have to talk to people a lot, with reactions such as coughing, breathing problems, and tightness in the chest. I made an appointment to see a clinic doctor last Monday, but on Thursday I discovered on my own what the problem was: chocolate.

So I've eliminated chocolate from my diet pending whatever I can find out was in the chocolate itself that caused the reaction. But now I'm sitting here itching and coughing, with red blotches and hives all over me. I looked at the ingredients of what I had for dinner and found two "red flags": milk and wheat gluten. I'm taking Allegra for it.

Milk is a common factor between milk chocolate and tonight's dinner. But it could be a coincidence. There are a lot of substances in chocolate, both natural (such as theobromine) and artificial, that can produce a histaminic response.

 

[Jaguar]

Obama said that if I like my health insurance plan then I can keep my health insurance plan. He let me keep it for about a year until he declared it illegal, and now I can't afford a good doctor. I didn't know that his promise was only valid until ACA went into effect.

Are you subsidy-eligible?

Obamacare costs $82 for subsidy-eligible people and $264 for the feds on average - Jun. 18, 2014

 

[Mal12345]

Are you subsidy-eligible?

Obamacare costs $82 for subsidy-eligible people and $264 for the feds on average - Jun. 18, 2014

No, and anyway, this policy will soon be found illegal.

This very morning I discovered that I have qualified for 100% coverage at a local clinic.

 

[Mal12345]

My wife's mother woke up in the night and "saw" a red-haired man standing in her bedroom staring at her. She jumped out of bed and grabbed something to defend herself with, but he was gone. It was a hallucination.

When my wife told me about this, I told her it was caused by Benadryl. She then told me that her mother hasn't taken any Benadryl in a long time.

Today, my wife reported to me that her mother had taken 4 Benadryls before going to bed that night because she was low on pain pills and needed help sleeping.

 

[Mal12345]

Lately I've been returning to the idea that I first came up with in 2012 that I have fibromyalgia, an incurable melange of symptoms that are linked together through 11 known hot spots on the human body.

I don't know. All I know is that one day in 2012 I woke up in pain, and it's never gone away. The pain is located in my muscles and ligaments, including the plantar fascia which is the worst pain spot. I started to work out a lot in an effort to get rid of it, but no matter what I did the pain was always there and was always the same. I stopped working out when I damaged my right bicep tendon during a lift.

Yesterday I was researching online about fibromyalgia medications and found something called SAM-e. It seems promising. But knowing my extreme sensitivity to chemicals [this is a symptom of fibro], I went into this very cautiously. I bought a package of SAM-e and cut one pill in half before taking it just to make sure I didn't overdose myself.

My first impression of the effect of the pill was stomach pain spreading across the upper part of my abdomen. It wasn't severe, but it went on for hours and hours. Eventually I fell asleep while suffering from this gastric distress. But I spent the entire night waking up from bizarre dreams and physical feelings, for example, something was pressing on my chin although there was nothing to cause it. I woke up in the morning with a mild migraine that was cured with ibuprophen.

I don't know what to do now. Should I continue taking SAM-e in even lower doses? Or should I take it back to GNC and get my money back? I do seem to feel better physically, in terms of muscle and tendon pain.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

If I'm going to trip on drugs, I try and make them actual hallucinogens. Much better results that way.

 

[Mal12345]

If I'm going to trip on drugs, I try and make them actual hallucinogens. Much better results that way.

I think I was having body hallucinations all night.

 

[Jaguar]

I wouldn't continue taking something that gave me abdominal pain.

 

[Mal12345]

I wouldn't continue taking something that gave me abdominal pain.

True.

 

[Mal12345]

I had a kidney stone a few weeks ago. Unaccustomed as I am to experiencing that degree of pain in that part of my abdomen, I asked my wife to drive me to the ER at around 11:00 pm.

I told the male nurse that the pain level was 2 - 4 out of 10 (using that silly "faces of pain" method of determining degrees of pain). I heard the next day that the doctor called me a very brave patient because kidney stones have a bad rep of being very painful. But I'll tell you what - nothing hurt that night like having the IV needle taken out of my wrist by the male nurse when I was ready to leave 3 hours later. I would rather have kidney stones every day of my life than to have an IV needle taken out of the side of my wrist by that male nurse even once in my lifetime.

 

[Mal12345]

My latest 'drug-tripping adventure' has involved something new to me which is abbreviated SAM-E. This drug with a rather complicated name is primarily a mood enhancer. Although GNC sells this product at an enormous price, I have found a supply of it that costs only 50 cents a day when taken at my present dose of 200 mg p.d.

This drug hasn't caused me any side-effects. Strangely enough, while I find it to be rather beneficial yet innocuous, two employees at local stores have told me that they don't sell very much of it. I think this is because it is really expensive (especially at GNC), and stores end up selling off extra stock at cost.

Maybe it's so expensive because it is one of the few drugs I have taken that don't do too much - that doesn't cause various symptoms such as hallucinations, low libido, flat affect, restless leg syndrome, severe itching, extreme agitation, extreme nausea, extreme headaches, drug dependence, nightmares, joint damage, extreme yawning while driving (making me a possible threat to others on the road), hyperventilation, and euphoria.

The euphoria which I experienced back in 2012 was interesting, but to live with that amount of euphoria all the time would constitute a severe mental illness. Imagine being utterly fascinated by everything in your perceptual world as if it were a brand new experience every single time you re-experienced it. It sounds nice and pleasant but it's really dysfunctional.

 

[Mal12345]

Today I visited the Sinus/Allergy center. I am allergic to 39/50 items they allergy-tested for.

 

[Mal12345]

SAM-E!