Anxiety | Ah, What a day

COVID Theory

Sun, 12 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I will start out by laying down the theory, and then I will move on to supplying some evidence of why I think this way.

Theory:

Through the COVID pandemic, there has an urge of mental health diseases in the US. With the release of COVID, whether it was intentional or unintentional, it has brought on a crushing increase of mental health issues, and this brings me to my theory. I think that COVID triggered a domino effect in the health of people around the world, and with people more worried about several aspects of life than what is happening in the bigger picture of things. This whole thing is to create a smoke screen to hide what is exactly is playing out in the world. Do I know the end goal? No. I don’t even know or have a theory who is pulling the strings. The dominos are just starting to drop.

Evidence:

News outlets:

A few months back I took about 3 hours and watched several news stations. The stations I picked were ABC, CNN, Fox, and Americas Voice. I have to say, I was shocked and disappointed at what I found. I was watching it on a Saturday morning from 11 to about 2pm What I found was varying information of what was happening with COVID from complete and totally left to complete and totally right. 99% of the information was contradictorily, so say this nice. With all of the misinformation, that’s what starts the smoke screen.

COVID Information:

While COVID is a new disease, there seems to be a lot of close mindedness around COVID. Doctors aren’t receptive to any aspect of this disease, and this can be seen if you look at any sort of COVID related forum/information outlet/etc. I have been reading people on Reddit for months, and there seems to be one conclusion, it sucks. Of course, this is an understatement. For people that has been suffering from things that are long term affects of having COVID and it seems to be so random. Makes me wonder, is there something that creates this virus do extreme things to some people, and then others, it does little to nothing. Myself, I suffer from anxiety and probably increased my GI issues.

More about the doctors being closeminded. I speak about doctors in general, and I attest to some doctors are completely the polar opposite to the ’normal' behavior. While these doctors are rare, and if you find one that you can work with, STICK WITH THEM. They are like golden nuggets. I have found one general doctor that has helped me in ways that I could never think her. I won’t name her, to respect her privacy. I do wish I could find a good place to research doctors, and this would be a service/website that is not persuaded by people throwing money at them.

Final Thoughts:

While I started this blog as a part of a type of therapy for me, and it has helped me a lot. I would like to let the people out there know that are suffering from long term effects from COVID. Keep your chin up, hopefully sometime soon that there will be a break through with treatments to help with these things you suffer from. Until then, if you are having thoughts of hurting yourself, please seek help. If you are in Asheville, NC, there are great IOP programs in town to help with some of this. While they are mainly for mental health items, suicidal thoughts and/or thoughts of hurting yourself could be helped as well. When I was in there, I found a new light in many things. I hope they will be able to help you.

Until next time, enjoy this ride which we call life.

Wow what a difference! THC gone wrong

Mon, 31 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Well, I have been off of dabs for about 6 weeks now. There is so much to say about the road over the last 6 weeks. Let me start off by saying a few things about THC, weed, and dabs.

What are DABS?

Wikipedia page which contains a lot of information on dabbing.

I was dabbing up to 7 times a day for about a year and a half. In my mind, I was convinced it was helping with the pain and anxiety I was dealing with. Then about 8 weeks ago, I found an article that literally changed everything from then till now. I’ll try and find the link again, but I’ve search about 2 hours, still not finding it. Anyways, the article talked about all of the symptoms that I was having.

Symptoms:

Unable to eat much (feeling full all the time)
- Limited diet to stuff that helped my reflux
Constipation (or diarrhea)
- Seemed to go from one extreme to another.
Constant pain in the intestines
severe acid reflux
- resulted in esophagitis
Among a few others……

**How can I be certain that these symptoms are from the dabbing? **

The day I stopped dabbing, I stopped taking Gaviscon and Pepcid AC the day I stopped dabbing. I was taking on average 12 Gaviscon and 6 Pepcid ACs a day. My general intestinal pain stopped about a week later. As the events played out, it made it more evident that the THC concentration I was doing was causing the symptoms.

Why did I turn to THC?

When all of this started, I went to several doctors and they just said I had anxiety. All of the doctors I went to, prior my mental stay, minimized the problem. I figure they thought I was making it up to get medicine. I knew that most people benefitted from THC use, so I figured it should be able to help me too.

THC Withdrawals

When I decided to see if it was the THC, I stopped it cold turkey. This was extremely hard on my system. Thankfully, I have good support from my doctors to help me through all of this. The day after I stopped, I went to my general doctor for a check in to see if I could get some help for the pain I was experiencing, they put me on Gabapentin 3 times a day. This helped most of the time, but there were still some break through anxiety and pain. My body was handling the THC withdrawals horribly. My heart rate stayed around 150-160 for at least 2 days. My blood pressure was in the range of 140-160/100-120, which is in the heart attack range. Needless to say, I had a few hell days dealing with the withdrawals. The good news was, this didn’t last over a week or so.

Post THC withdrawals

At my 2 week check up, my vitals were back to normal, which range from 110-120/70-85. Also I lined up some other things to verify I didn’t damage things. Future appointments were a heart stress test and some physical therapy. Why did I want these done? The heart stress test was to ensure my heart was ‘OK’ from a medical standpoint since it had been so stressed. The physical therapy was because I was basically bed ridden for 1.5 years.

The heart stress test wasn’t hard, it was scary to me though. The anxiety leading up to it was worse than the test itself. During the test, they did a lot of ultra sound images prior to walking. Then during the walking they had me hooked up to all sorts of probes to measure the heart. They wanted my heart rate to go up above 160 for as long as I could hold it. Once I was tiring out, they pumped me full of some meds to help the images of the ultrasound to get stressed images of the hearts walls, valves, and blood flow to and from the heart. The great news I got immediately, the nurses didn’t see anything wrong that they could tell. I still don’t have the results from the rest of the doctor reviews, but I expect them fairly soon.

![Percussion Device](https://www.ahwaday.com/wp- content/uploads/2021/05/Percussion_Device-300x267.jpg)

Physical therapy was interesting. I was actually looking forward to it. When I went the first time, they did some baselines to get a sense of where I was at. Then they used a percussion device to help message my muscles. Similar to the one to the right. This felt good except when he used it on my lower back on both sides of my spine. When they got to those areas, I felt like I wanted to jump out of my skin due to the anxiety spikes. Which turned out it was my body’s response to what was happening internally.

The day after physical therapy, I woke up from a horrible nightmare in tears. The day continued to get worse for me. My anxiety was not really under- control, and my pain level was extremely high. Around 5pm, it turned for the worse even further; I was vomiting and had severe nausea. By 7pm, I had called 911 to get help. Luckily my dad had come out when I started vomiting, and was able to help me get ahold of 911. This was the worst shape I had been in since I had another blockage about 8 months prior. The main difference was, they couldn’t find the pulse in my feet, and I was severely dehydrated. They ran the sirens all the way to the hospital, which is one of my fears now, and everything they did was very quick. I think it was because they were afraid that I was having a heart attack or something similar. I ended up having another NG-tube, and then the next day, I was pissing blood. I’m talking it looked like I murdered someone in the bathroom. The blood cleared up in a few days, as well as my blockage.

Since the hospital stay, I have been continuing to research about Gastroparesis. They (multiple GI doctors) think I have this condition. It will be nice to finally have a diagnosis instead of idiopathic diagnosis. I’m suppose to have more procedures done to confirm I have it or not.

What have I been doing since I have been off of the THC, outside of medical stuff?

I have had some of the best days. Every morning, I try to start it off right; I go out on the porch and find something that amazes me in nature. It can be anything from seeing Turkeys, deer, or my cats playing. I try to remember that each moment that I see, will never be repeated. So I try to take each moment for granted, as I’m not guaranteed the next.

For my health, I have been more active lately, and that’s one of the reasons I haven’t posted stuff before today. I’ve been finding more joy in cleaning, mowing, weed eating, and just general house work. It’s super nice to have that feeling back. The only problem I’m fighting from the THC now, is my memory has a severe case of CRS (can’t remember shit). I’ve been trying to reconnect with old friends, and making new ones. There are a few people I want to call out. Ryan, my boss when I go back to work, he’s been very supportive through this whole ordeal. Carolyn, someone I meet in a support group, she’s been a wonderful resource of GI knowledge and great support. Dan, someone else I met in a support group, he’s been a good support person. My biggest call outs are to my brother and dad, I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for them. My cats are also a huge support to me; they have been great at sensing when I needed help.

What led up to my Copestone hospitalization.......

Mon, 31 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

There were several factors that weighed in on the decision to commit myself to Copestone Mental Hospital.

All my life, I have suffered from depression and anxiety. I didn’t realize this until I started going through the IOP/PHP program that is part of Mission Hospitals, bought out by HCA.

IOP stands for Intensive Outpatient Program. PHP stands for Partial Hospitalization Program. In a later blog post, I will be detailing my experiences through both PHP and IOP.

Anyways…. with my depression and anxiety never really under control, this created a good base for anything ‘crazy’ to stick. Along with my constant negative self talk and self criticism. It’s true, we are our own worst critics. This all help put me in a place to where I was ‘ready’ for this to become a problem.

The start of 2019, was very exciting for me. We had just finished building my house and getting a Certificate of Occupation approved in early November of 2018. I moved in around 1/1/2019. This was a huge change for myself as well as my dad. We had been living together for the better part of our lives. At the first, it was awkward, but it seemed to be settling down. We were getting in a rhythm of the new dynamics of our relationship.

During the first part of 2019, we were working on my dad’s place, attempting to get it completed. This was slow going as we were still tired from working on my house. Plus, we started having problems with the driveway trying to wash away. There was a spring that started popping up in the middle of the driveway, or I thought that. In July, we were working on the driveway, and during going and getting some supplies, my dad fell up in my basement. He came back too, but he didn’t feel right or look right. The following weeks was very tiring as I was worried about him. He had a stroke in August (the first part of the month).

Eric, my best friend, had been battling stage 4 cancer for about 20 months prior to my dad’s stroke. I had dinner with him shortly after my dad had his stroke, and he was worried about me. Last part of August, Eric passed away. I was able to go say good bye to him, and the following day, he had passed.

To help with the timeline:

Uncle Passed (Paul) in June
Dad had a stroke in August (first part)
Eric passed away in August (last part)
Aunt passed (Barbara) in September (first part)

The thing that affected me the most, was the fear of losing my dad.