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[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]Now, as to the reason I am posting this I believe I have somehow "contracted" CHS from nearly 13 years straight of smoking every day. I average around 7g of high quality bud a week, so a gram a day pretty much. I also am a longtime opiate addict of around 12 years starting from hydrocodone, then quickly into IV oxycodone, hydromorphone, and eventually heroin. For the past 6 years I have been on Methadone treatment, 140 mgs/day.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]I started having symptoms around 2 1/2 years ago. I would wake up with my normal opiate dope sickness, take my dose, then try to produce a bowel movement. On the days I would get really sick I would notice acid reflux when I woke up, also feeling like I was filled with gas. I would usually sit on the toilet and get increasingly more and more nauseous as I wait for some kind of relief. Then the waves of nausea and dry heaving start.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]Usually when I feel it coming I have learned that hot showers aide the nausea waves and make them less intense (but still incredibly bad). I will usually curl up in the fetal position on the floor of the shower as I let the scalding hot water comfort me as much as it can while I beg God for mercy and wait for it all to end. Normally I have to stay until the shower until the waves are less violent, or I feel good enough to try to crawl back in bed. [/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]My body is sweating so profusely that I can literally soak my shirt, socks, boxers and all in about 1-2 min. I mean the sweat literally pours out of me like nothing I have ever experienced before in all of my years of opiate withdrawal hell. As I lay on the shower floor I try to sip on my water bottle as much as I can so I don't completely dehydrate. God knows what this is doing to my body when I go through this.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]This whole process goes on for about 4-5 hours. When I go from the shower to the bed I usually curl up in my sheets and try to fall back asleep. I just lay there with a trash can next to the bed, then lean over and dry heave until the waves subside and I fall asleep. When I wake up I usually feel better.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]For the longest time I had no idea what was causing this and could not find any answers on the subject. Naturally, I believed it was related to the Methadone since opiates and nausea go hand in hand together, but no one at the clinic or in my circle of friends had ever experienced the same symptoms. One of my friend who has Crohn's disease had symptoms that kind of matched up, but not exactly.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]I was getting my girlfriend to let me use her urine at the clinic in order to continue to get my dose and still be able to smoke. That all stopped around a year ago when they started adding temperature strips and doing random observed tests. They caught me trying to sub my urine, so nevertheless I had to eventually stop smoking. I wanted to smoke, but I absolutely needed the methadone in order to function. [/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]So I stopped smoking and after about a month, the insane nausea waves stopped as well. I didn't smoke for around 8 months, until I finally couldn't take it anymore and ended up getting high, failing drug tests, and eventually left the clinic. Now I have been smoking about 2 months and the other day I got sick again. I started searching on the Internet and found out about CHS, and now I really am freaking out.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]I refuse to believe that my favorite plant in the whole wide world would turn on me like this. There has to be some kind of cure out there, aside from abstinence. Marijuana is the only thing that makes me want to get out of bed anymore, and now it is damn near killing me? What kind of sick ironic punishment is this?[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]I would have gone to a doctor a long time ago, but alas, no health insurance. I kept getting sick about once a week and not knowing what the hell is wrong with me. I can't keep a job, my girlfriend is about sick and tired of trying to take care of me. She goes to the clinic too, but she has never been quite the addict that I have so she does not understand my overwhelming compulsion to continue use a drug that would make me so sick.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]I'm sure it won't be long until she gets tired of the helpless addict that I am and my self-destructive behavior, but I kind of expected that after all I have put her through.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]So yeah, I know this is not very well written...its 3 am and I'm tired, but I'm almost afraid to go to sleep. I never know if tomorrow is going to be the day that I will have to endure mental and physical torture for hours again. I am very grateful to not be worse off than I am. There are many people out there with much worse afflictions than this, but this is by no means a cake walk. But I can't help but ask the question: why me? [/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]Any thoughts? Suggestions? Remedies?