Yeah, it's a mental habit at this point, like smoking tons of weed was before. I'm about to start trying that again, because it's so much better. I've just gotten accustomed to not using THC after doing so for years. It was extremely hard at first. I was craving it constantly. "I need THC I need THC I need THC" would repeat in my brain. Valium is awesome but does it have any magic? No. It's literally just replaced my nightly weed smoking. I don't take it during the day because it has no value. It's just to chill and unwind at night. At least I could smoke weed during the day, burn out a little, but it wouldn't be that bad. I'd have a black tea or something and be good.
In regards to the probiotics, I did try shelf ones for a few weeks and they made me fucking bloated as hell. I haven't considered trying cold, although I was eating probiotic yogurt for awhile. Shelf ones should be ok but they're overpriced and kinda bullshit. "5 billion, 50 billion, over 50 billion" like where do you draw the line. I never tried kefir or kombucha.
Anyway, I cold turkeyed prilosec last week and haven't turned back. It was a complete waste really. I think the antacids were actually GIVING me heartburn. I mean, how do you have heartburn all day, go home, eat pizza and then it goes away? I probably had low stomach acid, even though that's rare, and my issues with delayed motility lately make this seem even more likely. Add on the fact that like a complete dumbass, I was sometimes taking tagamet to make valium stronger. Yeah... I don't like where things have come, but I stopped that. I stopped all the antacid shit. The stomach needs acid or else it won't empty fast enough, and if it won't empty? You can get reflux.
However, heartburn and reflux never seemed to occur together for me. It was either that cold/burning in the chest, or bubbles in the throat (what I thought was reflux, likely was?) But probably more a result of my stomach not emptying fast enough. I don't know if I'll need a gastric emptying study or whatever, it might take a bit till my gut recovers from the PPI drug. As far as the heartburn being "mild" or "chronic," it really wasn't frequent enough. It happened while on the antibiotics, stopped for weeks, came back while on prednisone and then high dose aspirin. I'd even been taking motrin while on prednisone which is... well, not good for your stomach. But I was in such chronic pain and the prednisone was doing jack shit.
The other week I took 2 aspirin for a headache and had heartburn for the first time in 2 months. That pretty much confirmed to me that NSAIDS and I do not get along. I can take 1 aspirin and be good though. Just can't wait for my sinus surgery.
Anyhow, I haven't smoked flower in 4 months. Tomorrow night I should try a snapper, I have some chronic chem that's been jarred up for months. I need to get high again. It helps me put everything into perspective better, and I need it to replace my valium habit. I kind of wish my doctor would just say "hey, no more valium" in all honesty. He's just such an idiot and would give me anything I asked. It's a good thing I'm not a super addictive personality and have some level of limitation, otherwise I'd probably have tried a lot more.
I've been taking valium for about 4 months now. I have a feeling I'll take it until at least June, then I should probably taper with 2mg tablets. It all depends if I can smoke weed comfortably again. It had been giving me headaches every time before. I took some fatty pen rips on 4/20 just to say I got high and was fine, whereas that could cause headaches before too. So I think I might be good.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
)