I smoke weed because I have severe epilespy. My family is mad at me but it helps me. Should I care?

Hey Arcanoidcyst16:

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I've been smoking pot since since 1973. I've never gotten any acute or major side-effects from the weed. In fact, its sedating effect worked well after I fell on the ice and broke my back. I've gotten acute and toxic side-effects from the pharmas though. And lately, I've been experiencing severe and extreme gastritis, a known side-effect of Vimpat... so bad one time that I had to be admitted; and I haven't been able to eat much without getting extreme heartburn since. So I changed my ant-acid from Protonix to Nexium. And even though I haven't been very hungry, I've been experiencing what I call "crash and burn"... becoming suddenly very tired, or what I call "flash crash". It seemed like the greater the frequency of crashes, the quicker you would burn-out... until your energy builds up real fast again and then you would feel fine. Being rested would last long on the energy rebound. My appetite was poor but I would still gained 25 lbs. inside a month and a half, even though I was as active as I was with the poor appetite.

Three times a Day I would head outdoors and take a walk around the subdivision, sometimes at 2:00am in the morning, (1 lap around equals 16 city blocks) taking 3 laps or 48 blocks, One time I walked from 108th St. to 72 St and back (72 blocks) and I wasn't the least bit tired. Kind of odd on an empty stomach, isn't it? I had so much energy for 3 months that I didn't know what to do with it all. Then for the next 3 months I had absolutely no energy. And that would repeat itself, except that it would now swing in weekly intervals and then in daily cycles. Lastly, when I became real tired, I would lay down, again for only 15 minutes, feel well rested suddenly, then get back up and have loads of energy for a few hours anyway, and suddenly I would feel like I had to suddenly crash again ... know way around it. (almost like a weed buzz but for much shorter time).

My stomach felt toxic. Then after lying down for 15 minutes again I would feel great again and have all sorts of energy. Finally, as afternoon (4 or 5 o'clock) would arrive, the energy swings would totally disappear but the same cycle would repeat itself on each of the following days until present. I even quit smoking weed for a month-and-a-half just see if there was going to be any difference. No change... same flash crash symptoms. In the late afternoon the sleeping symptoms would resolve. Weed or not. Every day its been like this suddenly. Like my C: drive was corrupted and all of a sudden, I was needing to boot manually off my 'A drive.

Finally, I had 2 distinct nocturnal seizures during successive evenings; the first since starting Vimpat. All the labs done would come back negative. But they did this for the depakote too, until I finally developed the acute pancreatitis with no warning. But I had a seizure right before that as well. The digestive issues seem to be following that same etiology. The doctors currently can't explain it. They were unable to verify the depakote symptoms too!! until it became acute. My suspicion I think it's the Vimpat!!! When I first started taking it, my mind was racing and then suddenly stopped after 3 months. Now I think my body's racing and I can't stop it!! Coincidence? Clearly, it's speculation but still, I think not! Help!! Has anyone else experiened these symptoms? Please enlighten!