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Hello everyone, I tend to believe this may be a controversial topic. However, I also believe this topic isn't discussed nearly enough and could be useful . When I first found the site, I was searching for people that smoked/ate cannabis like myself and how they did so with dry eyes. I found one thread on here from a gentleman in the Netherlands that said smoking weed helped his dry eye. The responses from most of the people back then, over a decade ago, were unsatisfactory for me at least. So my goal is to update the ideas surrounding pot and give a title that would help someone searching for this information.
About me...my whole life I was depressed. I would come home every day after school and cry for hours on end. My family abused me at home, kids made fun of me at school for being fat and awkward...I felt trapped in this life of pain. I remember at age 15 going to my county library and researching drugs, illicit drugs like marijuana, lsd, etc. when I found out cannabis had been used as medicine for over 5000 years by many different cultures AND I couldn't kill myself by overdose, I was sold. I said, this may be what helps me feel happy...so I experimented with it. The first time I got high I thought, this is how other normal people feel about the world. It changed my life...I finally felt joy, I didn't want to kill my self everyday...I was finally living. So I used pot from age 16-27 pretty much daily. Around 27 I was diagnosed as possibly being bipolar, my therapist believed she couldn't truly diagnose me unless I quit smoking. I was growing cannabis at the time just so I didn't have to pay for it. So I said alright, I trust you, let's see what happens if I quit. Checked into a rehab in 2007 for 90 days, paid cash for the facility and did what I had to do. Sober 100% for 2 years...I was diagnosed bipolar and the meds they put me on caused more suicidal ideation. It was bad, so I decided to go back to pot. It was safe, made me feel good, why am I torturing myself. I wasn't sleeping well those two years, threading my now wife very poorly. So I started again...and my life instantly got better again. More love for being alive, more kind to my now wife, better sleep...I was just better.
So heres where it gets funky...I should have been paying closer attention to what was happening here. Let me also say, a few things. My problem is the reason doctors are not allowed to write themselves scripts...I couldn't temper my use. I went from smoking flower, to smoking hash, and then just increasing my hash intake to just insane levels. I felt like this, pots safe, I can't OD, just flood the receptors. This was bad....why? Because it causes transient dry eye every time you smoke, I was smoking non stop from waking til sleep. I was eating edibles that would put people in the hospital (out of fear). I believe my heavy cannabis use was one of many factors (sound familiar, multifactorial disease) that caused my abrasion/dry eye to be so bad.
So let's talk about the injury, I got dust in my eye on two occasions on the same day. I was repotting a plant and some dust flew into the air, got into my eye, blinked a few times and went on about my work. Then, went to push my garbage can down and a cloud of dust again came up, into my eyes, I blinked and felt normal so thought nothing of it. This has happened in the past with no issues. Here's what was different now...extremely heavy hash use, meaning much drier eyes. I didn't rinse my eyes because to be honest, I didn't realize there was anything in them that could hurt my eyes, super dumb. I'm older now and I believe I had MGD prior to the injury. I noticed at night staring at my phone my eyes would burn. I would just close and squeeze them and was fine. I was photophobic, I couldn't go outside and not feel some eye soreness. But I always drive and I have 5% tint on my car, so I created an environment that put my symptoms on the back burner. Once the particles got behind my lids and stick there, I was scraping my cornea every blink, every R.E.M. sleep I had, then after a few days I noticed major issues, extreme photophobia, my 1000 watt lights were really hurting my eyes in my grow room. Also, my near vision was effected but zero pain. Then I woke up from a nap on day 5 or so and rubbed my eyes...biggest mistake ever. That caused two big abrasion behind my lids...which initiated the extreme dry eye disease. Still no pain oddly enough. I go in, doc doesn't stain me, sends me on my way...then a couple days later...the pain started, the burning and pinching feeling, foreign body, you guys and gals know what I'm talking about. And now I'm here, talking to all of you.
whats my point? Well I want to say that I believe cannabis made this worse in the acute phase, why? I believe it was drying me so bad it was causing the erosions...if I had known that it was an issue I would have stopped. It was too late before I had realized the pot was making the healing worse. Not to mention I am sure I had MGD prior to this it was just asymptomatic.
so I wanted to post this so people know, do not smoke pot before lasik, prk or a debridement. If you get an abrasion stop smoking immediately. Find something else less drying to help. For me, it was xanax. I hate taking pills, however I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the xanax and the hydrocodone here and there to get me through those really painful times.
I still smoke pot once a day, I actually vaporize it now because smoking in and of itself agitates my body. Causes inflammation, vaping thankfully doesn't. I cannot eat cannabis as a lot of docs suggest. Eating it is worse, because it's stronger so any increased effects for the good are also increased dryness effects.
So I'm curious are there any pot smokers out there with issues? I cannot take the antipsychotics and anticonvulsants, so my only relief is from pot and now that's been halted a bit. Any other bipolar folks out there having a hard time dealing with the disease?
Do do I think pot is bad for dry eye? Well for mine it is, I'm curious if anyone actually finds relief from cannabis. It is said has anti inflammatory properties, so I'm sure it could be useful....just not sure how and from who.
thanks for reading, much love to all!
About me...my whole life I was depressed. I would come home every day after school and cry for hours on end. My family abused me at home, kids made fun of me at school for being fat and awkward...I felt trapped in this life of pain. I remember at age 15 going to my county library and researching drugs, illicit drugs like marijuana, lsd, etc. when I found out cannabis had been used as medicine for over 5000 years by many different cultures AND I couldn't kill myself by overdose, I was sold. I said, this may be what helps me feel happy...so I experimented with it. The first time I got high I thought, this is how other normal people feel about the world. It changed my life...I finally felt joy, I didn't want to kill my self everyday...I was finally living. So I used pot from age 16-27 pretty much daily. Around 27 I was diagnosed as possibly being bipolar, my therapist believed she couldn't truly diagnose me unless I quit smoking. I was growing cannabis at the time just so I didn't have to pay for it. So I said alright, I trust you, let's see what happens if I quit. Checked into a rehab in 2007 for 90 days, paid cash for the facility and did what I had to do. Sober 100% for 2 years...I was diagnosed bipolar and the meds they put me on caused more suicidal ideation. It was bad, so I decided to go back to pot. It was safe, made me feel good, why am I torturing myself. I wasn't sleeping well those two years, threading my now wife very poorly. So I started again...and my life instantly got better again. More love for being alive, more kind to my now wife, better sleep...I was just better.
So heres where it gets funky...I should have been paying closer attention to what was happening here. Let me also say, a few things. My problem is the reason doctors are not allowed to write themselves scripts...I couldn't temper my use. I went from smoking flower, to smoking hash, and then just increasing my hash intake to just insane levels. I felt like this, pots safe, I can't OD, just flood the receptors. This was bad....why? Because it causes transient dry eye every time you smoke, I was smoking non stop from waking til sleep. I was eating edibles that would put people in the hospital (out of fear). I believe my heavy cannabis use was one of many factors (sound familiar, multifactorial disease) that caused my abrasion/dry eye to be so bad.
So let's talk about the injury, I got dust in my eye on two occasions on the same day. I was repotting a plant and some dust flew into the air, got into my eye, blinked a few times and went on about my work. Then, went to push my garbage can down and a cloud of dust again came up, into my eyes, I blinked and felt normal so thought nothing of it. This has happened in the past with no issues. Here's what was different now...extremely heavy hash use, meaning much drier eyes. I didn't rinse my eyes because to be honest, I didn't realize there was anything in them that could hurt my eyes, super dumb. I'm older now and I believe I had MGD prior to the injury. I noticed at night staring at my phone my eyes would burn. I would just close and squeeze them and was fine. I was photophobic, I couldn't go outside and not feel some eye soreness. But I always drive and I have 5% tint on my car, so I created an environment that put my symptoms on the back burner. Once the particles got behind my lids and stick there, I was scraping my cornea every blink, every R.E.M. sleep I had, then after a few days I noticed major issues, extreme photophobia, my 1000 watt lights were really hurting my eyes in my grow room. Also, my near vision was effected but zero pain. Then I woke up from a nap on day 5 or so and rubbed my eyes...biggest mistake ever. That caused two big abrasion behind my lids...which initiated the extreme dry eye disease. Still no pain oddly enough. I go in, doc doesn't stain me, sends me on my way...then a couple days later...the pain started, the burning and pinching feeling, foreign body, you guys and gals know what I'm talking about. And now I'm here, talking to all of you.
whats my point? Well I want to say that I believe cannabis made this worse in the acute phase, why? I believe it was drying me so bad it was causing the erosions...if I had known that it was an issue I would have stopped. It was too late before I had realized the pot was making the healing worse. Not to mention I am sure I had MGD prior to this it was just asymptomatic.
so I wanted to post this so people know, do not smoke pot before lasik, prk or a debridement. If you get an abrasion stop smoking immediately. Find something else less drying to help. For me, it was xanax. I hate taking pills, however I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the xanax and the hydrocodone here and there to get me through those really painful times.
I still smoke pot once a day, I actually vaporize it now because smoking in and of itself agitates my body. Causes inflammation, vaping thankfully doesn't. I cannot eat cannabis as a lot of docs suggest. Eating it is worse, because it's stronger so any increased effects for the good are also increased dryness effects.
So I'm curious are there any pot smokers out there with issues? I cannot take the antipsychotics and anticonvulsants, so my only relief is from pot and now that's been halted a bit. Any other bipolar folks out there having a hard time dealing with the disease?
Do do I think pot is bad for dry eye? Well for mine it is, I'm curious if anyone actually finds relief from cannabis. It is said has anti inflammatory properties, so I'm sure it could be useful....just not sure how and from who.
thanks for reading, much love to all!
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