Marijuana PAWS help!

[Kickin'_addiction]

Hey everyone. I'm 19 years old and have been struggling with marijuana since the start of 2020. I have been able to quit a few times but I relapse every time. A have quit again and am nearing two weeks sober. My symptoms are horrible so far, nauseous all the time, brain fog/migraine, bad anxiety and panic attacks, heart palpitations, pretty much every potential symptom I've read about I am experiencing. So I thought I'd reach out and see if anyone had good tips on how to cope with these symptoms. Any food and nutrition suggestions, activities to help ease my mind, easy excersises to get back in shape, etc, would be GREATLY appreciated!!

[tokeless]

Hi
There is no cure all because we are all different. I would suggest positive thinking where you look at the benefits of stopping, how you want to live now and in the future. What you will gain, such as more money and other positives. Fixating on how sh** you feel will exacerbate how you feel. Use distraction and hang out with people who do positive things and just enjoy the moment. The battles are in your head... that doesn't mean your symptoms aren't real, but they exist anyway, so how you manage them is what will make the difference. Accept it's transient and you recovering....it's a good thing you've done so embrace that.

[Kickin'_addiction]

This is good advice. I do tend to fixate a lot on how I feel, rather than how I will feel once I have recovered. Thank you!

[fightpaws]

Well I have found this sub a couple of days ago and I almost certain this I have really bad PAWS. I have had dozens of trips to the hospital and have had all kinds of different tests. Last summer I literally thought I hadn’t long to live anymore. I stopped smoking weed after 4 years of smoking (2,5-3years daily) i’m 18 y/o turning 19 next summer. A few days after I stopped i got my first panic attack and since that day it all went really downhill. I didn’t came out of my house for months I had to quit my job what I loved doing and became a mental mess. Every time I told the doctors something was wrong with me but all the tests came back perfectly. The doctors told me my blood test came back like a 10/10 couldn’t be better.

So here I was about 3/4 months after quitting weed had multiple panic attacks (tight chest/ difficulty breathing sweating) and I was completely lost. It isn’t till a couple of weeks ago I layed the connection with quitting weed and all my problems. I have quitted weed before and it wasn’t such a big deal than sure I was a bit grumpy for a few days but after that i was over. All this time I thought it was something completely different. Fast forward 5,5 months after my last smoke I finally get the feeling i’m somewhat healing.

I am still fatigued and I still have brain fogs. My anxiety is getting better now and I now go out to see my friends. I don’t go out often because I’m easily fatigued. It’s some kind of mental fatigue when I’m out with people for to long my head gets tired and I get anxious. I’m not thinking about horrible diseases everyday so that’s a big win. I did get some really bad migraines since this all started and they are still here but getting less noticeable everyday. If you have read this and you think what..?? 5 months and he is still not back to normal. Well yeah it’s hard to accept that you need some time to heal but that’s just the reality.

I have abused my body for the last couple of years and now i have to pay the price. But all these symptoms that you have are a GOOD thing. It means your brain is slowly trying to adjust to the normal life. It’s just how the brain works. You have fed your brain with drugs that gives you a dopamine hit. When you take marijuana daily your brain adjust on the outside influence of dopamine shots. If you stops taking these hits after years your brain needs time to rewire and produces it’s own dopamine in order for you to feel happy again. All these symptoms are just a signal that your brain is low on dopamine which overtime will slowly get back to its normal levels.

In the meanwhile you need to put yourself on number 1 and try to be healthy again. Exercise regularly and try to go on a walk more often. Also try to eat more healthy foods if its possible. Trust me everything you are feeling we all went trough this. Keep going and you’ll do good.

My fingers are getting numb from all this typing ask me anything you’d like to know.

Ps english is not my main language so sorry if the grammar is sh**.

[Kickin'_addiction]

Hey thanks so much for this. Makes me feel less alone to know there are others my age going through the same stuff. I appreciate the reminder that this is all natural and a result of my brain readjusting. Pretty much every post I've read about paws describe our symptoms and although it seems to take a different time for everyone, some people weeks, some months, some years, we will recover from this and feel great when it's over. Have you had insomnia as one of your symptoms too?

[fightpaws]

Yeah I had a period were I couldn’t sleep at all and use to wake up multiple times in the middle of the night. I do fall asleep nowadays but I don’t sleep as good as I used to. I can sleep for 9 hours straight but not feel fully rested. I feel like the length is good but the quality of the sleep is still not good enough. It’s certainly a whole lot better than no sleep at all so I’m glad that period is over but I hope in the future I can get some good quality sleep again. Don’t worry the insomnia you’re dealing with now goes away. I would stay of meds if I was you I have the feeling doctors describes meds way to fast in America. I’m from europe so doctors are a bit cautious with describing meds because you will fall from a weed addiction to a meds addiction.

[Rockszee]

I am 3 months off thc and was doing okay and 3 days ago my heart started palpitating again and my head buzzing. I have read that the symptoms can co e and go for awhile. Some good days some bad days, but this literally feels like I did when I first stopped 3 months ago. My anxiety medicine is barely helping. Has this happened to anyone else?