Hi Canagirl,

I am very sorry for your discomfort and for your personal anguish. We are dealing with some truly difficult conditions.

I want to share with you: After 30+ years of trying to cope using both CAM approaches and allopathic medicine, seeing some great researchers, etc., I had resorted to trying medical marijuana. In my case, I was left with a lengthy fogginess and a deepened sense of hopelessness. That's how I had reacted. The temporary relief sense of "relief" was strange in sensation and was not worth the lengthy sense of a hangover. Just my experience.

My pain and other symptoms, and any related sense of hopelessness, also gets worse with stress, especially chronic stress. Is there chronic stress in your life? Acute stress?

Have you been treated for depression?
At one time or another, we all feel varying degrees of hopelessness and/or depression while trying to cope with chronic illness(es) and chronic pain.

I will share with you:

I just went through a couple of years of intensive/chronic stress. It was wearing me down more than I knew at the time. I finally hit a "breaking point" and could not deal with the stressor any longer. By the time I had gotten to that point, it had gone on too long! I should have been more honest with myself long before that time. I was able to put an end to the immediate stress, once I had realized the degree of stress involved and what it was doing to me. I have spent the past 6 months trying to recover from exacerbated symptoms, especially severe pain and an associated sense of isolation, as well as experiencing a fluctuating sense of hopelessness. Chronic stress exacerbates the whole picture, all aspects of the condition(s) and recovering often takes a lot of time.

I hope I have learned to more carefully guard against chronic stress.
I have enough to cope with without taking on additional stressors.

Individual and/or group therapy may be very helpful to you?
If possible, getting together with a group of like-minded people might also be helpful.

What's most important is:

What do you find helpful?

So glad you are writing with honesty and are reaching out!

I hope you will continue to reach out!

To our Healing!

DejaVu