Nicotine, tobacco and Cfs has anyone benefited?

[Oliver3]

Personally I don't smoke . It's chewables
Interesting story. There seems to be a lot of pros and cons. But I feel markedly better with nicotine surely there must be scientist s capable of inducing the same effects with less deletious results

 

[Dysfunkion]

Tried a nicotine patch this morning, got a one I can cut in half to be at 3.5 mg. Now note I have been a user before but haven't used any in over a year and never had doses this low. I gotta say wow despite the actual psychological effects of the nicotine itself my mobility is much better right now, I can completely handle listening to music, I'm not groggy, I can feel my coffee, and I can feel my emotions, and my ability to think and connect information is much more fluid. But it does kick up my immune system a bit like usual even at this low dose and still gives me that mild background depressed/blah feeling so familiar to me with nicotine. It's like it kicks me right into the shores of mild and makes me immune system kind of angry. It also really stimulated my digestive system.

Now as I type this some hours later, the initial effects have died down and just left me feeling mildly depressed and a little flu-y feeling. I have some discomfort in my throat with swallowing and some nasal drip. Though my senses and general state of being under this feel pretty normal, cognitively I'm able to think easier and have significantly reduced inflamed feelings in whatever causes that cogfog in the brain. It's not practical to do this every day if I'm just gonna get the typical buzz that will fade eventually and continually drop me off here.

So in my case this shows there is also something going on at these nicotinic receptors but it's not nearly the whole picture. I have a couple places to go today so I'll be monitoring how I respond just going about the day today too. Whatever this did, it hits a very specific kind of inflammation up there on the dot though that causes my primary cognitive dysfunction.

edit - I went outside and was pretty heavy and lead like in the muscles but it wasn't the worst I ever had and I could walk. A bit headachy too. Got some weird "I'm gonna catch a cold" malaise thing going on now and my throat hurts at the top a bit and my sinuses are a bit drippy. My anxiety when stimulated by anything too much out there still gave me a shock and messed with my cognitive functioning (I notice when I'm in PEM/a crash/or a POIS state this is an overall theme and is strongest in an acute POIS episode). So for example lets say I have someone coming towards me and people are one of the things we react most to so my brain registering a person and suddenly stimulating a lot of neural pathways will cripple me cognitively a bit from sudden signalling load leading to anxiety and some awkwardness socially as my brain can't function that well at the moment but it's being stimulated beyond what it can process well anyways. I actually found this effect is at the root of my anxiety and social problems. It's a literal energy deficit related issue from a cognitive load I can't handle. So essentially it picks me up, puts me in mild shortly (in some areas of how I feel in isolation) and then dumps me back into PEM with a specific set of symptoms that include the flu like lead body thing.

 

[Oliver3]

This is my experience..although I'm trying the lozenges...the only real problem is habituation and increasing the dose.
But I've felt fifty percent better at some points.
It's not a cure is it but it's touching on smthg important
It's deffo not the whole story and it's deleterious to the body but it's so tempting to use with the relief I get.
I take benzos occasionally and have habituated to them.
Right now, nicotine after nine months, works significantly better.
When the suffering is inmense, what are you supposed to do.
It's very easy to overdo it tho.
But you can feel at least half way human sometimes can't you

 

[Oliver3]

Btw..yes to music too..and to being interested in reading, being able to watch a film and not be constantly in my head.
I'm getting reflux now from the lozenges so am gonna have to switch but also sorted out my IBS to a massive extent.
It's definitely improved my eyesight and ability to feel

 

[Dysfunkion]

This is my experience..although I'm trying the lozenges...the only real problem is habituation and increasing the dose.
But I've felt fifty percent better at some points.
It's not a cure is it but it's touching on smthg important
It's deffo not the whole story and it's deleterious to the body but it's so tempting to use with the relief I get.
I take benzos occasionally and have habituated to them.
Right now, nicotine after nine months, works significantly better.
When the suffering is inmense, what are you supposed to do.
It's very easy to overdo it tho.
But you can feel at least half way human sometimes can't you

It can lead to cycles of addictions and in fact I also know this why all of mine I ever had began in the first place because all through my life this was just getting worse and worse to the point where I couldn't do anything properly, I couldn't enjoy anything, I could barely work, and I couldn't socialize properly. When I was very young I was always just mild so it was easy to attribute everything that only grew to some character flaw that had to be medicated (in my case self medicated) and that I thought everyone was just a little better than me. I couldn't explain it but they somehow were just more energetic, more fluently social without conditioning (I only was in my head, now I know why. because I was also that social and had the skills but my brain was preventing them under normal circumstances from being used because of the energy problem that only got worse). Now everything makes sense and slowly over time I learning specifically what systems at play are going wrong.

I have a feeling I got passed on a faulty immune system from birth. As I got older and my cholinergic system got more trashed by viruses and toxins my body couldn't handle/fully remove which eventually spread to other related systems crashing more processes, and so on until it got to the point in my 20's where it was supplement or die because my body could no longer from the load uphold itself losing the battle. I just hope soon as I keep experimenting here that I eventually find some kind of a system that allows me to be more functional on a daily basis. I know based on this nicotine experience here it's possible, difficult but possible.

 

[perchance dreamer]

My P.A. told me she finds 2 MG of nicotine gum, chewed for about 30 seconds, helps her sleep. Even though research has been done into therapeutic uses of nicotine and claims have been made there are ways to use it without addiction, I'd never try it. Quitting smoking was just horrific for me, and the thought of using nicotine at all is scary.

 

[hapl808]

I'm getting reflux now from the lozenges so am gonna have to switch but also sorted out my IBS to a massive extent.

Weirdly, the patches gave me reflux. But then again, pushing myself gives me reflux, and felt like the patches just gave me slightly more ability to push myself without a crash (although maybe just delayed the crash).

 

[Dysfunkion]

Weirdly, the patches gave me reflux. But then again, pushing myself gives me reflux, and felt like the patches just gave me slightly more ability to push myself without a crash (although maybe just delayed the crash).

It was definitely temporary and very short lived. Right now as I type this I'm just worn out and listening to more music tonight only made it worse so I'm getting some PEM backlash from it that in turn lowered my battery below what it'd normally be in the otherwise rested state I am right now. I can usually judge how close to crashing I am by how well I'm tolerating music/sound in general.

THC also has similar effect of lifting my cognitive exertion tolerance in a way that lasts far longer than the short lived nicotine window which was around an hour before things started going south but I can't use any weed as I'm too mentally unstable with it. Only realized this lately because I was out one evening about to see a show and there was a lot of smokers in the parking lot and I got smoked out too but the show got cancelled so I ended up going home accidentally a bit too stoned. I was able to enjoy music all night, was also far more physically able, and the next day I had more cognitive energy and my speech was better than it's been in over a month. It reminded me of me on a heady brew of kava so I might actually go back to it at some point since I can handle getting quite stoned on that without any issues unlike the mental chaos weed causes with me.

Now I'm curious on to what exactly that cross over effect was, since the initial nicotine window did the same thing with a completely different mental effects profile and no crash like nicotine gave then it has to be some generic mechanism not restricted to the nicotine binding receptors or the CB1 activation but accessing it through CB1 activation provides more stable, positive results with no crash despite how otherwise weed makes me feel. That CB1 pathway to it isn't restricted to cannabinoids from weed either, kavalactones can also do this of the heady variety from what I remember.

After trying my NAG thing again and finding out more about what is going on there I think I'm going to try kava again and see how it effects me. I could just use a ton of bags of that Yogi tea brand but that also has other plants in it that'll skew the results and I want to see what pure kava does again. Eyeing my old favorite from Kalm with Kava called Borogu which was pretty heady and not too body heavy.

 

[Oliver3]

Weirdly, the patches gave me reflux. But then again, pushing myself gives me reflux, and felt like the patches just gave me slightly more ability to push myself without a crash (although maybe just delayed the crash).

God it's a minefield isn't it?!
My tongues hurting , I've used so much recently...so gonna have to ease off, but it's so unfair as cognitively , emotionally and physically I'd say I'm perhaps fifty percent better.
The pots is less, it's very calming, I can enjoy things.
I can still crash and it can give me false energy but in general it's been an eye opener..
Definitely not a cure is it but working on some of the inflammatory Cascades or smthg a fair bit

 

[bad1080]

I'd say I'm perhaps fifty percent better

let's say your baseline is a bell score of 30, are we talking about an improvement to 45 or to 80?

 

[Dysfunkion]

Just an update from today, mixed feelings. Last night I got unbelievably tired from 6 PM forward that only started to pick up again around 10 PM, so it's as if it caused some weird pause in the usual circadian rhythm there. When I had my second mug of coffee of the day around that 6 PM mark and my cistus tea it's as if they didn't do anything at all. The nicotine potentiated the coffee a bit in the morning but later completely blunted the stimulant effect. I also noticed though the nicotine itself flared that burning brain feeling a bit at random points throughout the day, it didn't flare later when it usually does and it hit a bit earlier. The other day when I tried NAG it completely eliminated it altogether and I'm interested to see with a lower dose if it'll do that again and I have some kind of repeatable positive. I also wasn't able to sleep as well last night either but it was a strange insomnia. I wasn't restless at all and was actually pretty comfortable but my brain wouldn't shut off and took a lot longer to actually drift off.

Today I woke up feeling really heavy eyed and groggy, a bit better than yesterday but still felt like I had some kind of mild cold. The throat doesn't hurt today anymore and I have nasal drip with random aches all around with no real pattern besides in my tailbone (this appears to be immune triggered and usually comes with the feeling where my spine connects to the back of my head, not sure specifically what triggers it besides knowing now that nicotine does for some reason). There are positives though as my senses are clearer today and I was able to sweat in my arm pits and bottom of feet (this one was new to me I haven't felt anything there in well over a year) and I was able to work up a sweat easier. I appear to also have more all around skin sensation and I noticed I'm having more urges to do hobby things again. That one is kind of hard to describe like I feel gears turning neurologically where there was more apathy before. All around though I still feel a bit under the weather today, hope the positives stick though.

edit - Definitely in PEM right now, as I tried to listen to music before but didn't get very far before all sound induced immense amounts of stress on my brain causing the usual head pressure, dizziness, brain fog, sudden anhedonia in relation to doing anything but sitting in silence, and some nausea/digestive distress. But ever since the nicotine test here there is definitely something under all this that is now working that wasn't before. The problem is when whatever this is working is working it's harder to tell when I'm hitting the wall and in danger of crashing so I need to use more subtle clues and past experiences to not allow that to happen.

I'm going to monitor how I feel tomorrow and take things from there. Regardless I'm going to try a reduced dose of NAG the morning after tomorrow. I'm also now wondering though what exactly the mechanism is for the sound intolerance as in my case it's clearly also triggered with the intolerance of all things stimulating and comes with a little brain burny feeling returning but now only with more cognitive back up behind it since this nicotine experiment (only way I can describe it unfortunately). Typing more also contributes to making this worse but I need to get this out so I'm continuing to finish up this post here. The initial nicotine window that was very short and THC (for longer periods of time) do the same relief of this ENTIRE symptom cluster temporarily so it means this is all the result of the same brain inflammation but what would be useful now is finding specifically what it is that is being triggered that causes the symptom cluster to appear and ramp up as the offending stimuli continues which is essentially everything under the sun the worse it gets. IT appears now no matter how bad this gets though since the nicotine turned whatever it did on again that "cognitive backup" remains the same.

 

[Dysfunkion]

Day 2 no nicotine here, cold feeling is almost gone. Just some nasal drip yet. Nothing but typical PEM symptoms going on but they are being masked by this new background cognitive output my brain is capable of now since doing the nicotine experiment but the interesting thing is that they are just as disabling, I simply don't feel them or physical manifestations of the PEM as easily which if I'm not careful could be a dangerous mixture but I know my limits well enough I feel even if I'm still learning smaller things. My air hunger under PEM which would get severe has also been largely eliminated after doing this and hasn't come back. Motivation and desire to do things still remains consistently higher. Last night I just had a fun exhausting night on purpose of eating a bunch of deliciously terrible fried food and blasting music to give my body and brain a stress test under these conditions. I still get the PEM brain burns, the extreme speech problems, the inability to put thoughts into words, the lack of interest up front in doing anything due to the exhaustion (it's like there is layers to the PEM anhedonia to put it in words, drive can be present while this layer of anhedonia is present), lack of emotional expression, extreme irritability, ear ringing, spatial problems, and the pressurized head. So it seems PEM can be triggered cognitively but the physical manifestations appear to be part of a branching system that can be lessened but not totally eliminated in PEM while the cognitive symptoms are in full swing.

 

[Oliver3]

Try adding in cacoa powder...at some point. That will warm you up. At least it did me

 

[Oliver3]

let's say your baseline is a bell score of 30, are we talking about an improvement to 45 or to 80?

Best way I can put it is feeling death is near to almost normal.... I knew if I pushed it it would f me up. And if course I did push it.
Tolerance has built up but it's still effective.
It really helps with the parasympathetic system it seems.
Listening to music again..that was not enjoyable, even tho I'm a musician.
But that surfing close to death feeling is there much much less.
One day, I met my old self...just a shadow..but before all the irritability, dark thoughts dysautonomia etc

 

[Dysfunkion]

Nicotine has been proving to be a very important modifier in my symptom set. It seems to be able to in case get the whole dopamine system working again through some mechanism in my case where once nicotine sparks it, whether it's lower or higher in functioning seems to just take care of itself. I'm not sure if it's a solid repeatable yet but I'm trying to find out right now.

D3 can also restart something close to it but not the same exact thing that makes me feel like my old self before I got terribly ill. I'm also trying to find out if a certain brand topically itself is able to do this since I broke a capsule somewhat recently from a supplement that was also vegan D3 but it did literally nothing topically while another brand which I have on the way had a profound effect (not sure why that would be but we'll find out soon if some weird sensitization thing happened or it really is just that brand of drops).

Why am I bringing that up here? Because I had a weird idea based on how these individually in my current state do (not sure individually which of them I want to try again first). What if I pulsed both of these at the same time? I'm not sure if I will yet but it's an idea I'm heavily considering as D3 in my case is also one of those central symptom modifiers in my case. Since both of them bring back old functional feelings from 2 different pathways that possibly overlap, I wonder if a single shock can get the whole system online and working much better at a baseline again. It's a complete shot in the dark and only based on my experiences without entirely knowing what is going on under the surface though.