Recognizing that I sleep better when I take a gummy before bed, I took these apple cider gummies for my recent bout with insomnia. Here’s how they hit.
As I have mentioned before, I’m a lightweight when it comes to weed. I only took about 5mg. This was my experience. TL;DR: reasonably priced and worth it.
Today’s review is for apple cider flavored gummies from The Botanist. Check out my other edible reviews.
Cannabis Type: The bottle doesn’t say, but I’m guessing Indica.
Price: $18
Dose: 10 mg
THC: 10 mg each gummy
Taste: Delicious apple flavor with no weedy aftertaste. So look out if good-tasting edibles are your weakness. Mindfulness of your THC consumption is a requirement for these edibles unless you like getting too high.
Not as chewy or sticky as some gummies. More of a dissolvable texture that doesn’t stick to your teeth. Quit pleasant, actually.
Overall High: 8/10
I only took half a gummy and woke up and needed to pee a little after midnight, the time the THC hit its peak. Getting to the toilet was fine, but I was dizzy and had to call my husband to help me get from the toilet back to bed. (I have balance issues and have taken a few falls, so I err on the side of caution due to anxiety.)
Time to Relief: I was asleep within 30 minutes. That’s good for an insomniac!
Duration of Relief: 9 hours
I slept pretty well, just got up the one time and otherwise out like a light. I didn’t wake up feeling groggy or hungover in the morning, but got dizzy and felt faint about 2 hours in.
Pain Relief: 8/10
I slept soundly when pain and discomfort were high, so this gummy had to be good. Giving it 8/10 is a best guess at how well it actually did though because I was not consciously aware of my pain. All I can say with certainty is that, like with the 1906 pills, I got 9 hours of sleep.
Munchies (Intensity): 0/10
I was asleep. I didn’t crave any food, and I wasn’t tempted to sabotage my non-flared IBS by eating more than my digestive tract could process.
Couchlock (Intensity): 0/10
I was asleep. So that feeling that I should get up and do something fighting the feeling that I can’t get up and do something wasn’t an issue again.
Time Dilation (Intensity) 6/10
When I woke up I thought it had to be at least 4 am, and when I told Dan I tried to wait out the dizzyness rather than wake him? There’s a solid chance I experienced 5 seconds as 5 minutes.
I couldn’t sleep last night. Had insomnia the last two nights, really, but it was severe last night. I was awake at 3:00 a.m., tossing uncomfortably every few minutes. It was one of those nights where my usual calming sources (the Sleep with Me podcast, Unwiding Anxiety audiobook, Christmas music, etc.) were exceptionally irritating instead of comforting.
It happens, you know. My efforts to quell the anxiety backfire sometimes, and I haven’t quite figured out how to deal with those moments yet. When my brain won’t STFU, and I feel all alone in the deep, dark night my anxiety is sure to hit peak bothersomeness.
Shush. It is so a word.
Anyway, I rose from bed about 8:00 this morning with my heart racing. I was dizzy and seeing stars, breathing rapidly and shallowly and trying to maintain my balance.
They happen frequently enough, these morning anxiety attacks, that it’s easier to count the mornings I don’t have one than it is to count the mornings I do have one.
Though I can’t make any scientific assertions because the brain tumor makes everything a giant diagnostic question mark, I am of the opinion that starting my day with this habitually absurd amount of anxiety is what makes me feel deer-in-the-headlights paralyzed 97% of the time.
It seems a logical conclusion because some days I feel less anxious and have fewer or less severe physical symptoms of anxiety. If it were the brain tumor, life would be more consistent, I think.
Speaking of anxiety (because that’s what I do now) I realized that after a couple of Thanksgiving style gut-bomb meals Wednesday and Thursday, I didn’t have my usual mind-racing anxiety about IBS-D, and it was really nice. I did however, have some bloating and discomfort and a mild (for me) flare of IBS-C.
I think my body just reacts anxiously to eating anything now, because that’s what I have trained it to do, however mindlessly. I’m working to detach those pavlovian connections, but it’s proving to be harder than untangling Christmas lights.
(There will be swearing along the way, but I’m determined to come away with the win.)
For instance, last night my self-talk was: if you don’t poop by Tuesday, you can take some Senekot. However, it might be helpful to see what exactly your body knows how to do without intervening.
A couple of hours ago, I pooped. (I still need that T-shirt. LOL!)
I don’t know if you all are tired of me talking about poop, but I just can’t take it for granted. Literal impossibility right now.
I also don’t know how you guys are taking this post on the whole. For the record, I am feeling hopeful but concerned I’m coming off a total downer.
As usual, I have a million more things to write about, but I have to rest. I hope those of you who did the Thanksgiving thing this week had a genuinely good holiday.
To help keep the lights on here for another year I need 5 people to share a page from this website with a friend who might like it.
Any insomniac will tell you that a snoring partner is the absolute worst. It’s me. I’m the insomniac.
I know Dan’s not taunting me while he snores in the other room, but only when I’m not sleep deprived. The rest of the time I want the cats to meow-scream in his ears until he’s the one not sleeping.
Sleep deprived Emily is not the good Emily.
We are expecting several days of rain and snow in these parts as the temperature fluctuates between freezing and not-freezing. In the before times, temperature changes wouldn’t bother me much. Now, however, it makes me want to take weed and eat too much chocolate in an attempt to fake my way to comfort.
I used to say cancer made me old before my time, had me shaking a fist at the clouds while predicting that “weather is coming.” But maybe I’m of a certain age now anyway.
Regardless, I’ve eaten all the chocolate and weed is too dehydrating and expensive to take without excessive forethought.
The brutal cold we experienced in the last couple of days wasn’t actually that bad for my various inflammations. I suppose because things were consistently cold? It’s the back-and-forth with bonus precipitation that makes me want to throat punch Mother Nature. She’s pulled the “maybe this is trending toward tolerable” rug out from under me yet again. The old crank.
Coincidentally, it’s very difficult to meditate when I am in increasingly horrific pain. The bruised rib thing isn’t going away quickly either. It’s just not a good time for me to do indecisive Midwest winter, okay?
Okay, now that I’ve got all this griping out on the internet where it belongs, I’m going to try sleeping again. If that fails—and there’s a really good chance it will—I’ll play Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.
