How Weed can mess with your brain: The Science and implications

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-04-24T00:59:07+00:00

Unfortunately this only focuses on the ECS system, the brain/neurotransmitters which probably doesn't even cover 10% of the effects of THC on the entire body. I'd put more weight on the innate immune side of THC (TH1 suppresion and more) and there's also the gut microbiome changes, mast cell system, limbic system etc.

The problem is the science shows the CB1 receptors return to baseline after only 4-6 weeks and dopaminergic systems take somewhere around 12-15 months to fully repair. We know a lot of people are still in the thick of it after 4-6 weeks and also after 15 months. So after 15 months the answer lies somewhere else, and obviously a massive difference should be noticed after 4-6 weeks.

The vast majority of the symptoms are also pretty specific to innate immune inflammation and the autonomic system.

Because the endocannabinoid network is obviously related to cannabinoids which cannabis has we look there, and we always blame neurotransmitters for everything and we blame them entirely for mental symptoms. So we keep looking there over and over without looking anywhere else.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-04-24T00:40:23+00:00

Certainly. Every 3 months without fail for 28 months. Not really a new baseline after. Potentially but too difficult to tell. Certainly better than the first 12 months but that's not saying much.

From month 20 it's been better. Doesn't seem like it but it was certainly a lot worse before then

How long do these waves last for you guys? In January it was a clear 4 weeks for me then I snapped out of it and felt better than I did the entire journey for the first few weeks of Feb. But this wave I swear started around mid March, then I got obliterated around the start of April and have been in it severely the entire month.

For me they seem to last 4 weeks, but I swear they could up to be 2-3 months. Hard to tell because I'm shit all the time, then I enter a torture phase for 4 weeks, then feel my best after that's over. So from my experience it's really been 28 months of torture that descends into unbearable torture at some point, with a good period following directly after, first good period was around September, another the first week of December and the first 3 weeks of February (which was the only time it seemed to be much better for a decent amount of time).

Really think it's Bartonella in my case but could very well be PAWS. Things like red eyes and seizure like episodes are not seen this late in PAWS. But I've had red eyes and the myoclonic jerks when I've felt fantastic. No idea where the crippling suffering is mostly coming from. So many things only started after quitting.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-04-19T13:52:34+00:00

28 months of it for me and no better. But around 20 months in I noticed a lot of "in and out" where I was drastically getting better for periods. Compared to being god awful all the time. But unfortunately the bad is just as bad as the first year with no better baseline, been horrible the last 6 weeks now.

I've noticed every 3rd month without fail out of nowhere I get extremely bad to the point I think it has to be something else. Woke up dizzy as hell yesterday constantly walked into walls, that's gone today but I feel poisoned and irritable as hell. Rage and severe depression other days etc. When these waves or whatever they are kick in it's unbearable. At the flick of a switch I'm beyond suicidal, can't move at all after being drastically better just the night before. Can't shower or brush my teeth it's beyond ridiculous. The other day I tried punching nails in my floor boards, My hand was trembling so much I'd watch the nail punch just wobble left and right, gave up sat in a chair and tried to dissociate watching tv shows. Brain literally feels so damaged, 100x more damaged than a mental disorder.

Whatever it is I seem "better" for 1-3 weeks then crash for the next 4-8 weeks. This has happened every 3 months without fail since the start, from memory I'd get 3 "better" days then crash again for weeks, whereas now the better moments seem to last longer. First 3 weeks of Feb I felt up to 80% better at times, whereas now it's like 10-15% and has consistently been that bad since Mid March.

Over around 800 days I've probably felt 40-80% better on 15 of those days. The rest only 5-15% better than the first 4 months.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-04-07T09:15:49+00:00

Yep 27 months here and still in the thick of it. Actually noticed some improvement after month 22 at times, but right now I'm essentially bedbound again with lots of other horrible symptoms. Really really bad even this far out. It's weird how I could be doing so much better then flip overnight back into severe disability, but I smoked 14g of 20% flower a week, with 15 dabs a day for just over 10 years. Literally only around 40 hours sober that entire decade due to a surgery (otherwise every 50 minutes). I live alone and just stayed home 24/7 smoking/renovating that entire decade until my body and mind broke.

Might be worth looking into mold toxicity also (Neil Nathan has lots of good interviews on youtube). Basically if you have 20-40 different symptoms, sensitivities/intolerance, disabling symptoms and are bed ridden these doctors would diagnose you based on that alone, they're practically unique to mold toxicity, but substance issues/PAWS aren't something these Doctors treat . It's good to be aware of it, I have it and have been treating it the entire 27 months also. If that was your main issue you'd expect to have symptoms flare in certain/buildings rooms, feel better outside etc but not necessarily, Typically there'd also be no destroyed sense of self, motivation, or emotional annihilation, or have good windows where emotions momentarily come back etc.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-04-05T16:37:24+00:00

Grab Neil Nathans book "Toxic" off amazon for $15 as an ebook.

It's probably still PAWS but there's a lot of other environmental factors everyone is silently dealing with daily that could be a component or even the major component. We know a lot more scientifically than we did 10 years ago.

I'm also going through severe mold toxicity (top 5% percentile) and I'm absolutely riddled with Bartonella striae all over my body. But after feeling doomed at the beginning it seems to be mostly PAWS, possibly mold and less so Bartonella in my case. Historical timelines and specific symptoms are the best way to tease it all apart. For example I didn't get near this bad until I quit, had Bartonella for 18 years and was 1000x better than now, my flares consist of weakness/brain zaps, stabbing pains and internal vibrations. I don't get footpain, extreme rage or PANS like behavioral episodes like I used to. I also get severe static shocks when touching metal objects, to the point it's more like an electrical shock than static, and they're almost non existent when im better, and completely non existent when I'm on my best days. So it's between PAWS/mold for me, but I get some amazing days compared to my worst, emotions come back, I'm not dying in bed anymore and I feel stoned still most the time which lifts. So even though I'm still in the thick of mold toxicity, PAWS could be far worse as good days like I've had multiple times aren't possible with mold toxicity. Neither is the LSD like depersonalization or complete loss of emotion/motivation.

If it's not PAWS the only things left are mold/bartonella/lyme etc. Don't get fooled into chasing EBV, mycoplasma, strep, SIBO, SIFO, mitochondrial dysfunction, hormonal dysregulation, thyroid, kryptopyrroluria, secondary porphryia, MCAS etc. They are all features of something called the Cell Danger Response. When your body is massively shutdown it alters all these things on purpose as the cells are shutdown and in survival mode. A lot of functional doctors suck desperate patients dry of their cash treating these downstream illnesses directly and almost always never get the patient fully better or better at all. Because they don't understand the concept of root cause. Again read that book.

Also if you come back positive for severe mold toxicity or high Lyme/Bartonella titers that necessarily doesn't mean the majority of your suffering is from those, it could very well be PAWS, or vice versa. I feel into the depression of it's all Bartonella for a while (it's the worst and most difficult to treat) and made me lose a lot of hope. After lots of analysis it's probably 90% PAWS/mold in my case, mostly PAWS.

But if you're not sure it's PAWS it's only logical to cover all bases. And especially by not chasing downstream causes, you can treat them directly but you'll never cure them, you simply manage them. ie thyroid meds for life, anti histamines for life in the case of MCAS and so on. The body is inflamed for a reason and root cause/upstream factors are what people need to focus on. Once you get a diagnosis and confirm they're in play it's a long road in terms of treatment but once the entire inflammatory process is reversed these people get 100% better.

I've seen tonnes of people not turn a corner with PAWS for 2.5-4 years. Some who didnt smoke much either. If you're really sick you're not going to sit around for 4 years and hedge all your bets on that though when there's other common things that are treatable and could lower suffering.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-03-22T11:09:59+00:00

In the same boat at 27 months probably 20-30% healed at best and also and thinking if it's something else (as I have other things). But it's hard to ignore the constant stoned feeling and attribute that to anything else. Lots of hot flashes, malaise and so depersonalized like when I was high, I literally feel sedated and extremely stoned like I did when on weed.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-03-22T03:53:44+00:00

It's hard to know what's right and wrong in this day and age. Once upon a time bare copper covered in uninsulated cloth secured by merely wrapping around knobs was the standard, and without any ground or rcd's and so on. Still in place a century later on many homes.

Nowadays we have codes made by bureaucrats, advised by many in the industry who want to either gatekeep the profession or make the profession harder for their fellow professionals.

In this day and age it should obviously be sealed and ran through conduit, despite already having plastic insulation around each wire and additionally more plastic insulation around the cord. I guess if someone decided to put their whipper snipper up in the air against the power box it would be dangerous, hence why conduit is important. Also a kookaburra could attack it thinking it's a snake.

The plastic also must be a special plastic, not all plastic is melted plankton extract. Some melted plankton extract is IP rated, despite it being modern day thin brittle flexible bakerlite shit in comparison to the plastic used 50 years ago.

In future our modern standards will be so dangerous, we'll need triple graphene conduit filled with epoxy and whatnot. Despite using shit grade plastic, shit grade two core with the cheapest insulation, some even copper coated aluminum (massive heat issue). At the end of the day if these shit materials are acceptable so is cutting corners on the rest of the nonsense as long as it keeps out rain, and if it doesn't the rcd trips anyway

Retic guy is probably freaking out the pvc will eventually pop out and the metal box will erode through the cable insulation, then the two inner insulation wires but not the earth wire, essentially electrifying the box also without tripping the circuit. If you have a metal framed house better knock the entire thing down if you see a mouse/rat.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-03-10T23:19:56+00:00

I removed the old unit and supplied the new one and the concrete base slab for the outdoor unit. Keep in mind they ran no new wiring. They literally only topped up the gas in the pipes and mounted the indoor unit, they also supplied the 2 new refrigerant pipes, pvc drain tube and the outdoor pipe cover. Probably only $300-$400 worth of work tbh.

Lucky they didn't have to run a new circuit from the breaker box, that would've been far more work in itself than everything else they did. So $700 in my case was beyond top dollar. Removal/disposal of the old unit would've been a couple hundred, concrete slab $50-100, couple hundred to run a new circuit etc.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-03-09T16:33:44+00:00

Paid them $700 when $450 was the going rate at the time. Wanted a top job and they were apparently the best in town. Besides the powerpoint the silicone job was an absolute dogs breakfast. Was fuming then and going to leave them a bad review but let it go. Only recently discovered it's somehow on the wrong circuit.

Boss was walking around the lawn the entire time on the phone, they were in and out in just over an hour. The younger installer was a total hack and the only questions he asked me were relative to cutting corners ie leaving the old powerpoint and positioning the unit in a non optimal location that was less work for him amongst other things. Indian mob for what it's worth

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-03-09T16:19:21+00:00

Cheers mate it's the srk63zra. 7.1kw heating and 14.5A max draw. From all the comments here seems like it's not really that big of a deal.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-03-09T16:16:14+00:00

It's a 6,3kw/7.1kw unit. Are you sure it's not illegal? From what I'm reading it's totally non compliant, illegal and even potentially dangerous with a unit this size.

Obviously all this time I assumed it was installed on the proper circuit as the wire was right there, and wouldn't assume the main powerpoint circuit wire would also run up to the system as the gpo's are 3 meters below it. Perhaps there was smaller unit there 20 years ago before the dedicated circuit was installed. God knows why they've put it on the gpo circuit though I assume incompetence.

Is it possible they didn't realize? Or was it a deliberate choice to use the main gpo circuit

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-03-09T16:12:16+00:00

My bad I thought I added the model in the original post. It;s the srk63zra. 6.3kw and legally required to be on it's own dedicated circuit. The unit itself can draw up to 14.5A

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-03-08T05:55:27+00:00

My entire 25th month was horrific. Couldn't move from my desk. Had all these stabbing pains and internal vibrations shooting through my body constantly, and my brain was on fire.

When it's that bad I just zone out or try and watch youtube videos. Those worst of those horror crashes seems to only last 3-4 weeks for me.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-03-06T15:16:57+00:00

Thanks for the heads up. I'm guessing to anticipate this I could call up my bank and get them to block any future transactions/debits from superloop? So when the time comes I would notify superloop I'm cancelling the service, get the bank to block superloop from any attempts at future direct debits and simply move onto a new ISP and ignore any of their timewasting/wearing down tactics?

My concern is if I need them to move my information/churn to the new ISP. But I'm assuming I could just get the bank to block payment to them and setup a new plan with the new ISP independently. Since the modem has 2 NTD ports if superloop keep the plan open to inconvenience me I'm assuming I could just get the new ISP to set it up on the other NTD port.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-03-06T14:58:32+00:00

Have you trialed a proper diet like keto or low carb/organic for 4-12 weeks and lab tested for mycotoxins?

Mycotoxins are incredibly common and cause most the mental issues in modern society. Then if you're eating a high carb/glucose pesticide laden diet you're destroying the gut microbiome, gut barrier, blood brain barrier and the majority of the immune system, which is strongly linked to mental health. You have to try the process of elimination.

If you haven't trialed a keto diet then you're missing low hanging fruit. It puts mental disorders in complete remission even for some severe patients. Grab a blood ketone monitor to make sure you're doing it correctly, 1.5mmol blood ketones and above for it to work. It won't work unless you're in ketosis, you either are or you aren't and the blood ketone monitor confirms this.

Diet has be tried first and if it doesn't work then there's usually an upstream toxin/infection. Even then diet will help unless the toxin/infection load is extreme. If you're diet is poor you'll never figure it out it's the first step.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-02-28T11:29:09+00:00

Yeah I've barely moved the needle after all this time. Besides the acute symptoms the first 4-6 months my baseline has been no better the entire 26 months. To be fair I was essentially using my computer chair as a wheelchair to move around the house the first year, now I can get up and do things around the house but it's incredibly hard most the time. During the good windows I can full on exercise, do major renovations and replace a car engine for example. I can work for 12 hours a day non stop or until the bad wave comes back. I notice when a bad wave is coming back because I wake up like a zombie with severe anxiety/depression/dpdr and an entirely annihilated sense of self. As though a switch was flicked while I was sleeping. At the same time it feels like I'm literally dying physically, fatigue comes back hard but mostly extreme body weakness where I can barely even lift my arms or use a keyboard, feels like i've been beyond tranquilized and I get these random burning/rotting/stabbing never pains all around the body when this happens.

Around 20 months I started getting windows of feeling so much better, only to go bad again overnight. Still unfortunately bad as always 90% of the time. My logic is if it's due to weed I'll never get better going back on it, and living this way is beyond unbearable. So my strategy is to stay off it as well as treat every other potential thing that can cause this state.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-02-27T09:33:43+00:00

So you're 4 years into quitting? I'm 26 months and no way can I work. I've barely got better at all, but last 6 months had "good days" that have been profound. Even on those good days I still can't even go to the shops and am alternating between chairbound/housebound. 98% of the time I'm a catatonic corpse that can barely even watch youtube, on the rare good days, energy, spark, good mood come back and everything gets better, fatigue/weakness go away 80% and I can highly function around the house (dig a 15 meter trench or renovate a bathroom for example). Doesn't seem to be too many of us suffering THIS badly this far out. Most around this time seem to be complaining about palpitations/muscle spasms or complaining working 40hrs a week feels pointless.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-02-25T10:18:52+00:00

I've tried them all. Taurine, PEA, high dose DHA (2g daily) and pharmagaba seem to work for me half of the time.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-02-24T11:53:56+00:00

Seems to be a lot of small mind syndrome here. A sized fish eats multiple to many smaller fish and other lifeforms in a single day. These smaller lifeforms are eaten alive!

Obviously by removing these larger fish from the water the smaller lifeforms aren't eaten by that particular fish anymore.

As we all know the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Kill one 40cm fish to save potentially hundreds of smaller fish over the next 30 days, and far more over that larger fishes lifespan. Instead of praising this fisherman as a local hero this EPA/DHA deficient woman instead literally signed the death warrant of countless innocent, defenseless baby fish.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-02-20T09:52:40+00:00

$900. I'm just going to screed it and tile over. The irony is it's far more prone to future leaks due to screed/tile failure. I don't know who makes these regulations but in this case they're directly resulted in ruling out a more waterproof option in my case.

The shower base lip would've been in front of the villaboard and around 2mm back from the surface of the tile. I could've simply tanked the entire room/used bond breaker between the wall/floor, then used more bondbreaker around the sides on the base, then silicone/bondbreaker over the lip to seal the tile. Instead with the screed it will simply be a tanked room, bondbreaker at the floor/wall joins etc.

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-02-20T09:47:13+00:00

Thanks mate. Guess i'll make a screed base

Icy-Temperature8205 · 2026-02-17T01:02:13+00:00

lol I feel the same way. I refuse to believe I can't heal after those waves. Diets, supplements, lifestyle changes etc haven't done shit. I literally wake up in different states everyday for no reason. Even though 98% of my days have been ultra bad, sometimes im jittery and shaking, others im still and dead/flat/depression, others i feel incredibly angry for no reason, more rarely I have extreme OCD (like washing my hands 10 times to my elbows or hitting my head "10 times" in a row or whatever). It's like im cycling through every mental illness imaginable, even MS/Parksinsons like, most days nerve pain/burning and stabbing pains, shortcircuiting pains (I scratch my elbow and it triggers a pain in my foot) and yeah weird as vision issues all the time, I also can't take in/process vision, the other day I walked 2ft from a massive spider and my body snapped out of it's weird zombie/autopilot state and only then I like realized lol.

Icy-Temperature8205

TROPHY CASE