I'm kinda glad you started this thread, because I've been thinking about starting a thread like it, but keep talking myself out of it. I don't want to seem like a "whiner" or hypochondriac, LOL, but it really does help to talk (or type) about things. I've been dealing with chronic arthritis for quite awhile now, and put down the opiates when I realized what they were doing to my brain. I still get a lot of pain, but believe it or not, you get used to it after awhile, and it doesn't bother you too much. But in the past couple/few months, I've developed some problems with my eyes, or rather, some lifelong problems are getting worse, now that I'm 50 years old. I was born with my eyes badly crossed, and with amblyopia (lazy eye) in my left eye, meaning in my case, that I'm mostly blind in that eye. They did surgery on me twice, when I was 2 & 3 years old, and it probably helped me to look more normal, but it didn't help my vision, that I'm aware of. The problems started a few months ago in my good eye, as involuntary movements in my upper cheek muscles, causing a twitching of the eye, or at least the face near my eye. That kinda sucked, but I just quit going out "as" much, and hoped it would clear up. But in the last week or 2, I've been getting weird aches & pains in the actual eye muscles, and it's been gradually getting worse, as is the involuntary muscle spasms. :sigh: I'm kinda worried that one day, I'll be totally blind, but there's really nothing I can do about it. I've lived a pretty good life, for a poor white boy, LOL, so I hope to fade out gracefully, but I felt like sharing this, because I consider most folks here at AK as friends, in varying degrees, and felt like I kinda oughta explain myself, rather than just go missing. I'm fairly sure medicinal marijuana would help a lot, but between weird & unclear laws, & the cost, it's not a very realistic option for a lot of people. Maybe one of these days, we seem to be getting closer to it, but we're not there yet.
