If you read the post that introduces Better Than Nine’s new 10mg Delta 9 Gummies, I mentioned that I got hurt and had panic attacks each time I ate one. Here’s more details on what happened.

On Monday, March 28th at around 7:30pm, I was in my back yard working on my golf swing. I have a Maxfli practice net that I hit golf balls into. I had been standing a little too close to the ball and began setting up 3-4 inches farther away than I had been accustom to. Anyone who plays golf knows that bad shots are part of the game and when you’re making a change to your swing, bad shots are part of the process. I was using a 4 iron and I was smoking the balls. I was getting such good compression it sounded like a .22 rifle pop when I hit them. Everything was going great until it wasn’t.

It was about 8:30 and I was getting ready to wrap up and go eat dinner with my wife. She was watching me through the kitchen window while I was hitting. On one of the last balls I was gonna hit, I hit the ball thin, it went low across the ground, hit the metal frame of the practice net, and ricocheted directly into my left eye. I instantly knew it was really bad. I was completely blind in that eye immediately. I screamed for my wife to come help me. She came outside and helped me come inside. I had to go upstairs and take out my contact because I knew that once the shock wore off, swelling and pain was sure to follow. I was blind, bleeding, hurt, and scared. We went to the emergency room and told them what happened. Because it was a head injury, they took me back quickly to do MRI and CT scan to make sure my brain wasn’t bleeding. Luckily, the scans didn’t show any brain damage, but my eye was really f-ed up.

The pain was relentless and so bad. I’ve never had something hurt this bad for such a sustained period of time. I’ve had awful pain, but it’s for like 30 seconds and kinda dulls. This was the worst pain, in the form of a headache, and it lasted for about 4 days. I ate so many hydrocodones and oxycodones that I don’t really remember the first 2-3 days.

This has been the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m very blessed or lucky that in 43 years, I have only had one major accident or trauma (that I remember). But it has been awful. I was completely blind in my left eye for about 3 weeks. They wouldn’t commit to telling me if I was ever going to see again for about 2 weeks. I had to lay at no flatter than a 30 degree angle. I couldn’t life anything over 5 pounds, and I was on bedrest for a month because they didn’t want me to do any more damage to my retina. I had to take anti nausea meds because my eye pressure was so high that it gave me these debilitating headaches that made me nausea and they said I could detach my retina by puking. I was in awful pain, but worse, I was so sad and scared.

One of the doctors told me that I have glaucoma now and I asked, “Does this mean that I have a legit medical necessity to use medical cannabis?” She responded, “Yes, but you’re going to have to stay stoned for the next few weeks.” I then asked, “Are you saying that like it’s a bad thing or a challenge?”

So now I’m at home. I’m hurt. I can’t lift anything to work. I can’t see the computer screen to type or do emails. My eye pressure is so high that it causes these headaches that are so bad. But, I have a doctors excuse to smoke weed, so that’s my bright spot.

I only found 2 things that fixed the pain – opiates and cannabis. I had plenty of both and probably over did both of them for the first month. But I’m here to talk about the irony of my life.

I’ve been in the cannabis/hemp/marijuana industry for over 20 years. I was a ‘medical’ marijuana patient and caregiver in California. I’ve used cannabis all of my adult life. Now, I actually have a medical condition that it helps and a doctor’s green light to smoke away.

And it worked. When I’d smoke, the pressure and associated pain in my eye vanished. However, I had to smoke a lot. Normally, I take 1 or 2 puffs and I’m good. To fix this eye pain, I’d have to smoke like a gram of good flower. It would fix the pain, but I would be so stoned that I’d start focusing on the fact that now I’m disabled and all these scary thoughts would race through my head on loop:

“Am I going to get to see outta my eye ever again.”

“Am I going to lose my eye and have a fake one or one of those unsightly holes like Fetty Wap?”

“Will I be able to play golf again?”

“Will my wife still want to be with me if I only have 1 usable eye?”

“What’s my new life gonna be like?”

“Why did this happen to me? I wasn’t doing anything bad. I was just practicing golf in my yard before dinner.”

In addition to these thoughts, my brain kept replaying the incident in my head. I kept seeing the ball line up with my club head and then hear the crack against my face and the white flash.

This sucked so bad, that I switched to the 10mg delta 9 THC gummies. That didn’t work because the edibles would help with the pain, but they would cause all of the anxiety mentioned above PLUS legit panic attacks. I mean legit panic attacks – like when you hear about someone eating a weed cookie and getting so high that they freak out, think they’re having a stroke or heart attack, and call an ambulance. I would have that type of panic attack. I would get short of breath and feel like I was going to faint. I would turn white and get cold, clammy sweats. My working pupil would dilate (my left pupil is still big and doesn’t react to light because I broke my eye sphincter). I for real thought that I was dying.

This was from 1 10mg Delta 9 gummy.

Full disclosure – I have always been sensitive to delta 9 edibles. Even before my accident, I had a few dicey experiences when I was testing the products. But usually 10mg Delta 9 THC in an edible is the right amount for me to have fun, but still keep it together. Not after a traumatic injury. I took delta 9 gummies 3 more times with the exact same results. I had to stop because my wife got tired of baby sitting me at 2am when I’d wake her up because I thought I was dying. She said, “What’s wrong with you? Are you an idiot or something? How many times are you going to keep doing this to yourself until you realize that it isn’t going to work?” And she’s right. I was miserable each time, so why did I insist on repeating the same moronic behavior?

What is interesting is that I can take 10mg Delta 8 or 10mg Delta 10 and I feel awesome. I don’t get anxiety or scared or dissociated. Some people say it’s because Delta 9 is ‘stronger.’ I don’t agree with that for a few reasons. The first, stronger has to be defined before it can be used correctly. Second, I can eat 30mg of Delta 8 and be drunk, but it still doesn’t make me so scared and anxious. The different THC isomers have different affinities to different receptors and this causes different effects for different people.

Better Than Nine’s 10mg Delta 9 gummies are awesome. They just don’t work good with me in my current state. I was just talking to my uncle and he said they help him sleep so good.

Thanks for reading and I hope everyone is doing good!

Daniel