Cannabis for a TBI?

Elana Frankel is not the first person to suffer from a traumatic brain injury (TBI).  She’s one of many to have discovered that cannabis has transformed her thinking about the effects of a TBI. 

Her injury occurred seven years ago and quickly learned three things – 1) she would present like a stroke victim, 2) recommendations for care would include brain and bedrest for 1 to 3 years, and 3) that living with a TBI would be a lifelong adjustment. 

“While I do not remember the actual fall, I do remember waking up unable to speak, think clearly or walk. My brain felt like it was constantly short-circuiting and the physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioral disruptions confused me. Prior to this event, I was the creative director of an online retailer, with a team of 40 people. I was the mother of 2 small children, then ages 4 and 6, and a wife. I taught yoga and mediation and practiced 3-4 times a week. The idea of brain rest, quietly lying in a dark bedroom with no stimuli, for an extended period of time, was disheartening, to say the least,” said Frankel.

Similar to others who had been down the same road, Frankel and her partner began looking for alternatives and read research about TBIs and CBD. They made the decision to give it a chance.  Frankel said that friends and family, well versed in cultivating, extraction, and formulating all wanted to share their products.  She found quickly that with so many options and unlabeled products, her best course of action was to start low and slow.  About four months into her journey, she had discovered the right protocols for her own individual needs – intake methods and dosage had to be tracked to determine what best met her needs. 

She cites there were 4 things that changed with her TBI and how cannabis helped her heal:

  1. My eating habits. When my Parietal Lobe was bruised, I lost my sense of smell and taste so food became unappealing and nutrition went out the door. The right dosage and ratio of THC to CBD stimulated my appetite and boosted my healing through diet and nutrition.
  2. Understanding and expressing language was impossible. My impaired communication skills left me with cognitive and speech difficulties. Basically, I spoke gobbledygook. While many equate cannabis and slurred speech, a dosage of lower THC and higher CBD gave me relief. Honestly, I don’t know how or why. It just did.
  3. Mood. It may be obvious but it needs to be stated. With any life-threatening injury, anxiety, stress and depression sets in. Cannabis helps…a lot.
  4. Breathing. Science has evolved when it comes to mediation, breath work and healing. With cannabis, I accessed calmness and mindfulness.

“Of course, cannabis alone wasn’t the only factor in the healing process and I believe that the combination of cannabis and these four factors brought me tow here I am today: founder of IndigoandHaze.com; founding editor in chief of Women and Weed magazine; author of the book Women and Weed; Chief Growth Officer of medicalcannbismentor.com; creative consultant; and advocate.”

Opinion Piece Made it in The Oklahoman

On December 14, 2020 Oklahoma House Representatives met to discuss the current state of the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Program.

On December 13, 2020 April’s opinion piece was published in the Oklahoman. In her opinion piece she encourages the state representatives to discuss a long-term plan to address the educational needs of the nearly 400,000 medical marijuana patients. 

read the opinion piece here

“I’m just calm”

Brandon Sparks, of USMC, finds calm with cannabis.

Brandon Sparks, 19, saw more at his young age than many men will see in a lifetime on a dark night in 1996.  Sparks would recall 20 years later the horror of the night when two US Marine Corps helicopters collided in mid-air claiming the lives of 14 marines.

A member of the Quick Reaction force, Sparks was called to the scene with fellow teammates to recover the bodies of the fallen and in a North Carolina swamp, that’s not an easy task in any type of weather or light conditions.  That moment in time would change his life forever, as he recalls his exposure to the sheer carnage of retrieving bodies that had literally been hacked to pieces by the tail rotor of one of the aircraft.  Sparks said of that night, “I just kinda started falling apart.”  He would leave the USMC within a year and squashed his memories of that fateful night into the corners of his mind for the next 20 years, when he was finally diagnosed with PTSD – post traumatic stress disorder.  

In 2018, Sparks would apply for and receive his medical marijuana card in an effort to lower the use of five different kinds of medication to treat his insomnia, bipolar disorder, as well as anxiety, depression, and insomnia.  Smoking cannabis flower has led him to a place where he says he has been able to reduce his medications and only take pharmaceuticals for bipolar and anxiety.  

Today, Sparks says “I wake up in the morning, I have a cup of coffee and I smoke a bowl or smoke a vape and within 20 minutes I’m just calm, I’m not over processing things in my brain.  I’m not hypervigilant, I don’t have a ton of thoughts.”  A true believer in the power of the plant medicine offered by cannabis, Sparks is now a 42-year-old father to three girls in Buffalo, New York. 

With every journal purchase we donate 20% to TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. An organization dedicated to helping veterans and their families. To order, use the link below.  



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“Thank God I Found You!”

Our blog this week is a bit different, instead of sharing another patient success we wanted to share an all too common patient frustration.

Meet Sue, Sue is in her 60’s and has suffered with fibromyalgia for the last ten years. She reports her condition has not ever really improved with the medications she has been prescribed, only that she didn’t like the side effects of the anti-depressants and opiates. She said she would rather deal with the pain than the anxiety and drowsiness she felt were caused by the medications. The physicians didn’t have any more to give her so she turned to an online fibromyalgia support group. In this group, she learned about dietary changes that were helping others and she learned about medical cannabis. Living in a legal state she decided to get her card and give it a try.

On her first trip to the dispensary she purchased a vape pen, popular among the support group, and pre-rolls that the budtender said were a good deal. The budtender told her about the strain that was in the pre-roll and it sounded like a great fit for her pain.

Excited to give it a go she decided first to try the pre-roll. Not ever smoking anything in her life, she took one inhalation and was done after that. “The taste was awful” is what she reported to us. Next, she tried the vape pen, and unsure of how to use it, she took a long inhalation and held it in. A few seconds later she had a coughing fit so bad it made her vomit.

After spending $100 on her physician certification, her state fees, and what she felt like was a wasted $60 on her first trip to the dispensary she reluctantly decided to go back to see if she could find something else. She shared her financial concerns with the dispensary staff and wanting to help her get the most for her money, they recommended RSO. That evening she followed the directions on the label and two days later she was finally able to get out of bed. Not the effect she was looking for.

I think we can all agree that Sue did not have a good first experience with cannabis. Thankfully, she came to us and we were able to provide her with the individualized education she needed. She is now using an oil twice a day that helps with the pain and doesn’t cause any fatigue or drowsiness.

“Thank God I found you!” are words we frequently hear, but not frequently enough. Sue’s story is just one of many we’ve heard and we’re hoping with the education we provide for patients and dispensaries we can prevent patients from experiencing what Sue did.

To learn more about medical cannabis, please schedule a free 15-minute consultation here. 

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“Mr. Z” Gets Back to Work

Cannabis Education | The Cannabis Care Team of Kansas City, MO

I met “Mr. Z” nearly 3 years ago when he was having extreme difficulty with his Parkinson’s symptoms. Although he was in his late 80’s, had been experiencing tremors and difficulty walking for the last 5 years, he wasn’t about to give up on his projects in the garage. His work ethic was unlike any I had seen and he did not accept letting his tools sitting around gathering dust. The list of 20+ medications and supplements weren’t helping with his symptoms. The tremors didn’t allow him to use a drill anymore and being stuck in a wheel chair limited his ability to maneuver between his work stations.

His medications were messing with his circadian rhythm and his days and nights had been completely flipped. He was beginning to suffer from depression because of isolation as well. He had a very understanding and cooperative physician who worked with him and his family to try to get his medications to work more effectively, but that usually meant there were frequent trips to the pharmacy or dosage changes.

A man who had been completely able-bodied for 80 years now felt like he was, in his words, “just an experiment,” his whole life had started to revolve around his condition and medications.

Growing up in a conservative household and avoiding most medications in his adult years he never thought he would consider trying anything related to the cannabis plant, but he was desperate and was willing to try anything.

As with most of my patients it takes times to find the right product, dose, or delivery method, and it definitely took time for him. His family wanted to start with something topical at first, and although topical products can be very effective for localized issues, only specialized gels and patches will reach the blood stream. They then decided to try a sublingual oil, and without seeing immediate effects and him not really liking the taste, they stopped giving it to him on a consistent basis.  It’s hard for anyone of us to continue something we don’t see results from. Especially when it’s something that can cost over a $100 a month. However, after an episode that really had the family worried they decided to take it seriously and made a commitment to giving him the CBD 3 times a day. After increasing his dose from 10 mg 3 times a day to 25 mg twice a day and 50 mg at night they started to notice an improvement.

His tremors never went away, but his chronic pain improved, he was able to get back to a regular sleeping schedule, and he stopped showing signs of depression. “Mr. Z” woke most mornings feeling rested and ready to get to work and although the addition of THC could have possibly provided some additional benefit for the tremors, he was just fine feeling good enough to get back to those projects.

To read an article on medical marijuana for the treatment of Parkinson’s, read the article below.

Micheal J Fox Foundation