Chuck’s Story

Ask Chuck Coburn and he’ll tell you that he’s a hippy.  Born in 1966, Chuck grew up in the south and every Sunday morning you were in church and being reminded vehemently about the importance of walking the straight and narrow path.  More than one pastor delivered the same message – marijuana is bad and will destroy you and your loving family will be heartbroken over your use of the “smoke.”  Like many of his generation, he said that the sad irony was that the plant wasn’t the enemy, nor the devil.  The men of influence and power, like the pastors, abused that power and that abuse took the form of fire and brimstone messaging about cannabis.

 

During the course of his adult years, he kept his use of cannabis a secret, while secretly confident that it kept him from losing his sanity when the terrors of high school were overwhelming him, but more importantly, it had the same calming effect when his father would drink and abuse his mother.  It was later in his life when he was given a diagnosis of Parkinson’s and additional health maladies.  Attempting to be candid with his doctors, he spoke of his severe anxiety and agreed to Klonopin use.  During subsequent visits to his doctor, he expressed his fear at the tolerance he was building to the drug and the increase in dosage he was having to employ in order to get the intended relief.  His doctor advised him to “take them as I said to.”  

 

He lost 102 pounds and nearly lost his life.  His wife, an RN, broached the topic of medical cannabis.  His thoughts returned to the admonitions of his pastors and the “devil’s weed.”  He asked himself, “where were THEY when I shook and cried from withdrawals resultant from the doctor recommended pharmaceuticals?”  

 

Today he uses Rick Simpson oil for tremors and buffers his anxiety.  He jokes that he can “hold a fork and wipe my butt without issue. To those of you out there who are confused, it’s possible to shake so much that cleaning your backside is impossible.”  The RSO gives him back his abilities and his life. 

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Sexual Health

Recently while teaching “Cannabis 101” to a group of women primarily between 30 and 70 years-old the subject of sexual health came up. It was the topic everyone had the most questions about as approximately half of women suffer sexual dysfunction in some way at some point in their lives. Decreased desire, inability to orgasm, painful sex are very common. I didn’t have time to share my story with the group, but I wanted to share it here.

I am in a healthy relationship with someone I am very sexually attracted to and sex never disappoints. However, we have two kids at home and two dogs that sleep in our bed. Our lives are very busy and we are often exhausted by the time our children have gone to sleep.

Our joke is that we “need to preheat the oven,” now this can mean a variety of different things, but most often, preheating the oven is just turning down our worries and stressors. Sometimes when the house is quiet for the first time in the evening it is the first time I can think. Think about that email, my to-do list for the next day, what we need from the grocery store, and when I am doing this the oven is ice cold. My desire to get something accomplished strongly outweighs my desire for sex.

When I received my medical cannabis card it was for migraines,  nothing directly related to sexual dysfunction, I quickly noticed that a small dose of THC and CBD in the evening helped me relax and get my mind off that damn to-do list. It’s like I could instantly feel my shoulders relax for the first time all day. I wanted to experience something enjoyable, not just reply to emails or get caught up on the day’s news. I can’t say that cannabis has drastically improved my sexual health, but it has improved my ability to relax and has increased my desire.

Cannabis has been shown to improve the sexual function of both men and women and I review the research in the article below. Love, touch, and sex are important parts of who we are as humans and are clearly important to the group of women mentioned above. There aren’t a lot of options to help improve sexual function, but cannabis is one that is showing a lot of promise. 

Read the Article on page 60

“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