How Cannabis affected Kate’s Crohn’s

Most people in the industry will tell you that they have a personal cannabis story that led them to their current role.  One such industry leader, Katie Stem, CEO of Peak Extracts in Oregon is no exception. 

Stem was diagnosed at the young age of 21 with Crohn’s disease and like other sufferers, she wanted freedom from the symptoms and day-to-day struggles.  Moving from Minnesota to Oregon in 2004, she took a job at the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU), which is a research hospital. 

After completing the move, her visit to a gastroenterologist to discuss Crohn’s led to his recommendation to try cannabis as a treatment for the symptoms.  At the time, Oregon’s MMJ program was new and fortunately, Crohn’s was on the list of qualifying conditions, so Stem was able to obtain a patient card.  She would go on to experiment with different strains and through the process learned that different strains had a huge impact on different symptoms.  With her self-education came the notion that she wanted to find consumption methods aside from smoking, which is when she began making her own strain-specific edibles. 

“I worked at OHSU for several years doing research on MS. My work there was mostly focused on natural products and pharmacology. We were comparing normal pharmaceutical drugs and interventions compared to green tea, fish oil, or grape seed extract, and what the effect on all of those things were on inflammation and the progression of MS,” said Stem in a subsequent interview. After ending her tenure with OHSU, she went to school for Chinese herbal medicine and became certified and the master of her own practice in 2010, all the while, continuing to make infused chocolates.

Today, Stem is the CEO of Peak Extracts, which focuses on full-spectrum formulations rather than isolates.  Her work at OHSU with EGCG, a long acronym that she says is the active component in green tea, led her to the business model for Peak.  “Ultimately, it’s better for the patients, it’s a more nuanced effect and it’s different from strain to strain, because there’s a huge variety of pharmacologically active substances.  A lot of the terpenes can affect the way that reuptake or absorption occurs.  It’s a super varied myriad of compounds, based on how you extract it and how you preserve all the characteristics.” 

Today, Katie Stem has found fulfillment in her career, which Crohn’s and cannabis brought her to.  “That’s why it’s so important that people can choose, because what makes someone sleepy might make someone else really hyper. There’s something special about the chemistry of each of these strains, so I really want people to be able to choose what they are going to go through.”

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How an MS Patient Found Success

Ardra Shephard is a Canadian and not well known in the US – but she is on her way to
increased recognition and fame as a blogger, script consultant, and speaker. What you don’t know about Ardra is that her award-winning blog Tripping on Air is an inside look at her life with multiple sclerosis (MS). MS grips its sufferers in the worst ways including nerve pain, spasticity, and insomnia – as well as seizing legs and fatigue. Conventional medicine often produces unwanted side effects and can lead to more pharmaceutical experiments in a continually failing attempt to find relief.

Ardra recently wrote about 7 things she learned in her journey to treat her MS woes with medicinal cannabis. On her list:

1. It’s important to consult a professional. Taking an approach to any treatment plan
without first talking with a medical professional is not only foolish, but can be dangerous.
Ardra recognized early on in her journey that she knew next to nothing about the
plant-based medicine and took it upon herself to do diligent research with the help of
clinicians and pharmacists to ensure she understood recommendations for her specific conditions.

2. Medical cannabis can be expensive. In the US, medical healthcare providers do not cover cannabis as medication and this can be an out of pocket expense which takes experimentation with different types, which can be spendy.

3. It’s possible to overdo it with medical cannabis. Ardra writes about how the dosage for her medication in Canada included instructions to “start slow.” Unfortunately, she unknowingly overdid it and although she slept, when a middle-of-the-night bathroom need interrupted her slumber, she realized she was extremely high and promptly fainted.

4. The effects of medical cannabis can last a long time. As a result of the psychoactive effects in THC, cannabis effects can be long lasting. With practice and journaling effects, one can determine the right type and dosage to serve as a solution to many conditions.

5. Medical cannabis is not without risk or side effects. Don’t misunderstand that finding – there are side effects that can result from cannabis use – but they don’t include addiction, or cancer like many pharmaceuticals do. The side effects from cannabis might include anxiety or paranoia, sedation, and increased appetite. The beauty of these side effects is that with careful use and documenting results as experimenting with different strains and products is that some of these can be easily avoided.

6. Medical cannabis is not a panacea. Ardra is quick to point out that cannabis didn’t cure her MS, but for her is a symptom management tool, used in conjunction with lifestyle modifications, diet, and some conventional medicine.

7. The benefits are worth it. Like many others who suffer from the impacts of MS, Ardra found that CBD and THC helps her to sleep better, decrease pain, and as such pain medication, and enjoy some of life’s simpler tasks without suffering.

view ardra's blog here