CBD for DDD? Let’s See…

Twenty plus years ago, I was in a very bad car wreck where an inattentive woman, driving a huge pickup truck, plowed into my little Honda Accord as I was at a standstill, waiting to turn left.

Forensics determined that I was hit full-force at 40 mph. My vehicle was totaled. I was unconscious, head hanging over the steering wheel. I awoke some time later with excruciating pain in my back.

Disoriented, I turned to view my surroundings and saw the back windshield “blown out”. With the pain in my back, I thought I had been shot.

Fast forward… Medical tests showed nothing was broken, but I had spinal issues, a cervical (neck) without curvature, degenerative disc disease, stenosis, sclerosis, bulging discs, etc..

To manage pain and speed up recovery, I followed the doctor’s orders to attend physical therapy, take muscle relaxers, 800mg x 4 of Ibuprofen/day, and see a chiropractor. I was determined that I would live my life as if none of this had happened – to be thankful that I was not paralyzed and my body could still move and perform physical chores out and indoors.

That attitude served me pretty well over the years, but now, as I am approaching the golden age of qualifying for Medicare, I am frequently in excruciating pain after doing heavy chores. Trimming trees, sledge-hammering old tree stumps, scraping the popcorn off of the living room ceiling, all are becoming more and more impossible to achieve. For instance, the last physical chore I performed was trimming bushes, running the weed eater and chopping up tree roots. That was a week ago.  Afterward, the pain in my neck was debilitating. I sat for days with ice on my neck and fell asleep in my recliner from boredom.

My concerned husband surprised me one afternoon with a bottle of CBD oil. I was ecstatic with hopeful joy of finding relief in that little bottle. However, to my dismay, I felt absolutely no relief and sank into despair once again. Until… speaking with a friend, she told me of her back issues and showed me her bottle of CBD capsules which she acquired from the local pharmacy. She gave me two to try.

I’m not promoting drug trafficking or taking any medication that is not prescribed to oneself, but, being that this was a trusted friend, I hurried home where I took the first of the two pills. Within two hours, I began to feel relief. At bedtime, I took the second pill.

Upon awakening this morning, I felt a world of difference! I actually slept all night without constant tossing and turning from pain to try to find a position which would accommodate my neck/thoracic problem. I will be driving to the pharmacy to purchase my own bottle of CBD capsules – 5.0mg, 60 capsules for $75.

Some people swear that they have found relief from CBD oil, and I am glad for them. However, without standardization, there is no proof of how much CBD is actually in the oil, nor the remaining level of THC, the latter of which could cost someone their livelihood, such as a CDL driver who undergoes random drug testing.

The CBD oil store where my husband purchased the liquid form, gave him a “test certificate” displaying the breakdown of the product’s components. I am skeptical of this “certificate”. Anyone with a little bit of savvy could create such a document. I have blacked out any of the company’s information to protect their privacy. My point being though, how does one know what they are truly buying?

Remember when Vaping was the big thing? Little mom and pop shops were sprouting up all over, until going out of business because they could not compete with the bigger shops, or, their products were no good or overpriced. Well, that seems to be the case now with CBD oil shops. They are popping up all over, and the same destiny awaits some of them as product quality and price wars weed them out.

Personally, I am more confident purchasing the product from a pharmacy, or directly from a doctor’s office than from a CBD oil store. I feel that the pharmacy will do its due diligence in researching product quality.