Skeptical Mom Tries CBD
First, a disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, a CBD expert, and I am not giving medical advice or making universal health claims about cannabidiol. I’m just a skeptical mom who gave CBD a try and this is strictly based on my personal experience and the evidence available.
When I talk with my mom friends (the real mom friends who keep it real about momming), we’re often plagued with many of the same issues. We’re exhausted. We’re anxious. Our sweet, beautiful children have wrecked our bodies. We’re stressed. Self-care is just a hashtag we use when we’re hiding from our children taking a bubble bath. And so if anything helps with any of those issues, we can’t wait to talk about it.
Increasingly those conversations have been about cannabidiol or CBD. CBD is an active ingredient in cannabis, is an essential component in medical marijuana, and is derived directly from the hemp plant. But, CBD alone is only one of the hundreds of components in marijuana. CBD alone is nonpsychoactive, which means it doesn’t get you high or stoned. So if you binge on Netflix and nosh on an entire bag of Cheetos afterward, that’s all you.
I tend to approach everything with a healthy amount of openness and skepticism. I like essential oils for aromatherapy and my kids never miss a vaccine. Unfortunately for skeptics like me, research is ongoing in the CBD realm. According to Harvard Health, there is some strong evidence to support CBD can treat severe epilepsy, studies suggest it can help with falling asleep and staying asleep so it can be a win for insomnia sufferers, and it could be an option for treating chronic pain. But more studies on the effects of CBD in humans are needed. So, based on what I had read and evaluated my own chronic conditions when asking myself if CBD is right for me it looked like the answer was… maybe?
Many of my friends offered glowing reviews of CBD and their own experiences. I keep hearing more and more moms replacing their nightly glasses of wine with a dropper of CBD oil. So I decided to give it a shot. However, shopping for CBD for the first time can be overwhelming. There are tinctures! Bath bombs! Gummy bears! Lotions! Lattes! The first time I entered my local health foods store, I just stood dumbfounded in front of a glass case full of tiny bottles.
Enter my friend, Jim. James Higdon is an author and journalist who has extensively covered cannabis policy. He even wrote a book about cannabis — The Cornbread Mafia, about the largest homegrown marijuana syndicate in the United States. During our first conversation, which was not about cannabis, he talked a lot about cannabis. He knows cannabis.
When Jim announced he had co-founded a cannabis company, Cornbread Hemp, I knew it would be the real deal. I love that all the products are made from hemp farmed in Kentucky. (Apparently, Kentucky sits on the same latitude line as the Hindu Kush mountain region in Asia where the cannabis indica strains originated, who knew? Well, Jim knew because he knows a lot about this stuff.)
Jim hooked me up with the Cornbread Bundle, which includes full spectrum CBD oil tincture, CBD lotion, and this nifty little roll on with essential oils and CBD. What I immediately loved about this set is that it was pretty simple. So for a total CBD newbie like myself, that was great. Not overwhelming or confusing.
My Cornbread bundle happened to arrive the same day as my period. Like a lot of women, I have PCOS and endometriosis so the first few days of my cycle are just absolutely hellish. Normally to treat the stabbing pain and throbbing cramps, I take a handful of ibuprofen. But I know that’s not great for your stomach. So, just as an experiment, I skipped the ibuprofen and tried the CBD products instead.
I took a dropper full of the CBD tincture, which to my relief does not have a very strange or strong taste. It’s really mild and oddly sort of pleasant. But after a sip of water, no taste remains at all. I applied the lotion all over my abdomen and neck. I was so excited to use all the products, I even applied the CBD roll-on too. I like to keep the roll-on in my nightstand drawer and apply to my wrists and neck before I fall asleep.
I quickly found out that the lotion is my jam. This really surprised me, but while I didn’t feel any immediate effects after taking the tincture, I did after using the lotion. After only 20–30 minutes of using the lotion, I couldn’t deny that I felt better. Which as a skeptic, just absolutely mystified me.
I looked further into CBD as a treatment option for endometriosis and found that the endocannabinoid system is involved in endometriosis and the pain associated with it. I also found a study stating that CBD is a promising option to combat pain and inflammation.
…other phytocannabinoids in combination, especially cannabidiol and β-caryophyllene, delivered by the oral route appear to be promising candidates for the treatment of chronic pain due to their high safety and low adverse effects profiles. — Perry G. Fine, M.D. and Mark J. Rosenfeld, M.S., Ph.D.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve continued to use the three different CBD products and have grown to love them all in a different way. I had to play around with the right dose of the CBD tincture and started feeling less anxious, more relaxed, and a bit more focused after using for several days. Overall, I just began to feel more comfortable, which is great! I didn’t want to feel sluggish or inebriated in any way.
I was so surprised that the CBD lotion became one of my favorite things, but I absolutely love it. It didn’t completely eliminate my pain associated with endo and PCOS, but it really took the edge off. I felt better using CBD than I did when I took a handful of ibuprofen, which I really found amazing. I’ve really enjoyed incorporating the roll-on and lotion into my self-care routine because it’s something easy and quick I can do that makes me feel good. So, as a mom, it’s perfect.
Overall, I’m happy I finally tried CBD products and love the simplicity and quality of the Cornbread Hemp line, which is why I’ve been recommending it to my friends. If you’d like to try the same products I use, Cornbread Hemp is actually running a Mother’s Day sale this week on the Cornbread bundle!
