Bell’s Palsy is a condition where the facial nerve is inflamed, compressed or otherwise swollen. The muscles in the face either droop or go into painful paralysis. For Curt Platt, half of his face suddenly droopped one day a couple weeks after going through a virus such as he’d never before experienced. Now it seems Bell’s palsy symptoms relieved by full-spectrum CBD oil.
Platt stood urinating into the toilet, and as is his morning habit, he went to spit into the receptacle while relieving himself. Only the spit didn’t clear his chest, not once, not twice but several times. He looked up into the mirror and couldn’t believe his eyes, the left one of which was unable to blink. Platt went to the doctor immediately who in turn diagnosed him within minutes.
That diagnosis was 12 years ago and in that time, though the initial symptoms cleared after a matter of weeks, Platt has experienced recurrences of Bell’s palsy that put him out of commision for sometimes weeks at a time. These relapses happened around once a year, sometimes skipping a year, sometimes doubling up, but were usually stress related, at least in Platt’s opinion.
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During that time, the man who had spent decades on Wall Street tried everything he could to mitigate the Bell’s palsy symptoms. He visited doctors Florida, tried different specialists, was recommended muscle relaxers to which he said, “No thank you,” did his own research and nothing worked, that is until a buddy turned him onto full spectrum CBD tincture.
Platt was skeptical while waiting for the oil to come in the mail, but, “I was still watching for it,” laughed Platt, who told The Fresh Toast that by that time he was desperate to try anything that came recommended. He also added that, “Doctors don’t have a clue.” Someone he has grown to have faith in, however, is Andrew Clark, cofounder of World Class Health CBD. Clark was the one to recommend a CBD tincture also rich in the cannabinoid CBG.
When said tincture arrived at Platt’s location, he was in the throes of a full on episode. He didn’t feel well and didn’t have control over the left side of his face. “How long should I wait before expecting results?” was one of Platt’s first questions and he balked at the assertion that he should see something within minutes.
Lo and behold, some five to 10 minutes later his friend who he was staying with in Florida came home and said, “Hey, your face looks better!” and Platt retorted that he felt better as well. He kept taking the tincture at the high dose until the symptoms receded 100 percent (they had already gone down 90 percent in that 10 minute span). Now he takes a maintenance dose and hasn’t had a relapse since April of this year.
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The Fresh Toast spoke with Clark to find out the secret behind their particular CBD oils, why he thinks they work so well and his opinion on THC medicine. He had some pretty fascinating answers.
TFT: Is there any detectable THC in your medicines?
AC: It’s completely THC free. It’s all the way undetectable. We start out with hemp plants with less than .3 percent THC. We extract the oil and it still has some THC in it, so what we do is use chromatography to remove the THC, so we go the extra step… A lot of people in the industry dilute their tincture or oil with the solute they’re using, so that way they get the less than .3 percent to make it legal, but they’ve diluted the CBD content, so then they pour isolate in to increase the CBD. The thing that’s unfortunate is when they put the isolate back in, they’re not putting the CBN, the CBC, the CBG, so you’re getting extremely low on the other cannabinoids when you choose to dilute rather than use chromatography. Even though it’s a little more expensive it’s a much better product.
TFT: The tincture you send Curt is high in CBG, why?
AC: Unfortunately there’s not enough research being done because [every part of cannabis] is Schedule I, but I have read certain studies that have come out of Israel that CBG has really good effects on your nerves and can even be shown to cause neurogenesis, which is the regrowing of brain tissue basically. So with Bell’s palsy, his facial nerve, what’s going on there is it gets swollen and then the myelin sheath around the nerve begins to clamp down on that nerve, so the nerve begins to lose function and if it stays clamped too long, that’s when the nerve can die. That’s where we see the long term Bell’s palsy. So I thought with the anti-inflammatory properties of CBD and the small amount I’ve read about CBG causing neurogenesis – some people are even calling it the stem cell cannabinoid – the combination of the two would be the best chance we would have to treat him.
TFT: Is there an entourage effect with the different cannabinoids Curt is using?
AC: Certain cannabinoids are better for certain jobs than others, so, sometimes it takes the anti-inflammatory of CBD to bring down that myelin sheath around his facial nerve and then the CBG to do its magic on reviving that nerve, so there’s definitely a synergistic effect, and you’ll see that with CBN as well. CBN really helps people with sleep as well as with osteoporosis. There’s absolutely a synergistic effect and that’s why our tinctures are full spectrum.
TFT: What about THC, where is its place at the table medicinally in your opinion?
AC: THC gets kind of a bad rap because it gives you that stoned effect that can be dangerous if people get behind the wheel or certain things, but it can be used synergistically with CBD or for the treatment of certain diseases, for example Parkinson’s has a great reaction to THC. There’s actually a video on our website of a gentlemen who takes I believe a 1:1 ratio of THC to CBD and it takes away his shakes and brings back his voice within five minutes. So I definitely think there’s a place for THC in the medicinal world, but it’s going to be a while before we can get some more studies done and everything is cleared off Schedule I. Fingers are crossed data will indicate Bell’s palsy symptoms relieved by full-spectrum CBD oil.
