Lupus patients have little reliable treatments to rely on, but Toni Braxton has found relief in CBD.
Treating lupus can feel bleak for many patients diagnosed with the illness. It causes the body’s immune system to revolt against itself, attacking tissues and internal organs. Flare-ups often result in numbing pain and exhaustion for patients, unable to participate in anything besides laying down on the couch.
Though doctors don’t understand the disease’s cause or cure, it affects around 240,000 people in the United States. Among them is a Grammy-winning, legendary R&B singer, yes, Toni Braxton uses CBD to combat lupus. She was diagnosed with lupus in 2008, which has caused complications in planning her busy musical career, including canceled tour dates. That is until she tried CBD.
“I was really achy one day and I didn’t have my prescribed medication,” Braxton told ESSENCE Magazine. “I’m looking under my bathroom sink and I found a product I had been gifted called Uncle Bud’s. I put it on, and 20 minutes later I was like, ‘Oh wow, I feel better.’”
She has since partnered with the company and featured heavily in their promotional videos. However, Braxton swears off using traditional marijuana products, or “herbal refreshments” as she calls them.
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“Some days, having lupus is like waking up with the flu,” Braxton said. “Every day my body aches, and I don’t always feel my best. But I have good days, so I take them and always try to be positive. I get up every morning and do what I have to do, because I have kids and a family to keep healthy for.”
“I’m very leery of anything I’m putting on my body, and these are just products that happen to really work and I really believe in it,” she adds.
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Currently, Yale researchers are working on multi-site randomized clinical trial that examines how CBD could treat lupus. Using synthetically created CBD (called Lenabasum), the scientists want to examine if CBD could relieve pain and inflammation in lupus patients. According to Fotios Koumpouras, a rheumatologist and director of the Lupus Program at Yale Medicine, lupus drugs available today aren’t uniformly effective in treating the disease.
“Reducing inflammation is crucial for patients with lupus because it is what causes the buildup of scar tissue in vital organs that can eventually lead to their deterioration and malfunction,” he said.
