From catwalks to cannabidiol – a former fashion model’s journey to CBD discovery

Model Kelly Brooks was forced to give up her dream career when Lyme disease left her unable to get out of bed. She tells Cannabis Health how she is rebuilding her life with the help of CBD.

A few years ago Kelly Brooks, 27, was living her dream on the catwalks of New York, modelling for Jean-Paul Gaultier and gracing the pages of Vanity Fair, Glamour and Italian Vogue.

Now her life couldn’t be more different. In 2018 she moved to the UK with her husband Layton and the couple are looking to start a family in their hometown of Ringwood, Hampshire.

Kelly is the operations manager of a five-star spa and teaches barre fitness classes to those living with an illness or injury.

You would never know that she has endured years of symptoms such as agonising joint pain, extreme fatigue, tremors and at her worst being unable to walk, as a result of chronic Lyme disease.

Growing up in Maine in the United States, Kelly first felt something was wrong in her early teens. She went from being an ‘active, healthy kid’ who was hardly ever sick, to experiencing periods of blackouts and vomiting.

Medics put it down to everything from a sodium deficiency, fibromyalgia and Epstein–Barr virus, to depression, an eating disorder and even attention-seeking. It took almost a decade for doctors to diagnose the tick-borne disease. Even when things took a turn for the worse at the age of 17.

“All of a sudden I was completely exhausted. I went home from school one day, got into bed and didn’t get out for weeks,” Kelly says.

“I had joint pain, migraines and extreme exhaustion – I was sleeping about 20 hours a day. I wish they had taken me more seriously at that point.”

A year later, aged 18, she was eventually tested for Lyme disease at the suggestion of a doctor who happened to be a family friend. It came back positive.

Despite her diagnosis, Kelly was determined to follow her dreams and moved to New York to go to study fashion buying. When a chance opportunity to help out a fellow student ended up launching her modelling career, she ended up quitting college to focus on it full-time.

She was living the dream, walking in runways shows at New York fashion week, working with household brands such as Bumble and Bumble and travelling across the world to Paris and Milan. But she was secretly struggling to balance a blossoming career with her crippling health condition.

“At first I could push through it and rest when I got home, but over the years it became really difficult, especially dealing with the pressure of losing weight – I wasn’t eating enough and was exercising too much – and was struggling to stand for long periods of time. I did faint at a couple of jobs,” says Kelly.

She got into a cycle of treating the Lyme disease with strong antibiotics for several weeks and before returning to the same lifestyle and running herself into the ground.

But as her symptoms became more neurological, leaving her struggling to walk and lift her legs, her then-boyfriend Layton gave her a much-needed wake-up call.

“One evening I came home from doing runway shows at fashion week and I completely collapsed. I couldn’t walk across the room.

“Layton said ‘ I can’t watch you keep doing this to yourself, you need to stop’,” she says.

“It was really hard to give up, I felt like it was so unfair, but by the end, I just wanted to do anything to feel better.”

It was a fellow Lyme disease patient in New York who introduced Kelly to CBD.

“I’ve never really done the herbal route, so I was sceptical,” she admits.

“They sent me a cream and I put it on the joints that were hurting me the most and within a few minutes, the pain had subsided.

“I couldn’t believe how much it helped because I’d had prescription medication for joint pain and nothing had worked but CBD did.”

When the couple moved to the UK to be closer to Layton’s family, the CBD industry was just in its infancy. She struggled to find a good quality, reasonably priced product and was confused by a wealth of conflicting research.

Layton took matters into his own hands to help his wife and reaching out to a colleague with previous business experience, Claudio Santos, they founded CBD Shopy.

Now a leading online retailer, the website aims to help customers find reputable and high-quality products, while also educating people about CBD.

Claudio Santos said: “Studies have indicated that CBD has anti-inflammatory properties and we’ve had numerous customers giving feedback that CBD oil and cream has helped them with joint and muscular pain.”

And Kelly is its biggest advocate, claiming CBD has allowed her to rebuild her life.

“I use the CBD cream on all of my joints every day and currently don’t have the constant pain,” she says.

“I still have some symptoms and when I overdo things it takes me longer to recover, but I’m quite good now at managing how much I can do each day.”

CBD has helped with her mental health too, easing symptoms of anxiety and insomnia.

“I was formerly on sleeping medication, but now I use CBD before bed and no longer have to take it,” she says.

“I do still suffer from depression and anxiety but I have pretty good days where I’m at 80-85 per cent. I even get some 95 per cent days.

“I’m really happy with where I am now.”

To find out more visit www.cbdshopy.co.uk