How cannabis helped me lead a full life with Crohn’s disease

After experiencing a number of gastrointestinal symptoms along with low energy and depression, Charles Cumming was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 2012. Here he talks about how using cannabis has helped ease his symptoms and allowed him to live a full life again.

Charles was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, a long-term condition where the gut becomes inflamed, nearly a decade ago, after suffering from many of the classic symptoms such as abdominal cramping, depression, low energy, anxiety, diarrhoea, bloody stools and weight loss.

He says: “My condition seemed to be specifically exacerbated through high levels of stress, with flare ups happening after specific intense points in my life.

“One of the most unpleasant symptoms of Crohn’s is diarrhoea, and this often inflicted severe pain in my abdomen and resulted in bloody stools. Inevitably, this also contributed to water and nutrient loss and, eventually, malnutrition – which also meant that I lost weight, which wasn’t helped by the added loss of appetite that comes with the disease. 

“The constant, and often very frequent, occurrence of this left me feeling like my body was being stripped of everything and I was left exhausted, sore, anxious and depressed.”

Unsurprisingly, living with chronic pain led Charles to become anxious, depressed and fatigued, exacerbated by suffering a kidney condition as a result of one of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs he was prescribed.

He says: “The first medication I was prescribed was an NSAID called Asacol, which led me to me developing a kidney condition called interstitial nephritis, which unfortunately had caused some lasting and irreversible damage to my kidneys which halved the function that I once had.”

Following this diagnosis, Charles was set on a course of steroids of varying strengths and lengths – but the side effects were, again, brutal. 

Headaches, nausea, hot flushes, insomnia, increased appetite and acne were all regular occurrences, along with debilitating mood swings; it was at this point that Charles decided to stop and look for a more natural alternative.

“After quite an extreme panic attack, I decided that the drugs were doing me more harm than good and stopped taking them,” he explains.

“At this point, I had experienced so many challenging and damaging side effects from pharmaceutical drugs, I started looking for a more natural option to manage my condition.

“After some research, I saw that cannabis had been a successful aid to others with Crohn’s, so I decided to purchase a small amount to try it for myself.”

The effects were almost instantaneous; Charles noticed his headaches and nausea were eased, and the cannabis helped him to sleep, as well as alleviating the anxiety and depression. 

“When my Crohn’s is active, my quality of life declines, and this is something that can drastically change with cannabis,” he explains.

“It gives me the ability to function on a basic level and find comfort, distracting me from the distress and low moods and helping me eat when I’m struggling with my appetite.”

However, because Charles was purchasing cannabis illicitly and smoking it, some of his friends and fellow sufferers were concerned.

“Due to how I was buying it, and with the association of cannabis as a recreational drug, I would often be questioned by some of my peers as they struggled to see it as a safe treatment, despite my first hand experiences of the positive side effects,” says Charles.

“Now I’ve found a regulated supplier of a legal prescription at The Medical Cannabis Clinics, it helps me show others that it’s a legitimate and effective medicine, as when it’s legally prescribed it shifts the perspective from me ‘self-medicating’ an illegal black market substance to being prescribed a treatment via a trained doctor and a legal supply.” 

Using a carefully-balanced prescription of CBD products has allowed Charles to get back to his usual life, with more energy, less nausea and improved mental health.

He added: “I found that the treatment was effective for pain relief and the additional energy it gave me provided a considerable boost, allowing me to get on with things that I wouldn’t normally be able to. 

“As well as its antiemetic effects, it also helped calm my anxiety and distract me away from depression, and this lasted for a couple of hours before I needed to top up the dosage again.”

Since his first prescription, Charles, under guidance from the clinic’s doctors, has experimented with different dosages and concentrations to find his perfect match, easing his symptoms to such an extent he now feels well enough to step back.

He says: “My condition improved considerably over the next couple of months, and with my tolerance levels seemingly rising, I was hoping to take this time to give myself a break from cannabis medicines. 

“My doctor recommended that I should be taking a month’s tolerance break every few months of use, and I had now been using the medication daily for at least two years. 

“With this in mind, I stopped using cannabis without tapering off it as I might have done with previous medications. The first few days were a little tricky, I found it hard to get to sleep occasionally and my mood was sometimes a little low. 

“However, after the first few nights, things got better and my sleep improved. I also started to feel more mental clarity. With any withdrawals seeming to be over, my need for the medication’s assistance reduced almost completely.”

Charles has now been on a break from medical cannabis for a month, secure in the knowledge that it is there should his Crohn’s become unbearable again.

He says: “I’m doing well without the need to medicate most of the time, but I can’t imagine how much harder these last five years would have been without the help I had from medical cannabis.

“It has helped me get through a very difficult and distressing period in my life and I am incredibly grateful now to not be dependent on medication, but also relieved to know I have legal access to cannabis if I still need its assistance.”

Read Charles’ story in full here via The Medical Cannabis Clinics