Sandra uses CBD to help with her Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

Sandra Leiper — a 42-year-old Civil Servant — was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in 2013. She suffers from insomnia and anxiety, due to the prescribed medication she takes to suppress the symptoms of MS. Sandra says that taking CBD consistently has made her feel much calmer and now she consistently has a restful night’s sleep. Despite her struggle with MS, she still leads an active lifestyle and praises CBD for its anti-inflammatory properties. She thanks Alphagreen for offering ‘precise’ and ‘reliable’ customer service and was impressed with how easy it was to place an order.

When did you decide to start using CBD and for what reasons?

Due to my relapsing-remitting MS, I’ve got terrible insomnia so I use it to help me sleep. I don’t have trouble getting off to sleep at night, but I constantly wake up throughout the night — so that’s the problem. Using the CBD has helped me even up this bad sleeping pattern.

Can you describe what struggling with both Ehler Danlos Syndrome & gastroparesis feels like?

It is a very unpredictable illness. I first got diagnosed in 2013 and one side of my body went completely numb from head to toe. I’ve had these attacks four times since my diagnosis and it switches sides, so on other occasions, I have gone numb on the other side of my body.

Other times I have had problems with my vision — they call this optic neuritis. This affects the nerve at the back of the eye that is connected to the brain, so I couldn’t always see properly and I would have double vision. You can also lose your hearing on one side which I have experienced, and sometimes I can struggle to walk correctly as I can’t feel whether I am touching the ground. So there are all sorts of horrible things attached to this illness.

Luckily, I haven’t had any further relapses since I have been on this medication, but funnily enough just before I started this interview I was on the phone with my nurse and I said to her that I think it could be giving me more trouble than it’s worth. So I am actually looking to come off the medication as it is only preventing a third of the relapses anyway. I do have a healthy diet, I am lifting weights and I am trying to maintain a good level of fitness. Many people can survive without this medication because there are so many side effects.

I don’t tend to have pain as much anymore, but I might have muscle twitches or spasms that are out of my control. I might be driving and sometimes my face would twitch or my hands would twitch inadvertently without any control. I have realised that there is a lot of stuff we take for granted without realising that our body could be affected so greatly by an illness. MS essentially affects our central processing unit, which is why it can be so debilitating.

Have the CBD products you have purchased from Alphagreen helped with your condition?

CBD helps things become much calmer, and the tablets I get from your company also help with the sleep aspect which is an added bonus. I have these tablets an hour before bed and they work fantastically well. I primarily use it to help with my sleep problems as I don’t have full-blown muscle spasms, only the odd twitch.

The problem I have found is that the medications given to you have other side effects. Funnily enough, one of the medications I am taking at the moment has a side effect of insomnia, which is what I am really struggling with right now. So you are taking one drug which is trying to resolve one issue, but then it creates another issue, so it really makes no sense at all sometimes.

I have always believed in natural remedies and I used to smoke a lot of cannabis years ago but I had to stop. I was starting to have a very strange reaction — when I was going to bed I was having one joint and I started having quite frightening convulsions. Before this, it used to relax me and make me feel at ease and it seemed to be working well for my anxiety issues. Now it makes me start to shake and would last for around 20 minutes. I was really worried about it. Turning to CBD as an alternative was a great idea as I was avoiding the high while still getting the benefits that I experienced before with THC.

I also use Epsom bath salts which are infused with CBD. Having a warm bath with this product is great as it really helps with sore, tired achy muscles. So I found that CBD is incredibly versatile and you can use it in many different ways for many different ailments and conditions. Also, CBD has almost no side effects from what I have experienced. I love it because it doesn’t make me go funny as THC can with its psychoactive effects, and I know I am not going to be shaking.

What would you say to other people who are sceptical to take CBD?

A lot of my healthcare professionals advocate CBD, some of them say they can’t advise on it because of the laws and that it’s not technically a certified drug. But people that are in the know about all the trouble that MS can cause and the awful symptoms are can cause around your whole body, say yeah, definitely go for it. They understand the pain that you are going through and CBD could help.

Try everything once. Unless you actually try something, there’s no point condoning it as you haven’t tried it, but at the same time, there is no point in rubbishing it for the same reason. You can listen to other people’s opinions, but unless you put it to the test, you’re not going to know for yourself. Everything is worth a go and never rule something out until you have tried it.

Would you recommend Alphagreen marketplace and its service?

I couldn’t find the product I was using as it was sold out from my local vape shop. I went to another place and they also said they were not taking card payments because of it being CBD. I said are you kidding me? And I said no, I am going to go somewhere else. This was when I found Alphagreen.

You guys actually accepted card payment which was a start, so I decided to give products from your website a go. You sorted me out, and I have been coming back ever since. This is for one reason: you guys had really good customer service, it was spot on. You could tell straight away that you knew what you were talking about — you got stuff for me quickly, you made sure that I was happy and you reassured me when I explained that my situation was quite dire.

I am not like your average person taking CBD, I actually need it because without my MS can become much worse. It’s quite frightening, actually, as you never know your whole body could just shut down. But your customer service was sweet because you guys told me exactly what I needed to hear and gave me exactly the right information. I know this because all the estimations you gave me were true and very precise.