Christine Brave

The Open Forum in the Villages Florida podcast discusses various topics related to the community. The podcast is listener-supported and offers two ways to support it: through monthly donations or by purchasing Amazon products through their affiliate link. In this episode, Mike Roth interviews Christine Brave, a registered nurse, about her experience using medical marijuana for pain relief during her battle with cancer. Christine explains different ways to ingest marijuana, such as smoking, vaping, edibles, tinctures, and lotions. She also discusses the benefits of CBD and THC for inflammation and pain, respectively. Christine encourages people to vote in favor of Amendment 3 in Florida, which would make recreational marijuana more accessible and regulated. Welcome to the Open Forum in the Villages Florida podcast. In this show we talk to leaders in the community, leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live here in the villages to give perspectives of what is happening here in the villages Florida. We are a listener-supported podcast. How can you support our podcast? This is Mike Roth and listeners, I'm thrilled to share with you this podcast which is my passion project for you. This podcast brings me joy, brings you knowledge, inspiration and a lot of things that people need to know about the villages and the people who are living here and what's actually going on. Creating this podcast is a labor of love even though it demands more time than I can easily spare but hey, time isn't something we can buy back, right? Now here's where you come in, the unsung heroes and heroines. You can help us keep the podcast alive and thriving. How? By becoming a supporter. There are two simple ways that you can support us. The first is a small monthly donation. Visit our podcast website, openforuminthevillagesflorida.com and click on the black supporter box. Even a small $3 to $10 a month donation makes a difference. And guess what? You can cancel anytime, no strings attached. The second way that you can contribute to the podcast is by making a purchase of an Amazon product at Amazon standard prices and we are paid a small commission on each purchase as an Amazon affiliate. That way there's no extra money out of your pocket but you are supporting the podcast. Click every week because we're going to be adding new Amazon products that you can buy and support the podcast with. Thank you. And your support means the world to us. Stay curious, stay inspired and keep those headphones on. This is Mike Roth on Open Forum in the Villages, Florida. I'm here today with Christine Brave RN to talk about medical marijuana in the state of Florida. Thanks for joining me, Christine. Thank you, Mike, for having me. Christine, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about your background as a registered nurse. I was a registered nurse in St. Louis, Missouri. I worked in open heart surgery for many years and the ICU. Then my back got bad so I went to work in pediatrics. So I finished the last 25 years out as a pediatric ER nurse. I understand you had battled with cancer. Yes. I was out in Colorado skiing and I would hit bumps and my stomach was hurting. It was increasing in size and I was really short of breath. I took it as the altitude and all and wasn't sure what was going on with my tummy. Went drove back to St. Louis and was told the next day that my right lung was full of fluid and that was all fluid and tumors in my abdomen. Being a nurse, I knew people at the hospital so they came and tapped my lung right away. My friend said, if it's yellow milky, it's cancer. I am a skier, I eat organic, I really try to live healthy, I do yoga and this was a complete shock for me. So it was cancer. It was follicular lymphoma and I did chemotherapy for it. They put a port in to access my chemotherapy and when they did that, my surgeon said, I need to give you pain pills and I said, no, I'm not taking pain pills. I will try marijuana gummies, which I did and they took care of the pain. Being a nurse, I watched so many people abuse their bodies and all and I don't like pain pills. You can become addicted within seven days of being on them. All they do to me is knock me out, put me to sleep. I wake up, I'm in pain and I'm constipated. I was like, no way, I'm not doing pain pills. Then after my cancer was diagnosed, I had several friends call me. One wanted me to try the Gershwin therapy, another recommended Rickson's oil, which we'll get into during the podcast. So after your diagnosis and they put this port in it and they were going to give you pain pills, you decided to use marijuana, which was legal in Colorado. I'm from Missouri and it is medically legal in Missouri. When I called the doctors and said I had follicular lymphoma, it was just an automatic, I was given a medical marijuana card. So that's when I used the gummies for my pain. You didn't use any of the smokeables? No. Okay. For our listeners who aren't familiar with gummies, why don't you tell them what that is? There's different ways to ingest marijuana. You can smoke it, vape it. Smoking it is the old fashioned buds and all. There's oil waxes and then there's edibles, where you can eat the edibles. There's also tinctures and lotions that you can put on a specific area and Rick Simpson oil. Rick Simpson oil? Yes. They've been using this for years with children with epilepsy and it started in Colorado. There was a group of men that developed Charlotte's Web for this little girl that had seizures. We would get kids into the hospital, they have seizures and what do we do? We give them valium rectally. They're all, they can't focus, they can't walk straight and all those little side effects. I would recommend to some of the parents that came in that were frustrated to try the Rick Simpson oil from Colorado. That came in a gummy? No. It comes in a tarry solution that you put under your tongue and it's absorbed through the mucous membranes. Okay. Did you actually try that one too? Yes. I tried Rick Simpson oil. Like I said, when people found out I had cancer, they were like, you've got to do something. Rick Simpson oil was suggested to me. Rick Simpson was a Canadian engineer and he was also a cannabis activist. He had a bad injury at work. He felt like marijuana lessened his dizziness and other symptoms. Then he had a basal cell skin cancer and he placed this tarry oil on the skin cancer and boom it fell off and the doctors told him he was cancer free and they were amazed. So I thought, what the heck, I would try it. Rick Simpson oil, I put it into a little capsule because I didn't like the tarry feeling on my teeth and I would take that. Now it makes you sleep, you get very sleepy, but when you've got cancer, that's what you need to do is rest and sleep. I never had any nausea and vomiting, never used any of my medicines that they prescribed for me for that nausea and vomiting. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the cannabis plant itself? The cannabis plant is a really interesting plant. It's a hemp plant and marijuana plant. They're both in the same species. There's two vital components with the cannabis plant, CBD, and that is used for inflammation such as it's equivalent to ibuprofen and then you have THC for pain and that's like equivalent to Tylenol. Your CBD will not give you any euphorics, the THC will give you feelings and some hallucinations. My experience with CBD potions that are on the marketplace from various sources, all legal, are that they essentially don't work for me. You got to be careful. Some of that on the market, my dad bought some because he heard it helped with aches and pains and I looked at it and I was like, Dad, these are sugar pills. They're ripping you off. I recommend that you go to a dispensary or a place that handles this professionally to buy them. The person that's over our club, Mandy Hanlon, recommends that everybody take 100 milligrams of CBD every day just for your basic aches and pains. A hundred milligrams? A hundred. But you don't get any hallucinogenic effects, it just helps with more of the inflammation in your body. There are three types of marijuana that you get from the plant, THC. There's sativa, that's the upper, it makes you more energized. Then in the middle now they have hybrid, which is usually a combo of sativa or indica. Indica is more, I always say indica, indi-couch. It's more of a relaxing, sleepy type of marijuana. It's very scientific and what they do is they usually combine the hybrid with the sativa or the indica and they'll say it's sativa dominant. That'll be a more uplifting, energizing marijuana. And then CBD, it helps with the inflammation, but CBD, CBN helps with night time, helping you to sleep. CBG can actually lower your cholesterol, protect the brain and nerves and reduce swelling. Let me ask you a question about that. Can it reduce your cholesterol? That's what they say. Is that an alternative to these statin drugs that the doctors are crazily prescribing to everybody? I think this takes time, but I'm not a big statin person. I try to stay away from as many drugs as possible. Being a nurse, I saw what they did to people. And I don't know, a lot of people are unaware that you shouldn't drink alcohol if you're on a statin. It just really can destroy your liver. Wow, didn't know that. Yeah. Now, here in Florida we have legal medical marijuana for a couple of years and the current ballot initiative is to make recreational marijuana generally available. Is that true? Yes. On November 5th, on the ballot will be amendment number three. And early voting starts October 21st. And I would recommend people to vote yes. It'll give Floridians more of an access to try regulated safe marijuana. In the old days, people would buy it on the street from their local dealer. Marijuanas are scientific these days. The way they process it, grow it, the whole entire process is a science. So it's going to be sold through a dispensary that is going to be selling only registered marijuana so people can know that there'll be no fentanyl in that marijuana. Oh yes, it's very safe. In Florida here, they're very regulated. In Missouri, we have growers from out of state that bring their product in. There are a lot of regulations on it all. But what I understand here in Florida is that the company takes it from the beginning, from the plant to processing it to selling it. So it's very regulated, it's safe, and you know exactly what you're getting. And I just think that people need to think about making it recreational because then you have a chance to try the different options. Good. Before we talk about recreational use of marijuana, let's hear an Alzheimer's tip from Dr. Craig Curtis. This is Mike Roth and Dr. Craig Curtis. We're talking about Alzheimer's disease. Let's talk about omega-3 and omega-6. How should people get that from their diet? Primarily, you should get that through beans and nuts and legumes and fish. You can take a supplement of omega-3, omega-6s, however, don't overdo the supplementation of omega-3 specifically. There was a large study published by the American College of Cardiology a few years back that seemed to show that people that took too much omega-3 might have an increased risk of a heart arrhythmia. So my recommendation is if you buy omega-3 supplements, take it as written. With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, Dr. Curtis' goal is to educate the Villages community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, visit his website, craigcurtismd.com or call 352-500-5252 to attend a free seminar. Thank you, Dr. Curtis. So I'm back with Christine Brave, RN, and we're talking about marijuana. Let's talk about people who might get a medical marijuana or a recreational marijuana for the first time. What would you recommend? Okay, people use it for all different types of illnesses and various things. My big advice is less is more. Start with a small amount. You can always add more, but you can't take it away. I tell people to cut the gummy into fourths. Take one piece. I recommend it on an empty stomach because it'll absorb better, but take a fourth of it. You can always add more. Like I said, you can't take it away. People sometimes feel like anxiety, rapid heartbeat, hallucinations. They take this whole piece of gummy, oh, I can handle this, and then they're flipping around in bed. And the elderly tend to go to the hospital when they're feeling like this. I would recommend you just chill and you try to sleep because all they're going to do for you in the hospital is put an IV in and put you in a room and tell you to rest and wear it off. So I just think that there's not enough education down here regarding how much to use and what to use. My neighbor called me and said that his neurologist asked him to get a medical marijuana card. This is an 80-year-old man. He walked to the dispensary and had no clue what to buy. So they, oh, this is good, this is good, but it's like, what is your main purpose for it? Sounds like he was upsold. Yeah. His neurologist said, he was on gabapentin, he's got neurological issues and things in his feet, and they asked him to try marijuana. So I took him to the store and said, let's get Indica gummies. I cut them into four pieces for him. By the time he left the villages, he was off his gabapentin and was down to a very small amount of the marijuana. Are there different types of gummies? Yes. Like I said, the sativa is an upper gummy, it keeps you awake. Then you have hybrid, which is usually a combination of a lesser and sativa dominant or Indica dominant, and Indica gummies are recommended for night, for sleep. For sleep. And how much before someone wants their order of sleep should they take a gummy? 30 to 60 minutes. That's usually the average time it affects most people. There's always some that don't affect, they don't feel anything, they take more, and then they go, I still don't feel anything, take more, and then they're like, oh, I took too much. So I recommend you start low. Start low, and if you need more, add more. You can always add more, yes. Now, you said the patient was on some other medication. Gabapentin. Gabapentin. It is a horrible medicine for nerve pain, it's got very bad side effects, it has memory loss, and older people don't need to be on this medicine, and they give it out like candy around here. Why do you think they do that? They don't know what else to do. They give them the gabapentin. Does that work to take away the pain? Apparently not. I've never taken gabapentin, but this man kept telling me he had to keep going up on his dose. So, I don't like medicines like that. I can understand that. Now, as someone who's used marijuana to get through cancer, what are your thoughts about legalizing marijuana here in Florida? I think it's very beneficial to people. I think it would be a really good idea. It gives people more of a chance to try different options. If you hurt your knee, you can go into a dispensary and get a cream and put that directly on your knee, and usually that helps, or your back or something that's hurting. Can't sleep at night. A lot of people use it for rest and relaxation, that's where you want your indica gummy. And it just calms people. It calms anxiety, it helps with relaxation, it helps with different diseases like Parkinson's and meth. A friend of mine, her husband went to the neurologist and he said, get your medical marijuana card down here. Try CBD from a dispensary. I told her, wait, we'll hold off. I helped her, we found the CBD, and it was amazing. He stopped shaking right in front of her, and she was just like blown away. But he liked the CBD gummies so well, he like ate the whole bag in a couple days because they tasted so good. I was not happy about that. Do they have sugar in them? Yeah, some of them do, and they taste pretty good. So that's why it's keep away from children, keep them in a place so when your grandkids come over, they're up and out of sight. Because they look like candy. They look like candy, yes. I think that laws in Florida, you have to go to a qualified medical marijuana doctor. Your primary care doctor will not give you a recommendation for a medical card. So you have to go to these doctors, they charge $100 to $150 average, and you have to go every seven months. You have to apply for the state medical card after you see the doctor. So we're talking $300 a year, which I think is very high because I am, with the state of Missouri, my medical card is good up there, and it is for five years. So every seven months, to me, they're gouging people. That's why I think it's really important to pass the recreational, because if you just want to go in and buy a bottle of gummies to see to help you sleep, you don't have to get a card and spend $300 in a year to just try something. It may not work for you. Is there any tracking of how much marijuana people buy who have a card? I do not know those statistics. Even under the proposed state amendment, will people be able to buy as much marijuana as they wanted? No, there's always limits. Like in the state of Colorado, you can buy one ounce in a day. In the state of Missouri, I believe it's one ounce. I don't know what the regulations are here in Florida. But you can't go from dispensary to dispensary. They track you. Oh, they do track. Oh, yes. The states all track and take your ID and want to see your regular ID with your medical marijuana card. About how many people in Florida have medical marijuana cards? Quite a few. I did not look up the statistics on that, because I'm from Missouri. But during the parade, we were in the holiday parade, the medical marijuana club, and one of the men in the club had a device in his pocket that he could find it on his phone. He didn't have it in his pocket. He had an app on his phone that when he lost it, he could find it, like we should have for remote controls for TVs. Most phones have that built in. No, but so you can find your remote or something. And he said during the parade, his phone kept dinging. So there were several people in the audience that had that same device as he did. There's a lot more people using it than they let on. So how many people are there in the medical marijuana club here in the Villages? We used to have, I think, about 75 members, but I was featured in the May Villages magazine. And this last meeting, I would say about 60 people showed up. We got 50 or 60 new members, plus our additional members. We're just trying to teach people how to use it and use it properly. When did the medical marijuana club start here in the Villages? A couple years ago, I want to say about three years ago, I actually saw it when I was living with my dad. It's not obvious to find it's in the back of the magazine under others. And you'll find medical cannabis club. And I had seen it one time and told my dad I wanted to go to it and teach people how to use marijuana properly. And I never saw it again. And then it came out that I found it. So yeah, they stuck us in the back. They didn't want to put us in the Christmas parade. And then they put us back behind when we were the last ones with Santa. And then they said, oh, gosh, we can't have the medical marijuana club with Santa. And so they moved us up in the middle. I was in the parade, I wore a shirt that said cannabis saved my life, because I really do believe my recovery was so quick and just so good with the chemotherapy and the Rick Simpson oil. How many years ago was that? It was in 2020. And I took chemo for six months. And I started the Rick Simpson oil like a month or two into my chemo. And I just it was amazing. Like I said, you sleep a lot, you need to sleep when you have cancer. But I was still able, I wasn't able to do yoga and all I was weak, but I would walk every day. And I was still able to keep up with a lot of my activities. Would it be your recommendation that most patients in chemotherapy for cancer use marijuana to alleviate the pain as opposed to other drugs? Yes, definitely. The narcotics that are out there that the physicians prescribe are not healthy. They affect different organs. And the medical marijuana has been proven to help, has helped with cancer. It's been proven in many cases. So I thought I'd give it a try. But the Rick Simpson oil is a tar. It is the plant is cooked down. It's the most complete part of the plant. And you have to watch temperatures and all that. My first dose I bought from a lady in California that does this for people with cancer. And she actually told me her husband was diagnosed with kidney cancer during pandemic and that he couldn't get into a doctor. So she started him on the Rick Simpson oil. And when he finally got into the doctor, they were like, we don't, we can't find the cancer. We found some of it, but not as much as you had prior. So where is Rick Simpson oil sold? It is sold at dispensaries. They sell like a milliliter of Rick Simpson oil, which is not much, but you only need a grain of rice, the size of a grain of rice to put under your tongue and have it absorb. And is it legal to travel with that? I don't believe it is. If you have a medical card and there are several states that I can go to, Illinois and different states around me with my medical card and it is legal, but I don't know the rules down here in Florida. You haven't tried to buy marijuana in Florida? No, I don't have a medical card down here and I don't have any need at this point. Okay. And if someone wants to get in touch with you or the Medical Marijuana Club, why don't you tell our listeners how they would do that? We meet on Tuesdays at Lake Meona, the second Tuesday of the month. We have a meeting at 11, from 11 to 1230. So, you know, please come by, try to get there on time because we usually do some kind of an intro or teaching segment on what it is, how to use it, that type of a thing. Great. And is there an email address or a website? No, Mandy Handlin handles our club. So they should go to the club listing on the Recreation Department website and look up the Medical Marijuana Club. Marijuana gets a bad rap, but cannabis, the other name for it, is more accepted. But they're both the same thing? They're the same exact thing, yes. We meet the second Tuesday of every month at 11 to 1230 at Lake Meona. Good. Christine, thanks for joining us today on Open Forum in the Villages. Thank you, Mike, for having me. Remember our next episode will be released next Friday at 9am. Did you want to become a major supporter of the show or have questions? Please contact us at mikeatrothvoice.com. This is a shout out for supporters Tweet Coleman, Ed Williams, Paul Sorgin and major supporter Dr. Craig Curtis at K2 in the Villages. We will be hearing more from Dr. Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show, contact us at mikeatrothvoice.com. We thank everyone for listening to the show. The content of the show is copyrighted by Rothboys 2024. All rights reserved.