Dr. Frank's personal experience with CBD BioCare
By Dr. Frank Michalski
For those of you that do not know me, my name is Dr. Frank Michalski. I have been affiliated with CBD BioCare for about two years. I am going to reveal to you my personal success story and how I transformed my health with CBD oil, nutrition, and lifestyle modification. Although CBD has turned into a business venture for me, at the core of my mission is patient education. I simply can’t wait to tell someone in need about the benefits of using a quality CBD product. If someone were to have 25% of the success I had using CBD BioCare products I would be happy.
(Keep reading, at the end of this blog I have attached my personal blood work results before and after using CBD BioCare products. )
My story begins in college. Many people do not know this, but most people studying to become health care professionals do not lead particularly healthy lifestyles, especially during the college years. College for me meant the following:
- Long days, often 12 hours plus.
- Late nights studying for hours on end, I can’t recall the number of “all-nighters”.
- Poor and irregular sleep schedule.
- High caffeine consumption: I was addicted to 5-hour energy, Monster sugar free energy drinks and coffee.
- Binge drinking, this was a common place for most of those in professional programs, the weekends were a time to stay up late and “decompress”.
- Lack of exercise, often it was easy to come up with an excuse to study vs go to the gym.
- Nicotine usage to help cope with the “stress”.
To the average reader this may sound confusing or even false. Aren’t doctors supposed to be healthy? They do practice healthcare right?
Before I continue with my personal story, look at some of the statistics below when it comes to physician substance abuse (this does not include over the counter stimulants and other OTC drugs). The following information is based on a 5-year study following 904 physicians, 87% male:1
- Approximately 10% to 12% of physicians will develop a substance use disorder during their careers, a rate similar to or exceeding that of the general population.
- Alcohol was the primary drug of abuse in 50.3%,
- Opioids in 35.9%,
- Stimulants in 7.9%,
- Other substances in 5.9%
- 50% reported abuse of multiple substances
- 9% a history of intravenous drug use
- 17% previous treatment for addiction
I expect these numbers are far worse. The study only took into account extremely harmful substances. The study did not consider food or other over the counter vices. No wonder why physicians have such a hard time discussing wellness and alternative therapies!! You must practice what you preach.
Back to my story, upon graduating I went immediately into solo practice. Sadly, from my college years I had carried over some bad habits into my professional life. I continued to consume a copious amount of caffeine, even worse, my nicotine addiction continued. Nicotine was a “crutch”, it was my go-to for dealing with stress. Naturally my nutrition and sleep patterns were nothing to write home about.
In short, eventually my lifestyle choices began to catch up with me. I began to develop chronic fatigue. No matter what I did, what supplements I took, I never had any energy. I was also diagnosed with hypertension, insomnia, and neuropathy in my hands and feet. I had a constant numbness in my feet, and occasional tingling in my hands. Come to find out during a body fat scan using a DEXA machine I was informed I had the beginning phases of osteopenia!!
Not only did I feel sick, but my blood work confirmed it. As a 26/27-year-old male I had low bone density, low testosterone, hypertension, high cholesterol, elevated homocysteine, low vitamin D, hypercalcemia, and a HBA1c that was approaching pre-diabetes. To make matters more confusing I was in what appeared to be the best shape of my life. Doctor visit after doctor visit, I was told “you look healthy”, and it “was normal to be tired”, or “let’s put you on x, y and z medications”.
Because I did not have an obvious diagnosis the general conclusion was that a diagnosis did not exist. This left me on my own. It was evident that I would have to begin taking an active role in my health. This is a common scenario for many people. Fortunately, due to my education I had a good idea that these issues were fixable. I just needed some guidance.
Eventually, I landed myself a seat with the top neurologist in Buffalo. There was growing concern that I was developing the early stages of MS or a comparable disease. It made sense, many of my symptoms were similar to the early stages of MS. In my area MS also happened to be very common. After spending all of 5 minutes with me he said, “In my professional opinion this is all due to caffeine and nicotine, quit both for 30 days and tell me how you feel, follow up in a month”.
Nicotine was one thing but caffeine?!?!? He was certain I had developed a caffeine allergy/intolerance. He said I would go through serious withdrawal symptoms; did you know it may take up to 30 days for caffeine to clear from the body?
The sad part was deep down I had a gut feeling that by not taking care of myself I was becoming ill; I did not want to accept it. Why could other people drink coffee and stay up late without the consequences I was facing?
Quitting caffeine and sugar free energy drinks was truly challenging. These things are no joke. I imagine it is similar to one trying to give up sugar. The energy drinks are designed to be addictive (just like our food). In my opinion there is an epidemic when it comes to caffeine and energy drink consumption. I am not only on a mission to educate the public about CBD but also the dangers of over the counter stimulants. Not to mention the amount of these drinks consumed by our great men and women in the military. It’s sad how they are targeted by these companies. You could only imagine the effects of these on depression, anxiety, and PTSD. That is a discussion for another time. Not only did my body feel sick as the “detox” began, but the depression and anxiety that followed were truly the worst part.
After about a month into my “detox” I was feeling much better but still had some ongoing issues. I began to google solutions for withdrawal, anxiety and insomnia. CBD kept coming up over and over again. I had worked in supplement sales my whole life so the idea of taking a supplement was nothing new. I also heard about some of the buzz surrounding CBD. Upon browsing some online research and reviews, I decided CBD BioCare was the best brand for me.
Day 1: The first day the CBD oil arrived I consumed three full droppers. I developed a mild headache and felt tired. One thing I noticed immediately was the decrease in my caffeine craving. I had no desire for caffeine (or nicotine). It was as if that “craving” part of my brain had shut off. I can’t tell you how happy I was to not be craving a sugar free monster. It was a miracle.
Day 2: I called CBD BioCare and spoke with someone who was a Physician Assistant. They walked me through the basics of CBD and how it works. They explained to me that more is not always better and that I should cut my serving way down.
Day 3: I took half a dropper of the 750mg in the evening and half in the morning. This was the perfect amount. That night I slept like a rock. Even during the day my energy levels were great, any anxiety was mostly gone, and again no cravings!!
After a few months: Slowly my blood pressure began to lower, recent blood work showed cholesterol levels began to decrease, testosterone was increasing, and most importantly I was feeling better than I had felt in years. At this point I had decreased my serving to ½ dropper daily.
The rest is history. I began to research CBD vigorously and now am quite involved with CBD BioCare and CBD research.
Note: this is my opinion and experience. Results will vary.
I feel strongly CBD played a role in my health. I can say with certainty my cardiac health markers had never looked better. In conjunction with CBD I began to make healthy lifestyle choices. I took up yoga classes to help manage stress and pain, I normalized my sleep schedule, I began to eat a paleo/ keto based diet (limiting grains, starches and sugars). I gave up all sources of caffeine and nicotine (once I began the CBD this was the easy part). Not only did I feel that I was on the right track, but my blood work proved it!
I do feel that CBD oil re-balanced my bodies systems. It is now known that the endocannabinoid system influences most all other systems in our bodies. As my blood work demonstrated more than one of my bodies systems were out of whack. Of course, changing my nutrition, quitting caffeine and nicotine, and adopting healthy lifestyle factors went a long way.
I don’t know how to put my finger on it, but CBD seemed to make the whole healthy lifestyle transition much easier. Is it possible that years of mental and physical stress ruined my ECS? Is it possible that balancing my ECS was the missing link in restoring my health and behaviors? I will never truly know the answer, but for now it’s safe to say balancing the endocannabinoid system played a significant role.
Disclaimer: In the past I had gone through periods of living a healthier lifestyle, giving up bad habits, exercising and eating better. Never though had I felt as good or seen such dramatic improvements in my lab results until the incorporation of the CBD oil. I always emphasize CBD is meant to be supplemental to a healthy lifestyle and diet. CBD works best when you are taking care of yourself. Below I have listed some simple tips/ bullet points highlighting the changes I made to improve my health. I have also provided links to books I used along the way (:
Healthy living Changes:
- Put down the booze, put down the nicotine. If you suffer from chronic fatigue put down the caffeine.
- Fix the nutrition! Start to look into healthy diets focused on balancing blood sugar levels and decreasing inflammation. Work with a professional. There is endless misinformation on nutrition out there. If nutrition is poor, health will never be optimal.
- Exercise to your best ability. Maybe this is yoga, weights, Pilates, chair exercises, swimming, walking or just starting to move more, it helps!!
- Fix your sleep. If sleep is an issue figure out the root cause. Without a good night sleep, it is hard to heal.
- Manage stress, seek therapy if needed, meditate, and find healthy activities that make you feel good. Figure out the root cause of the stress, don’t just try to cover it up with medications or supplements.
- Consider using CBD to aid in your healing journey.
- Lastly, get your blood work and a good baseline body/ health assessment. This is a key part. Once you see what’s wrong you can set goals and approaches to correct it. Pick a date to retest.
The funny thing is, it’s not rocket science. Take care of your body and it will take care of you. CBD may be the supplement you need to kick start this process. As we say in my offices, “Your Health Equals Wealth”. Feel free to check out my lab work below. I have listed graphs highlighting the differences over the years. I began using CBD oil in early 2018.
|
Test |
Range |
2015 (fasting) |
2017 (fasting) |
2019 (non- fasting) |
|
Calcium |
8.6-10.3 MG/DL |
10.6 MG/DL |
|
WNL |
|
Protein Total |
6.1-8.1 G/DL |
8.2 MG/DL |
|
WNL |
|
Albumin |
3.6-5.1 G/DL |
5.4 MG/DL |
|
WNL |
|
Cholesterol |
125-200 MG/DL |
249 MG/DL |
|
WNL |
|
HBA1C |
0.0-5.6 |
5.8 |
|
WNL |
|
Homocysteine |
11.4 or greater |
11.4 umol/l |
|
WNL |
|
Glucose |
65-99 MG/DL |
|
105 MG/DL |
WNL |
|
Bun/ Creatine |
6-22 |
|
23.5 |
WNL |
|
Testosterone |
76-181 NG/DL |
|
67 NG/DL |
WNL |
**Other values over the years were left out of this chart, I was unable to locate some of the lab work I had in the past.
References:
1) Berge KH, Seppala MD, Schipper AM. Chemical dependency and the physician. Mayo Clin Proc. 2009;84(7):625–631. doi:10.1016/S0025-6196(11)60751-9