9 minute read
GOLNESA GHARACHEDAGHI
BY JORDAN PERSON
Recently GRAM sat down with Golnesa Gharachedaghi, from the television show, Shahs of Sunset. We discuss why she is becoming a part of the growing cannabis industry with her new business, Wusah, and learn about her personal experience using cannabis for symptoms associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Many people deal with the pain of RA every day. There are currently 1.5 million Americans suffering, 1 many of whom suffer in silence. The joint tenderness and fatigue is sometimes unbearable. RA is an autoimmune inflammatory condition that causes severe pain, stiffness, swelling and redness to the joints. 2 RA can affect other tissues of the body as well, including the eyes, lungs, and heart.
For Golnesa, her symptoms started with her hands. “Up until my diagnosis, the doctors thought what I had was tendonitis from years of being a gymnast. I am sure that was because I started as a gymnast at age 3. Doctors considered it to be normal wear and tear. They began putting steroidsinto every single tendon in my fingers through injections. The pain eventually found its way to my shoulders. I went to see an orthopedic doctor and he told me I had bursitis.”
The pain then made its way to her knees. Her doctor assumed it was the same issues she was experiencing in her shoulders and began steroid treatment injections to her knees. Finally one doctor had an idea, “The doctor said to me, this has to be something systemic. He sent me to a Rheumatologist. It took two years before I was diagnosed with RA. This was after two years of getting these injections with little to no relief. I remember my fingertips were blue, and I could barely bend my knees. My rings wouldn’t come off my fingers. Two years after injections, finally I understood I had RA in 32 joints in my body.”
“When having an autoimmune condition, your body can build up an immunity to certain medications after a while. So for me, every medication had a lifespan of about 1 1⁄2 years, and then it just stopped working for me. They tried several pharmaceuticals, so many I can’t remember all of their names. The methotrexate was a mild chemo drug that I had to inject into my stomach once a week in conjunction with all of the pharmaceuticals. That was my booster for everything. There were times I received biweekly transfusions as well.”
All of this treatment was still not enough. The inflammation in the tendons of her hands was still too much. “The doctors told me I had too many steroids previously injected into my hand, and the inflammation was so bad, and the tendons were so damaged they had to go in there and scrape it all out.” If trigger finger 3 is severe, the finger that is affected can become locked in a bent position. The surgery for trigger finger is called “tenolysis” or “trigger finger release.” Golnesa had this surgery to release the tendon in her hand.
Rheumatoid arthritis patients suffer not only from pain but also from swelling, redness, stiffness or the joints that are affected may misshapen. For Golnesa, all of her fingers were so stiff she could barely straighten them. Before cannabis she would have to use her teeth to open bottles of water for herself.
After 8 or 9 years of medications and then finally requiring surgery for trigger finger, she made the life-changing decision to listen to her holistic minded mother. Her mom had been reading a lot about CBD and its benefits. Five years ago, as she began to read about the plant, she felt that it was still just considered cannabis, “You would hear weed or marijuana or pot and would think, so I am just going to get high. I told my mom no, what would it mean if I went back to this drug?“
This was not her first experience with the cannabis plant. Her experience began at a young age, “younger than anyone in my grade, I was about 11.5 the first time I ever smoked pot; my older sister knew it was something that was going to come up, and she wanted my first time to be secured, safe and with her.” She experimented with the plant over the years but discontinued use in 2005.
That was until her mother found Dr. Allan Frankel. Dr. Frankel has been a doctor of Internal Medicine for 35 years and is a worldwide authority on dosed cannabis. He is the founder of Greenbridge Medical in Santa Monica, California. The clinic claims that 80% of the people that come to them have had no previous relationship with cannabis. Dr. Frankel has treated just under 80 conditions using cannabinoid therapy. He provides a customized treatment plan to each patient he sees because he understands the varying needs for each patient, and that plant medicine can require some “tuning.”
Golnesa’s mom made her an appointment with Dr. Frankel. “He really broke it all down for me three and a half years ago. I started with a CBD capsule that was a 5 (CBD):1 (THC) ratio. I was really scared of getting high and that I was going to have a horrible experience, but having the mindset that it was going to help me medically was the significant difference for me. I then went from taking the capsules to buying the flower. As I kept consuming, the THC ratio continued to increase, and after about 8 or 9 months, I noticed my fingers were able to straighten out.”
Even though she began seeing mild results from cannabis, Golnesa continued with conventional medicine, using mild doses of chemo and going to her rheumatologist regularly. After 11 years of treatments, some of those in conjunction with the use of cannabis, a severe situation led to emergency surgery and the loss of both fallopian tubes. “That somehow put my body into some sort of shock. My rheumatologist said he had never seen my body flare that badly before. They put me back on infusions, but this time they used medications that were safe for pregnancy because at that time I was trying to get pregnant and the body must be rid of methotrexate for at least three months before you can attempt pregnancy.”
Golnesa continued using cannabis and was able to get all of her blood levels where they needed to be so she could try IVF again. During this time of trying to heal her body naturally, she started thinking about how much cannabis improved her quality of life. She started to brainstorm ideas for a product line so she could share this type of healing with others. Two years ago she launched the CBD company, Wusah. 5
I am pleased to tell you she shared with us that she is now pregnant. “I read that CBD vapes were the safest way to consume because its more controlled as far as how much goes into your body while you are pregnant so I was using my Wusah vapes whenever I feel like I am irritable, or like my hands are too much with pain, I would just take a couple puffs. I recently just went three months without consuming. Then, just a few nights ago, I took a few puffs to help with my insomnia”, she tells us about using a CBD vape during her pregnancy.
“I have been so lucky I have not had any morning sickness, so I have been fine with using CBD only products. Had I been one of those women that did have nausea and they would have wanted to prescribe a medication for that, I would have absolutely just taken a few puffs off of a joint instead.”
There is currently a lot of controversy surrounding the use of vapes. Vape pens that contain Vitamin E Acetate or MCT oil have caused severe health issues and in some cases, death. In fact, thousands of deaths have now been reported in the US from the use of adulterated products. Golnesa confidently tells us, “unlike all the stuff going on in the outside media, my vapes do not mix with any outside oils, and I don’t dilute it with anything else. We make sure our CBD oil is really good and broad spectrum. It’s hard because of what the media and the government is putting out there, I feel like they are doing it to control the market for a lot of people. I can tell you though, at Wusah, we have no byproducts in our vapes.”
Vapes are not the only thing she sells. She says her focus is wellness. The Wusah product line includes capsules, oral sprays, a balm, patches, and drops for your water. Her plan is to stick with what internally is the most medicinal and to focus more on symptoms, to help people internally. She says, “Think more like anti-inflammatory, joint pain, and health and wellness.” She wants to put out products that are designed for whatever each individual may need; she feels her cause is to help people internally.
“To stay current, I read every single day. I read everything. I receive as many cannabis newsletters from as many publications as I possibly can. I go to every possible convention I can in California and in neighboring states. I constantly educate myself on what’s out there. I tend to follow a lot of what Israel is doing since they are so advanced when it comes to cannabis, as well as some of the information coming out of Australia. You really have to dig deep right now because there is a very big dollar sign on this plant.”
Golnesa is an advocate for people suffering from RA. She has worked with the Arthritis Foundation and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles to help support others, particularly children, who suffer from the disease as well as raise money for research to develop a cure. Most recently, she established a nonprofit foundation, Little Warriors, to support children suffering from a variety of autoimmune diseases. “I would love to be able to advocate publically for the use of cannabis for RA, and I look forward to it.”
She leaves us with a bit of advice, “My best advice is to educate yourself first, understand all the components of the plant. Read about it. Try it. Ask around. Talk to people. Embrace the fact that it is not a drug. Destroy the taboo. Educate first and foremost. Don’t believe me, do your own research, read the fucking ingredients, know what you are taking. Research and educate yourself, don’t just trust any product because it says it has CBD in it. Once you fully understand the plant, you will then understand why certain products hitting the market can’t be real.”
