I got diagnosed with Crohn’s about five years ago after losing a severe amount of weight over the course of a year and a half or so. Got down to below 120lbs for the first time since I was a teen. Really gnarly gut pains and I had to be very, very careful with what I ate. At a certain point, I stopped eating daily and probably didn’t eat an actual meal for stretches of up to a month at a time.

My girlfriend (now wife) urged me to try cannabis, despite her never having used it herself. I used to smoke when I was a teen, but swore it off after a bad experience when I was 19.

Once I started experimenting with different products to find out what worked, which did take a lot of trial and error (and a yachts worth of money we didn’t exactly have in Florida), I started eating more with less discomfort, and climbed slowly back to health.

I still have flare ups here and there, but I just adjust my diet accordingly and ride them out carefully. Some are worse than others, but those are much fewer and further between now. I’ve since moved from Florida (where I had a medical card) to Colorado partially due to availability, quality, legality, and price of products.

I understand that some people don’t have the same experience with it or it’s not as helpful, and I feel for them. For me, cannabis quite literally saved me from wasting away. And with a decent tolerance, I can get most of the positive benefits of it without much of a head change.