It seems that THC succeeded where CBD (and surgery) failed me
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a cyst uncomfortably pocked where my lower-left shoulder blade meets the small of my back.
I hate to be gross, and did spare readers the before and after pics, but in order to describe how truly miraculous my experience with Slate Wonder Balm has been, I have to include some of the disgusting details that led me to the point of despair.
About five years ago, I finally decided to get my bump lanced off. It was to be handled at my general physician’s office, where I stripped and laid face-down on the table for nearly two excruciating hours as what seemed like the cast of Mortal Kombat cleaved me with machetes. But they couldn’t get it all, and even worse was that the edibles I ate beforehand and the local anesthetic didn’t hold. To this day, I count it among the most painful experiences of my life.
A year later, I decided to go under the knife for real, and my primary doc sent me to a specialist at Brigham and Women’s. I stripped once again and laid down on their metal slab, but the surgery was cut short before any incisions were made. After they jabbed me with a footlong numbing needle, I instinctively jerked my legs wildly, sending a silver tray stocked with sterilized instruments several feet through the air and into the chest of my would-be butcher, who canceled the procedure on the spot as a result. He was a total dick about it too.
In the time since, my back cyst has had more good days than bad ones, but still becomes inflamed to the size of a pinball once or twice a year. I can’t figure out exactly what aggravates it, but it seems to have something to do with excess heat or stress or some combination of the two. It’s not a massive pain but at this point I endure it since I can’t imagine having another awful medical experience for something that isn’t life threatening. And so I treat it the best way I can …
I have tried to stick and bleed my cyst, and applied hot and cold compresses alike. Gels and ointments haven’t worked, and I even attempted to shrink it with hemorrhoid cream after hearing that people use it to remove bags from under their eyes. But that just left me feeling like an asshole.
What is working, however, is Slate Wonder Balm, a spicy buttery cream that I actually had on my shelf for months before trying it out on my back. I guess that I had given up; the only thing that’s ever actually disappeared my cyst has been a regimen of antibiotics, and I’m not taking those every time that I flare up. None of the CBD topicals that have helped me with minor skin irritations in other spots helped, and so I didn’t have high expectations for this mentholated peppermint potion.
There’s a long list of ingredients in Slate Wonder Balm—dimethyl sulfone, glyceryl stearate, chamomile extract, and mentha piperita (peppermint) oil among them. But I’m guessing it’s the ethanol-extracted THC distillate, which none of the other potential solutions I tried had, which really helps. The first application immediately reduced swelling; the second, a heavy numbing dose spread on before bedtime, brought it down to almost nothing. And by day three of using some balm every few hours, the cyst was barely recognizable under my skin, let alone through my t-shirt.
I’m going to keep this writeup less than scientific. While I’m interested in interviewing the lab rats behind this miracle cure in the future, I know there are a lot of knuckleheads like me who run the other way at any mention of natural healing powers or potions. I’m not saying this Wonder Balm will work wonders for you, or that I even expect it to keep working for me, but I am saying that it is worth a try if you’ve already tried everything else.
commonwealthaltcare.org/slate-wonder-balm
