People have lots of questions about whether you can take prednisone and CBD. Do they help? Do they interact? What can we do about it?

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Are CBD & Prednisone Safe Together? Interact? Side Effects?

Transcription autogenerated from the video above so some errors are possible.

I’m Dr. Megan, your prednisone pharmacist, and I found an expert who can help answer these and many more questions. 

Dr. Swathi is a pharmacist as well, just like I am. She has created a new alternative and we’re going to learn more about what CBD has to give and what cautions we might be looking for. 

What is CBD?

CBD is kind of a shortened term for cannabidiol. Cannabidiol and CBD are the same thing. However, cannabis and CBD are not the same thing. If we go into our local dispensary and we’re picking up a cannabis product, there might be CBD in it but it’s not necessarily only CBD.

Cannabis or the term marijuana has been used for many years. Cannabis and marijuana are oftentimes used interchangeably. Cannabis just that term comes from actually the genus of the entire plant species. It is a lot of different types of plants, but at the end of the day it’s called cannabis. 

The scientific term is called cannabis. And cannabis is the overarching herb. If we think about herbs that we use for cooking like rosemary or thyme, different things like that. Think of cannabis just like any other herb and this herb though different from rosemary or or thyme.

Cannabis is different from some other herbs and has been used in ancient methodologies of medicine. Whether we’re thinking of traditional Chinese medicine Ayurveda, and the other ones as well; there’s a really rich history from an anecdotal perspective, ancient remedy perspective where herbs have been used for a lot of medicinal properties. Cannabis is one of these herbs.

The 2018 Agricultural Improvement Act, or the 2018 Farm Bill provided widespread use of what’s called Hemp. It’s really important to understand kind of the context before we jump right into what CBD is.

What’s the difference between hemp, marijuana, and cannabis?

And so you might see the term, hemp-derived or hemp. What’s the difference between hemp, marijuana, and cannabis? 

Oftentimes they’re used interchangeably. But really the difference is that cannabis is kind of the scientific term, the way that I refer to the overarching herb, and then marijuana is more often defined as something that has high THC content. THC is another term for tetrahydrocannabinol. 

THC is the kind of psychoactive, or the new terminology around it is the intoxicating compound that we can find in cannabis. There are other intoxicating compounds as well, but that’s kind of the most commonly used. Marijuana products often have high percentages of THC, and there are medicinal benefits to THC. More commonly they’re looked to ways for recreational use or for fun or for psychedelic experiences, if you will. 

However, marijuana if we’re looking at it as a spectrum the flip side to that is hemp. Hemp has high percentages of CBD and low percentages of THC. As per the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 or the farm bill hemp is now readily distributed and available and hemp can have upwards of 0.3% THC. 

And so that’s, you know, really not that much, but it is that defined term as per this particular piece of legislation. And so if you see a hemp derived product, that means that there’s upwards of 0.3%. THC sometimes certain products will actually have 0% THC, and that’s kind of more terminology that I’m happy to delve into if people are interested.

Now that we understand the context of what is the herb, what’s the history of the herb, and then the difference between hemp cannabis and marijuana, now we can jump into CBD.

CBD is one of the active components of cannabis, hemp, or marijuana it’s present in all of them.

Lots of the products that is not only in dispensaries but the ones you’ll see at your local drugstore or at your local supermarket, those are hemp-derived. They come from this version or strain of the plant that has high percentages of CBD and they’ve been bred this way. 

CBD or cannabidiol really has been studied for quite a few decades and it wasn’t really studied as extensively prior because of a lot of the legislation around it. As of 2018 there’s been a really great studies that have been going on and we don’t want to limit ourselves to only looking at the studies done in the United States. 

There’s a lot of studies being done internationally and a lot of these different countries, like Israel, haven’t had as strict guidelines or rules around. 

What plants can or cannot be looked at from a research context?

There are so many potential benefits of CBD and to really understand why CBD can be viewed as something that can be used, for so many different potential uses. It comes down to the mechanism of action and the goal is of CBD and the Endocannabinoid System. Which unfortunately is a system that is not something that’s widely taught in pharmacy curriculum in any sort of healthcare professional curriculum in the United States.

That’s only because it’s newly discovered and it hasn’t really been integrated into the curriculum yet. That doesn’t mean that it’s less important or less valuable. It’s just the curriculums take time to catch up to modern science and something that we shouldn’t come down necessarily on our general practitioner or our PCP if they don’t know it. Chances are they don’t know it and it’s not really the fault of them but the system. 

Understanding CBD where it fits in the entire healthcare schema and how it can help patients really now is such a specialized experience. And I hope that changes for the future.

Where should we use CBD?

You need to provide context to how CBD can be used. Most of the research that is out there right now is talking about three different kinds of avenues of CBD use.

One of them is for sleep; sleep issue, sleep disturbances, improvement of sleep quality, sleep quantity. 

The next branch is in the pain sector. Pain, discomfort, and how pain can infiltrate and be a part of so many different conditions and disease states. 

The third one is mood. It’s been researched at for anxiety in particular, but also looking into other aspects of mood and how to increase mood. So even looking at things like depression or bipolar and how it can really play a role in those.

Overall Mechanism of Action

The endocannabinoid system is a system that everyone has and it’s a very overarching widespread system. This system itself is tied directly or indirectly to a lot of different organ system neurotransmitter systems that we already have in the body. The endocannabinoid system goal is to help promote homeostasis or balance in the body. Part of it could be for the modulation of integrating cannabinoids like CBD into your daily life and that can really help promote that idea of balance throughout the body. 

The receptors are so widespread throughout the body when we learn about cardiology. It’s very much concentrated in one or two organs. It really is widespread and you can find cannabinoid receptors throughout the body and even going farther than the endocannabinoid system, they’re what are called non cannabinoid receptors. 

These receptors are found even more expansively and things like 5HT1A receptor that were very familiar thinking about; the serotonergic system and mood regulation. SSRIs and SNRIs and drugs that work on those, are also considered a non cannabinoid receptors. 

Once we include cannabinoids in our system, they can also work on some of these other receptors to different capacities. CBD incredible and there are so many potential options, but and so many potential use cases. 

It’s not necessarily the right case for everyone to incorporate cannabinoids. As pharmacists and as a healthcare professional in general, we always need to look at the benefit versus risk ratio and evaluate more benefit done than risk for a particular patient. 

Is Prednisone and CBD safe together?

The first thing to understand is how is CBD broken down or how is it metabolized in the body. The simplest way to think about is if we understand the CYP450 system. This is an enzyme system in the body that’s predominantly located in the liver or the gut. It breaks down of the vast majority of drugs on the market. It’s 50 to 70 plus percent of the pharmaceutical agents that we’re familiar with. Whether I’m talking about prescription or non-prescription, really are broken down by this one particular enzyme system. 

CBD is primarily metabolized by CYP3A4 and CYP2C19. This enzyme system within this enzyme, it’s kind of a family of enzymes. Within this family, we can think of these as two siblings if you will break down certain drugs. CBD is broken down by both of these. 

People generally don’t really care, they do wanna know about drug interactions. So that is where the problem is with the drug interaction. I mean it’s broken down by cytochromes also excreted in the urine. 

Drug interaction between Prednisone and CDB

Given that prednisone is also broken down by CYP3A4 and a few other CYPs as well, there is a possibility for drug interactions. When I looked into the clinical research that’s out there and looked at this exact relationship, there wasn’t as much out there as I had hoped. 

If we come from a theoretical standpoint, there could potentially be drug interactions. Prednisone is a weak inducer, it is possible that it could change the breakdown or metabolism of CBD. It is something to be aware of and I know so many patients that I’ve worked with personally and I actually contact one of my colleagues who works with a lot of elderly patients who are taking prednisone and she is a cannabis specialist as well.

She was telling me that as long as the prednisone is only being used for 1-3 months for a short period of time, it is not something that she’s worried about. In my practice, it’s not something that I’m generally worried about either. 

How to take Prednisone along with CBD?

If you are taking prednisone right now and you’re interested in incorporating CBD or you’re already taking both, I would recommend that you take them at least 3-4 hours apart just to ensure that they’re not necessarily in the system and passing through within the same timeframe.
But from what I can see in the research and my personal clinical practice and experience, I don’t see there being that big of an issue with using them together.

Basically, there’s a drug interaction, but it’s not a clinically significant drug interaction that both the prednisone and the CBD could probably still do their job. There might be a little bit of a change in how quickly or how fast it gets through your system, or maybe one will just be a little stronger than it otherwise would’ve been.
Not all drug interactions are bad. The drug interactions I feel like have this dreadful reputation of being, does it have a drug interaction? Is it a bad thing?

The Drug Interaction Checker

If we look at, especially as someone integrative pharmacist, I’m looking at drug urban interaction checkers all the time for patients. Especially when a patient gives me a supplement that I don’t recognize, I’ll put all of these different ingredients that are in the supplement within these drug interaction checkers. Even though you use these checkers, you also have to employ clinical insight because it’s really important to think about. 

For example; if a patient is thinking of taking x, y, z herbs, let’s say they’re having sleep issues. The physician recommends that they take Ambien, but they do not want to take Ambien which I fully support. And so instead, they wanna look at what herbs are out there or what potential natural supplements can help them sleep? They come to me in the pharmacy or via telemedicine and they ask me, “what other options are there out there?” Let’s say passion flower, CBD, ashwagandha, lavender. There are so many different possible options, magnesium that can be used for sleep. 

If I put that in the drug interaction checker, it will come up as like yellow flag, red flag, because all of those things are used for sedation. It is a possible chance of increased sedation. And I mean that’s kind of the goal here. It’s a drug interaction technically, but is it a bad one? 

Prednisone and CBD is it safe together?

This kind of leads to something else we wanted to talk about. Can prednisone and CBD be used together, can they be used safely, how does one work with the other? 

It could be viewed apart from this potential theoretical interaction that I’ve never personally seen and that hasn’t really been studied in terms of a deep dive. I think we could also look at it as like a synergistic relationship. Because prednisone’s overarching goal is to remove excess or unwanted inflammation in the body. I mean so much of homeostasis or balance in the body, which is the goal of cannabidiol or the endocannabinoid system. They both kind of have the same goal. 

If they’re both coming at it from a little bit of a different mechanism, then maybe it’s something that actually could be a synergistic positive drug interaction is how I would describe it as like a positive drug interaction. Maybe not necessarily as much a negative one. 

The decreased blood sugar is a great thing to have while on prednisone. It’s not going to make the prednisone not work, but it’s going to help them work better together.

Side Effects of Prednisone CBD supports

If it were improving things, which side effects would CBD be supporting for people who are currently taking prednisone? I’m very interested in seeing what research is out there especially when thinking of talking to patients, I want them to know and I also wanna feel comfortable with what I’m recommending.

Most of the research out there is about those three kind of pillars I talked about. Thinking about mood, sleep, and pain. That can fit really well for someone that is taking prednisone, whether it is kind of on the shorter side or the longer side of the spectrum. 

CBD could be a great addition, but we need to think about each patient in particular and what’s going to work well for them. Because one of the things we haven’t touched on yet is, if a patient’s on prednisone, it is possible or perhaps likely that they are taking other drugs and other supplements for that matter. 

CBD is great for everyone on prednisone because I don’t think that’s true. It’s about what else is in their drug list.

Is CBD right for me?

The first thing I ask for is their drug list, but to be more specific it’s their drug list, supplement list, and herb list. Oftentimes if you just ask for their drug list as an integrative pharmacist, the drug is just anything additional that you’re adding into your life, it doesn’t have to be a supplement. 

When I’m speaking to a patient, I have to be very specific on the prescription drugs, but I also am really interested in what supplements are you taking and, also what other herbs are you taking. Because if you’re on certain herbs, supplements, or drugs then I’m going to say CBD is not the right choice for you. 

What are the Top Concerning Drugs, Supplements, or Herbs for CBD?

The infamous one that you probably already see coming is St. John’s word which literally interacts with all the things. The one thing I want to say about St. John’s Wort. It gets a terrible reputation for just being not helpful, but studies really support that. It’s fantastic for mood regulation for mild to moderate depression, to moderate anxiety. 

I’m not saying take it in place of any pharmaceutical agent, but I do think it could potentially be a good choice for a lot of people if you are not taking any drugs, supplements, or anything else if you’re taking that alone. I actually have worked with patients in the pharmacy who are only taking that and swear by and absolutely love it.

I think it’s great for them and it’s great for certain people again, but if you’re taking anything else or you’re interested in taking anything else I don’t think it is the right choice. St. John’s Wort is ultimate red flag on the supplement side.

The other is the kind of prescription and one of the top things is Warfarin. It is kind of St. John’s Wort of the pharmaceutical agents so it’s not from a use-case scenario, but from an interaction standpoint. Warfarin also interacts, it is an anticoagulant or a blood thinner as other people call it. It interacts with so many things as well and a lot of these drugs that you’ll hear me say today have to do with having a narrow therapeutic index. It’s a drug that only works within a certain very small window of dosage for certain patients. It’s really important to think about warfarin in any sort of CBD product would be an absolute no for me. 

I think there are a lot of other great herbs for a lot of other things, but I would not recommend those two together. That’s another kind of red flag, quite a few of the anti-convulsants as well. Convulsions are like seizure medications, I have a lot of big issues with it as well in terms of red flags. 

So the most famous too I suppose would be Clobazam, which is not that commonly used, but I actually have seen it recently in practice, which is funny because I think that’s the first time I’d seen it in like five years.It’s not often used. 

That particular patient came to me because she said she started taking CBD and she was taking Clobazam for the last three years and all of a sudden her seizure frequency started increasing and this is exactly why you can’t take them together. She said that CBD was providing her with so many other great benefits that I actually had a call with her neuroendocrinologist and we decided that because she was having so many benefits from the CBD in terms of sleep, mood, and pain.

It actually changed her anti-convulsant and now she’s having great benefits from that one. In that case, CBD was kind of picked as, we’re getting benefits from this but let’s switch out the anti-seizure med. That’s also possible too. Especially given the breadth of the seizure category.

There are so many drug potential options that could work. That’s another way to view it too. I can’t say that’s happened that many times in practice where I’ve actually had an interaction with and CBD is kind of been the one to stay and the anti-convulsant has changed, but it’s anything’s possible. It’s again really patient-dependent and that patient really wanted to keep one and then and switch the other. Clobazam is one and then valproic acid or Depakote is another big red flag for me. That’s an absolute no, please don’t take any CBD cannabis, THC, any products because there could be a really negative drug interaction. 

CBD could be the Prey or the Predator?

The amount of drug in the body could vary on the CBD side or the drug side. It’s really dependent on the scenario and again, the way that these drugs are broken down by the CYP450 enzyme system. Those are kind of my top ones. I also really do not suggest taking cannabinoid-based products with things like tacrolimus or anything associated with transplant, whether it’s pre-surgery, post-surgery, or all of that.

So that’s another big one too. I would say those are kind of my main top red flags where if I see those it’s an automatic no. But then I guess for certain scenarios if patients are seeing value and a certain supplement they’re taking, then maybe they’ll switch out the drug instead of the other way around. That is fantastic. 

I feel the same way about supplements of any kind when it comes to transplants because we want to do everything we can to support your transplanted organ and not run any risk of losing it. It’s just so sensitive to anything that could be messing with it. If you’re taking tacrolimus, no berberine, CBD or anything like that. Just don’t go there. 

I would say that about any big procedure where you’re going to be given, whether it’s general anesthesia or otherwise, please talk to someone who has a specialty within herbal medicine or cannabis before you go into it and are taking some of these products.

It’s not just transplant procedures, it’s also other ones too that’s highly patient dependent, procedure dependent that’s also something that I think is important to mention. 

At what point in the Prednisone Journey would CBD be the most Beneficial?

Let me give you an overview of what the prednisone journey is. There’s before the prednisone when you’re having some sort of inflammatory event that causes you to need the prednisone, then there’s the first little while where you’re having lots of insomnia, anxiety, and then you might be on it a long time when the depression’s getting worse and then you have to taper off. And so that time can be really rough for some people it can be totally a non-issue for other people. There’s the post-prednisone recovery period where your immune system is suppressed, you’re trying to lose weight and you’re getting your moods back in order.

One thing to note is that even though you know, you might take CBD let’s say one night for sleep or you might take it let’s say a few days in a row. When you need it for a certain symptom, I think that CBD works best once it’s taken on a regular basis.

I would say that really all about the way that it works in the body and it’s all about trying to decrease this excess or unwanted inflammation. That’s not something that’s just gonna happen overnight and you can see benefits the first time you use it. 

But I think the long-term benefits of having your baseline mood be improved and having your kind of baseline of pain or improvement of sleep; all of that really comes from long-term regular use. 

How many doses should I take every single day?

It’s very patient-dependent, and that’s something that I think from a patient standpoint but also from a provider standpoint is a little frustrating. 

Let’s say like for example, if I’m thinking of like friends or like my partner or my co-founding team, we all have very different body composition, genders, you name it. But everyone takes a different dose. It has really nothing to do with how you identify your sex, your lifestyle necessarily. It really has everything to do with being able to start at a low dose and to titrate or increase your dose slowly. 

Something that you might hear within the dosing sphere of cannabinoids or CBD is that people say “start low, go slow” which I totally agree with, but I add actually another point at the end of that “Start low, go slow, and stay low.” 

There’s this idea we’re so used to taking pharmaceutical agents and so if we’re taking drugs or prescription drugs, we’re used to titrate up or increase our dose until we hit this ideal dose. Maybe if we need more we associate potency of a drug with a higher dose.

But with the way that cannabis or CBD in particular works in the body, there’s a biphasic effect. At certain doses, we’re actually going get certain benefits. If we’re thinking about it for sleep versus mood, we’re not going to take the same dose necessarily. It’s very patient dependent and you really have to experiment.

I love to say start lower than you ever think that you would need it because I would rather have someone take 5 or 10 milligrams and feel awesome than you think that they need to take 20, 30, or 80. 

It’s really all about patient specificity and it comes back to individualized therapy and the importance of it. CBD or cannabis medicine in general is such a great kind of beacon for the importance of personalized medicine. As an integrative pharmacist, what’s really important to me is the thing I also have to say with, when I say I’m an integrative pharmacist; I feel like people think I’m automatically anti-prescription. I’m not at all, it’s really about patient-centered shared decision-making. It’s about what the patient wants to achieve with their certain treatment protocol and how I can help them.

It’s really about what’s going to work best with their life and their goals. And so if they’re taking a Statin, prednisone or all the things and they feel great and they’re coming to me asking how can I optimize my sleep? I’m not going to tell them to get off all their meds. Because I believe if that’s working well for them then I’m happy for them. 

But I’m here to help with whatever other issue of optimization and I also work with patients who come to me and say; “I do not wanna be on this drug anymore, It’s making me feel x, y, z things”. It’s how can I potentially and safely taper off of it and what other supplements can help in this journey and afterwards.

I’m also happy to provide that insight. A lot of what I do too has nothing to do with adding or subtracting supplements. I had a patient who was saying; “My partner said that tea really helps him go to sleep, so I want to start drinking tea at night to help me go to sleep.” then I find out that it’s green tea and he’s not getting improvement from sleep. Sometimes my role as an integrative pharmacist is just to talk about sleep hygiene and the fact that certain tees actually have caffeine in them. It’s really all about the patient. 

How to manage someone who wants to get off Prednisone and use CBD instead?

I would do it very gradually. But again, it’s very specific to what the patient wants and also what dose they’re taking of both. As we’re increasing the CBD, I would want to be decreasing the prednisone, but it’s very dependent on a lot of different factors and I do think it’s possible.

I can’t say I’ve worked with anyone necessarily one-on-one who came to me and said specifically, “I wanna get off my prednisone and use cannabinoids as the alternative”. But I do think it is possible. Looking at the mechanism and overall the goal’s mostly the same. If we’re looking to decrease this excess or unwanted inflammation, I could understand why a patient would be interested in it. 

I think it would be a slow but gradual process. But I think it’s something I’d be open to though. Prednisone can be given for pretty much any condition that’s inflammatory, anything from your eyes to your kidneys. I can see that it would be more beneficial for the pain-related kinds than the straight-up I need to save my vision.

I would you say that that’s probably more closer to the joint issues where there might be more benefit. Are there any conditions that people are taking prednisone for that have more evidence than other conditions? Does any condition people might take prednisone for stand out as; “hey here’s something you can definitely start this CBD”, maybe not definitely but consider starting CBD as a potential alternative. 

If we’re thinking of long-term effects of prednisone and we want to see how CBD could play a role in maybe dampening or maybe even hoping to prevent some of the progression. I love the idea of incorporating CBD for someone. 

Again, this is not a blanket blanket recommendation, but I love the idea of long-term use of prednisone could result in in decreased bone density. One of the things that I think CBD could play a role in is the bolstering of bone health and this kind of brings it into another kind of vintage point of CBD where as I mentioned is one of the active components, but one of the other active components of cannabis. 

So cannabinoid is an active ingredient that’s found in cannabis and there are over 200 that have been studied. I think of cannabinoids also as a sibling kind of like the Jackson five, right? So let’s think of the Jackson 200. So there’s like a bunch of different popular siblings that all have really great uses, talents and everything. But Michael Jackson is kind of like the CBD.

What is CBG?

So you know, CBD is kind of like the most popular right now but there are a lot of other really great siblings that you know are being researched and could be potentially used. And so one of the other ones is Cannabigerol or CBG and there’s really great benefit and preliminary research that’s come out that’s talking about bone health and bolstering bone health and promoting bone health from a bone density standpoint.

I think that could be a great addition. CBD could also be helpful but there’s a lot of really promising research coming out about other cannabinoids and bone health like CBG. It’s because they’re kind of new to the scene, they’re not really that popularly discussed or talked about yet.

And I think that’s because there are just only a few human studies right now. There are quite a few in non-human, but I think as more research comes out it will be more openly discussed. But I do think there’s a lot of potential there and I see that as asomething that could potentially help a lot of patients in the future.

But for our purposes today we’re talking about the whole plant being involved and  they can help each other in ways that might be supportive of people on prednisone and with the side effects.

The Entourage and Ensemble Effect

That’s actually called the entourage effect or the ensemble effect. When you know it actually was popularized in kind of correlation with cannabis. But this concept applies to all herbs where all these different compounds that are active within any plant or any herb can synergistically kind of work together and help amplify the others’ effects.

The way that I view it is; X amount of dosage of CBD, it is possible that you could potentially take less of CBD if you incorporate some of these other active components that can help amplify one another. And so again, it’s for me coming back to this idea of like the lowest possible dose to get the benefit I think is best.

Somebody has read this today and they’re thinking I should probably try it and see what it does, see if it helps me. 

My general qualms for someone not moving forward with it is, once I’ve evaluated their drug list. The other thing that is important to mention though is that this is highly dependent on the product itself and it’s not something we really delved into about more terminology because I feel like I already threw a lot of terminology around.

But there are certain products, especially if we’re thinking of ones you can find in the grocery store, we’re not thinking about dispensaries right now, just ones you can find like in the grocery store or the drug store pharmacy, that type of scenario where it is over the counter. There are certain products that are hemp-derived, but again I mentioned that hemp can have up to 0.3% THC.

THC is the specific compound that is looked for in drug tests. So for example, if you buy a product that says 0% THC, it’s from a trustworthy brand, they are doctor formulated, they’re doing the right clinical studies to support their products, then I would say if it says 0% THC, you can trust that brand, then you’re fine taking it. 

But there are some people who have government jobs who are in certain scenarios like, when I was in pharmacy school years ago, we got random drug tests and drug tests look at a bunch of different active components of different drugs. And from the cannabis side, it only looks at THC.

So if you’re taking an isolated product that’s only CBD, CBD isolated, or if you’re taking what’s called a broad spectrum product, broad-spectrum by definition has 0% THC. If you’re worried about getting drug tested and as long as you buy from a trustworthy brand that you know is doing all the right things, provides what’s called a certificate of analysis and all their third party testing. 

As long as you’re buying from the brand that’s doing the right thing, which unfortunately there are too many in the space that is not, if you’re buying from the right brand, then you should look for isolated or broad spectrum. 

And so if you are going to be potentially drug tested, do not look at anything that says full spectrum. Full spectrum means up to that 0.3% THC. Yes. And then people ask me, you know, 0.3% is such a low amount, is it something I really need to be worried about? Especially if I’m taking such a low dose. I mean I don’t like to take chances on things like that.

If this is the difference of being able to stay in school or keeping a job, please do not take anything that has THC in it. But this is only about things you can find in the pharmacy, drugstore, and the supermarket. If we’re talking about going to a dispensary, it’s a whole nother ballgame.

They can have upwards or super high percentages of THC. It becomes a whole another conversation of they can have 20, 30 plus percent THC, then your chance of getting it appearing on a drug test is multiplied depending on where are you buying the brand.  

And also, is the hemp-derived? Is it marijuana derived? It will say on or rather it should say on the packaging. So there are a lot of different factors from that standpoint and it’s just really important to find a healthcare professional who is willing to have an open and honest conversation about it.

A lot of the patients I work with are really worried about what their healthcare provider is going to say about or what their specialist is going to say about it. And something that my mentor says that now I always say, but I can’t take credit, something she said first is that, “You know the most dangerous supplement from a healthcare professional standpoint is the one we don’t know about.” Because that’s the one that can potentially interact with things.

I really hope that whether it’s you coming to me, I always see patients in telemedicine or in person, whether it’s coming to me or coming to another medical cannabis specialist, please be open with talking interest in it. Whether you are already taking it because maybe then that can take some pressure off you and I can be the person to liaise with your provider and you don’t need to be the person to say it or it’s finding the healthcare provider that is okay with your honesty and who is open to the incorporation of CBD with your other prescription meds. 

So again, a lot of healthcare providers don’t know anything about cannabis. So if you ask them and they have their certain preoccupations or their certain stereotypes about it, then they might not give you the answer you’re looking for. Or they might just say, again, every healthcare professional thinks about benefit versus risk and if they don’t know the benefit and all they know is the risk, then they’re just gonna say no. 

So it’s really important to, whether it’s me or having another medical cannabis specialist or a botanical specialist that you can talk to before you purchase and before you buy any product.

Nutranize Zone + CBD + Prednisone is it Safe?

Nutranize Zone is a supplement for people on prednisone to help with the side effects. Do you think they’d be safe together? Would they help each other?

I think they would be great to be taken together. There’s no overlap in terms of this doing one thing that this one doesn’t do. I think that they would actually synergize really well. So I think that a patient would really benefit from taking them together and I don’t see any negative drug interaction with them. 

That’s great, I can see that this will help with the prednisone side effects, but like the inflammation itself. CBD seems like it would be more in like it can help with maybe supporting the dose of prednisone, maybe preventing the need for it in the future. 

Where can you find Dr. Swathi?

How can people find this specialist? How can they find you or anyone else who’s able to provide that quality of information? 

So through my brand Element Apothec, we do one-on-one consultations that are 15 minutes complimentary, happy to hop on a call with anyone. If it’s a quick, simple question, you can do it that way. If you have a really busy schedule, no worries at all. We also provide an option for you to just send a quick email. It comes straight to my email or my email and so then you know, the question will be forwarded to me and I’ll be able to answer that for you.

So that’s a great way also to get a quick question. I do ask though, if you send a quick question, please send over your drug list including supplements because that’s the first thing I’ll ask for. And so if that’s a really simple way if you want to do a deep dive if we’re talking about getting off of med and replacing it with CBD, if we’re thinking about the gradual incorporation of CBD, if you have more kind of expansive questions, you can also reach out that way. And that’s a great way for us to initially connect and I can evaluate the question via email or by a 15 minute call or is this something we need to kind of dive more into? Is it a complex disease state, is it a multiple disease state scenario? So then, you know, we can just take the conversation from there and then I’m happy to bring you on as a patient also.

You can visit this link and then so that’s how to find somebody who’s qualified to talk with, you mentioned things to look for in a product.

I’m very proud with my co-founders who started a brand a few years ago and it genuinely, came from a lo, everyone has on our co-founding team and different reasons for wanting to enter the CBD market.

A lot of them had they family members that were not well and found cannabis and it helped them or they had  like my CEO’s father and great aunt, really benefited from it. It’s everyone has their reason for entering the space. My particular reason was when I was working in the clinic when I was working in the pharmacy, there just were not that many brands that I trusted out there. And then the other thing that I found was that I was recommending products where I was saying, “Oh, take this, you know, cannabinoid or this CBD product but also take one or two of these other supplements as wel”. And so instead I was thinking, is there a way that there can just be one product where I can just recommend one thing?

And it’s simple for the consumer, it’s simple for everyone else. And so, that’s why I decided to get into the CBD. The cannabis world really is because there are just not enough healthcare professionals talking about it from an evidence-based perspective that didn’t seem polarized in one way or the other. There also just weren’t enough products out there that had cannabinoids and other herbs that have been researched for their use cases for different symptoms or different conditions.

And so that’s why I particularly entered the space and why my co-founders entered the space. We met each other at the right time and decided to launch products and we are certified B Corp. So we’re justice interested in helping consumers as we are helping the planet and sustainability. 

And I have an amazing medical advisory team that I work with to do all the formulations in-house. So as I mentioned, we use cannabinoids and other active botanicals.

Discount code from Dr. Swathi

We would love to put a link as well. I can send that over for where people can find products and I’m happy to provide a discount code too that we can talk about. 

That would be so helpful too. Yeah, all of these prednisone warriors who really are just searching for anything that can support this journey, whether it’s getting off of it or potentially not having to go back on it in the future. Thank you so much, Dr. Swathi, this has been amazing.

I have learned a lot, you’ve cleared up a lot of little confusions that I’ve had about this whole situation and I really appreciate your time today. Thank you for joining us. 

Thank you so much for having me. And again, if anyone wants to reach out, please don’t hesitate to send an email or schedule a free consult.

Links to Reach Dr. Swathi

• Discount code from Dr. Swathi
• Element Apothec Website
• Element Apothec | 1:1 Consultations
• Element Apothec | Ask Dr. Swathi
• Element Apothec | Blog