Category: product review

Serenity CBD Lotion

Posted on by Grayson
I have been given this product as part of a product review through the Chronic Illness Bloggers network. Although the product was a gift from The Fay Farm, all opinions in this review remain my own and I was in no way influenced by the company itself or by Chronic Illness Bloggers.
The Serenity lotion from The Fay Farm is geared towards those of us who have high anxiety and need help calming down… AKA perfect for me as I have left my job to try to take writing full-time! I also have been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress – all of which put me into highly emotional states. With ingredients like chamomile and green tea, it’s no surprise that this lotion is incredibly helpful!
CBD has been found to reduce anxiety from simulated public speaking for people with fears of just that. There is a ton of similar research out there on anxiety-related issues and PTSD. Needless to say, my issues with both certainly prompted me to jump at the chance to try this product.
I had this lotion for several days while on a prednisone taper and I have to say that it was actually far more helpful than I imagined in calming me down.
It’s also very soothing. It has been incredibly helpful for me while trying to sleep but being unable to because of pain. It may not erase everything I deal with in that moment, but it helps me to stop stressing over my inability to sleep and to be far calmer. It has also helped me out plenty with other anxiety-riddled moments.
I have been bleaching my hair. A few weeks ago, I tried to dye it light blue and it came out much darker than expected. Because of the uneven color, it just really looked bad… but it also sent me into a PTSD freak-out. There was a time when my mother had a breakdown and cut all her hair off to the point where splotches where there where you could see her scalp. Her brown locks were gone and all that remained was this dark salt-and-pepper short gray hair… and I looked like my mother with my far-too-dark blue hair.
The hippo Snapchat filter improved the look, trust me
Cue the construction of PTSD-ville, population me.
Thankfully, I lathered myself in this lotion, started furiously texting my pal Felix, and promptly re-bleached my hair.
SO MUCH BETTER
Then, yesterday, I managed to get myself into a panic attack over death. I realize I do this fairly often, but this was the first time it’s happened in a while – and it started over something so small. I was snuggling with T, looking at his gray hair, and simply said “we’re old now.”
My brain went BUT WHEN YOU ARE OLD YOU DIE AND YOU WILL BE ALONE FOREVER AND AHHHHHHHHH.
I tried to fight it for a few minutes, but I couldn’t.
Luckily, I cried it out into T’s shoulder and ran into the bathroom to lather myself in this lotion.
We went and saw Free State of Jones (which was good BTW) and, despite all the death associated with the movie – and the Civil War – I managed to not freak-out… which is, honestly, pretty darn impressive. Usually I’m crying off and on in existential-crisis-mode for the rest of the day.

via GIPHY

To you, amazing Washingtonians who make this lotion, I send my deepest and most heartfelt thanks.
 
Are you interested in snagging some CBD products from The Fay Farm? You can snag Serenity in 2 oz or 8 oz.
To learn more about The Fay Farms’ CBD products, please read this post from Julie Ryan at Counting My Spoons or check out my previous review of the Healing Lotion in The Fay Farm’s CBD line here. 
 
 

 

Healing CBD Hemp Lotion

Posted on by Grayson
I have been given this product as part of a product review through the Chronic Illness Bloggers network. Although the product was a gift from The Fay Farm, all opinions in this review remain my own and I was in no way influenced by the company itself or by Chronic Illness Bloggers.
I have to admit that I was skeptical about this product when I signed up to review it. If you read my writings often, I have a weird mix of beliefs and tend to shy away from natural things because, as I was growing up, that was all my family would do to help with my pain.
Turns out, multiple chronic pain issues don’t really respond to copper bracelets aside from turning wrists green… Anyway, it’s safe to say that I was looking for this to totally bomb.
But it surpassed anything I could have thought.
 
The first thing I used this for was actually an injury. I managed to cut open my fourth toe on my left foot to the point where I needed three stitches to hold it on and heal. My pinky toe on the same foot was also injured and broken… The fourth toe may be broken too, but since there is little that can be done for a toe, I didn’t ask for an x-ray.
I was told, after this accident, to make sure that I kept the area moist and clean. The day after, I began using this healing CBD lotion on the area to help with moisture and the whole clean thing.
It greatly reduced the pain that I was having, both from the injury itself and from stepping incorrectly with stitches.
There was even a point in the next week where I drove home during my lunch time after a meeting specifically to apply this lotion to my foot. Within a week, I was able to remove my stitches. The lotion continues to help the scar tissue and skin in the area improve.
In the meantime, the horrible dry skin that I have on my heels has greatly reduced. I am no longer catching skin on blankets, but have smooth feet! And that is still the case without having used the lotion for two days.
It has helped immensely with the pain from my fibromyalgia as well, whether this is in my hands or – the worse area right now – my neck.
The other night, I had a bout of painsomnia that was the most intense I’ve faced in a while. I ended up having to take a large amount of medication in addition to getting a back rub and applying this lotion to my neck and tailbone area.
It finally helped to break the painsomnia cycle.
If this lotion can help solve my icky, scratchy feet in addition to helping me heal from an injury and deal with my fibro pain in the midst of my biggest fibro flare in years?
I’m sold.
The CBD products from The Fay Farm are kind of badass. You can snag Healing Hemp in 2 oz or 8 oz.
Because I loved this product so much, I will be reviewing their Serenity CBD lotion coming soon, so stay tuned!
To learn more about The Fay Farms’ CBD products, please read this post from Julie Ryan at Counting My Spoons. You can also visit Project CBD’s Beginner’s Guide.

 

Review of H Factor Hydrogen Water

Posted on by Grayson
This is a sponsored post. I was provided the product in exchange for an honest review, and I have been compensated for my time through the Chronic Illness Bloggers network. All opinions remain my own and I was in no way influenced by H Factor or Chronic Illness Bloggers.
In the FAQs on their website, H Factor lists many articles related to the potential benefits of this water. There is also more information here for the curious.
Some of the benefits listed on their website are:
“Studies have shown hydrogen water may help achieve peak performance, recover faster, increase blood circulation, helps skin care, relieves allergies & reduce inflammation.”
The package is natural aluminium and much better for the environment than plastic. It’s still recyclable and such, too. I will say, though, that this was not easy to open with painful hands. It was also quite awkward to hold at times as I was worried that I would squeeze too hard and spill the water everywhere since the package is pretty malleable.
The size of the package was not a good size for my swollen hands, either.
Each bottle comes with its own plastic straw which was interesting. It felt as though that could be made more environmentally friendly somehow.
The recommendation is to drink these within 30 minutes of opening to get the maximum effect.
The taste of this water is off just enough that you know this is not tap water. The taste is similar in off-ness to carbonated water, though this is far less bubbly than that.
I felt as though I should add a disclaimer on here that I am awful at drinking water. I could see the potential for me to feel better drinking two of these a day since I don’t drink much at all… But then, within a few minutes of drinking some of this, I actually started to get dizzy, gassy, and pretty nauseous.
Hours later, once I got home from work, I was fairly sick to my stomach. I spent a lot of time in the bathroom or feeling quite queasy. I ended up sleeping on the couch one night due to nausea.
Needless to say, I did not drink another one of these waters. I’m still, frankly, recovering from the first one!
I can certainly see the potential that these could help some of us. After all, many items do help a variety of people whether or not that may be obvious or intuitive at first glance. I do have concerns over how helpful this could be. After all, even Livestrong has its concerns.
This was far too harsh on my GI tract to have any benefits for me whatsoever.
If you would like, you can connect with H Factor on their site, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

 

Review: Nimble

Posted on by Grayson
This is a sponsored post. I was provided the product in exchange for an honest review, and I have been compensated for my time through the Chronic Illness Bloggers network. All opinions remain my own and I was in no way influenced by Version22 Designs or Chronic Illness Bloggers.
 
I feel like the name Nimble is a combination of ‘nifty’ and ‘thimble.’ I’m totally making this up, but check out how it looks and tell me that it doesn’t make sense.
Right? This is totally a cute yellow nifty thimble.
I was super excited to be a part of trying out the Nimble! I’m not great with sharp things sometimes, especially when my Fibromyalgia and SJIA hit my hands… AKA Sunday after making questionable food and beverage choices at Aunt Brenda’s wake.
Upon first glance, I was interested to see that this little fingertip-hugging cutting tool had similar ideas to a box knife. The only difference is that the cutting piece is permanently out and unadjustable.
I was totally fine with that since this cute little fingertip cap doesn’t cut me but does cut other things.
I’m a bit of a klutz, so this was a great tool to try out. I’m always cutting myself whether opening packages with sharp objects or with my hands.
I wasn’t entirely sure how well this would cut, especially with my hands being less able during this time period. It cut through paper pretty well.
And even cut through tasty snack plastic easily. Honestly, it did even better on that than the paper.
When I used the Nimble on cardstock, it was less easy. Again, my hands have been flaring and, thus, aren’t as strong. I did also try this on an Amazon box I needed to break down and had some difficulties there as well.
The nice thing is that the Nimble is small enough you can adjust how you have it on your finger and the pressure you need to apply. My guess is that my hands were getting in the way no matter what.
It does take a certain amount of pressure to cut and I just wasn’t at that strength level this weekend. Nonetheless, this was very useful even with grumpy hands on tape, plastic, and regular paper.
I am very excited to start using this in my kitchen, too, as it seems to be very easy to clean.
Courtesy of Version 22
Want to snag your own Nimble and easily open some bacon? Head over to their Kickstarter and snag a sweet deal (note: bacon not included).
If you’re not familiar with Kickstarter, you pledge a certain amount of money to help a product be created and, depending on your donation level, also get fun bonuses. Here is what Version 22 Designs and Nimble currently have available:
On Kickstarter, you only wind up being charged if a product meets its fundraising goal. Since Nimble has reached that already, this means any orders you placed are guaranteed to ship out.
It may take a little while for you to receive your Nimble as they have not been completely created yet. The current timeline indicates that October will likely be when these start shipping. The nice thing is that’s just in time for those gift-giving holidays!

 

IQ Massager Pro V review

Posted on by Grayson
A few weeks ago, my awesome friend Melissa and I took a trip to the Abilities Expo in the Chicago area.

 

Gah my moon face is killing me

We were accosted by a salesdude who was great at schmoozing. We’ve decided that he thought we were mother and daughter. Anyway, he was selling this IQ Massager Pro V dealy and basically like slapped them on us before we could run away.

After sitting there for a few minutes and playing with the device, I did a complete 180 on everything I’ve ever felt about tens units. My mom had a shitty one when I was in high school and college that would zap you. It wasn’t easy to control and didn’t have different settings. The contacts were not stable and no one ever should’ve been using that thing. This little guy though was like heaven on my angry neck.

We got a deal on two and split the cost thanks to the schmoozer.

After an almost two-hour drive home from the expo, I needed for sure to use this device again. I was able to play with the settings more and really enjoy it. I’ve found a few settings that are the go-tos depending on how I’m feeling or what type of pain I have.

The nicest thing is that this has really helped the area where my neck and shoulder meet, which has been a problem area that nothing really helps. My former rheumy thought it was tendinitis, but did nothing for follow up or a confirmation so who knows? From my own investigations, it seems like tendinitis in my trapezius muscle area which runs from the base of your head/neck to your shoulder.

My faces are ridiculous I know, but I had it up too high!

It’s not an area that is easy to deal with. Having my left arm in a sling can help, but isn’t always the most practical – especially if I’m at work. This little guy can though. It’s also an electrical muscle stimulator (EMS) which means it’s an FDA regulated machine so that’s always nice. It charges via USB too which is great! And you can use two sets of pads at once.

There are a few things I do dislike here. This particular model didn’t come with literature on where to not use the machine so googling that was frightening and caused anxiety. The pads don’t hold a lot of stick for a long time – I’ve only had it a few weeks and I’m started to kill the adhesive. The intensity of the machine seems to grow the longer you use it on a certain spot. Maybe that’s just because of how it’s working or something that it’s supposed to do but it can be surprising. It also can make me feel a little woozy from the vibrations in addition to the occasional zap when it’s up too high. I also wish it had come with a little carrying pouch!

This kinda works so it’s good I kept this I guess?

I would definitely buy this again and plan to keep using it until I kill it. It has more than covered its cost for me in how much I’ve used it since getting it. I’m able to use it at work or driving or watching TV easily and that really helps. It’s lightweight and portable, but packs enough of a punch to help. As with any electronic thing, it’s a little scary to read some of the things you shouldn’t do or people who shouldn’t use it and all that.

I joked the other day that I wish there was an easy way to set my relationship status on facebook to married to T but with this machine as my lover. It’s silly I know, but an indication of just how effective it’s been for me.