You're listening to Only the Best Herbs.
Welcome to Only the Best Herbs, a podcast where the ancient wisdom of herbal healing
meets the groundbreaking discoveries of now, 2024.
My name is Ryan Boda, and today we're weaving a story of nature's power in our modern world.
I wanted to get started and wanted to learn a little bit more about you.
So give me a little backstory on Sheila Orchard.
What got you into alternative and holistic medicine?
What inspired you growing up?
Like what made you, you know, what made that switch for you?
Okay, all right, yeah.
I grew up, I was kind of a troubled teen, went through some situations, you know, through the years,
and I ended up dealing, I dealt with a lot of anxiety and depression.
And then as an adult, I started dealing with some injuries that caused chronic pain,
degenerative disc disease, arthritis, fibromyalgia.
I ended up having a neck surgery.
Yeah, I currently need another one.
I'm saying no.
Who's three are?
Yeah, yeah.
So that's kind of the gist of like my health for the most part.
I don't know.
The doctors just put me through the ringer like they do, you know, you get test after test and medicine after medicine.
And next thing I know, I'm also an alcoholic.
I'm doing everything I can to self-medicate along with their 13 medicines, including their opiates.
Right.
You know, everything, and it was just a spiral, horrible spiral.
And I just finally, I couldn't take it.
I knew I was going to lose everything dear to me, and it was not a life.
I wasn't living life.
I was a zombie.
I was still stuck in bed.
I was still hurting.
I was still dealing with everything.
So I don't know.
It's my son and my son-in-law and daughter spoke to me about cannabis a little more.
And I had used it in the past, but never medicinally.
So they're like, hey, we can help you.
You can do this.
And so sure enough, I was like, all right, I was all in.
I don't know if I've ever smoked so much cannabis in my life in that two months.
I can admit, but I kicked it.
I kicked it.
I mean, yeah, some people will say once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.
But I can say I can actually take a drink here and there, a couple of drinks here and
there, whatever.
I know my limit.
And I know how to catch myself if it starts feeling it's getting out of control now.
I don't desire it like I did.
I don't drink like I did at all.
I mean, it's amazing.
Cannabis literally saved my life.
I totally stopped all 13 of those pills, including the obiates against doctors orders.
I stopped cold turkey.
Congratulations.
That itself is a huge accomplishment.
Right.
Thank you so much.
I mean, it feels amazing now.
Then the first six months was rough.
Nobody understands how much their prescriptions in your body are hurting you.
They believe these prescriptions are helping them.
How's it help when, okay, well, this one causes this.
So let's give you another one.
Well, this one causes this.
Well, let's give you another one to combat that.
That's not helping me.
I mean, you got like a whole bunch of interactions happening and you're just like all screwed
up and you don't know what's going on.
And these doctors don't really know any better because that's what they're taught.
Exactly.
That's screwed.
That's the screwed up part.
Exactly.
So it took me, you know, yeah, I was probably 45-ish.
Whenever I started the journey, I'm 50 now.
And I am literally living my best life now that I have ever lived thanks to cannabis.
That's awesome.
That's an awesome story.
I'm happy for you because I know that you make your own edibles.
I know you've gotten into it.
You do FICO oil basically for cancer patients, which is awesome.
Tell us a little bit more about your business.
All right.
Yeah.
Excuse me.
I started out with just a couple products actually, starting with my pain cream that
I make, herbal comfort cream.
I started making it for myself because I knew there had to be a way to help myself combat
this pain.
And I was tired of all the over-the-counter stuff.
Nothing was helping.
And so it took me a little bit, but I tweaked it and tweaked it and finally found the recipe
I liked.
Finally found the recipe that helped.
And I don't know.
I just started like I had friends and family hurting in need.
And so I started sharing and that's just kind of how the first it all started.
And I started with, oh, what was the name, like natural peace herbal boutique or something
like that.
It was just kind of one of those I had never done a business on my own.
And I started, I had a pain cream, a lotion, dog treats.
It's probably five or six different ingredients, but I also had herbal teas that I did as well.
I was learning how to mix different herbs and teas, not just Hannah related, but ways
to help with pain or congestion or anxiety or whatever.
And so I did that for a little while and then I met a friend through another part-time job.
And we decided to partner up.
I learned a lot from her through the business.
I've not wanted to bash anything.
So I'm going to do what I can to stay positive on this.
It was not meant to be.
She I hope was able to learn something from me through all of it.
I pray.
I know I was able to learn a lot from her.
I unfortunately went down with a back injury and I ended up having to deal with some high
blood pressure that put me out of commission like totally for about six months.
Wow.
And it made me, yeah, I just stopped.
It was, it was rough.
And so I had to go back through the realm of doctor tests, doctor medicines, all their
stuff, you know, next thing you know, they've got me on six different blood pressure heart
medicines.
And I don't know what to do.
I've never, I mean, I've done a lot to help a lot of people with a lot of things, but
when it comes to the heart, no, I'm out.
You're right.
You know, and so I jumped through their hoops and everything and I do a lot of reevaluating.
And I realized that I was not meant to be in that partnership.
That's not what's best for me and her either one.
So thank you.
It was.
Yes, for us was to go forward separately, but to continue to do what we're doing because
I know for a fact we was helping a lot of people.
So I started on my own.
I wasn't going to.
I had no intentions of it.
The heart doctors, I was able to get released and I personally told them, all right, I'm
not taking all these meds.
I'll take two, but I'm not taking them all.
I tried none and that didn't work.
So I succumbed to their two and it wasn't even a month of being hosting, you know, that
I had been released and everybody's hit me up.
So I was like, okay, okay, God, I'm listening.
I'm listening here.
You're giving me all the signs.
So I guess I'm back at this.
And so I decided I needed to start back, but I knew I had to go a different route.
I wanted to be different.
It's hard to do that too because like you said, it's your heart.
Yeah.
I started dealing with some high blood pressure and it just, it was spiking like uncontrollable
and I was getting real sick and I knew I had to do something about it.
I went into the ER at one point even and they found a few little things with my heart, but
nothing major.
Basically, they just kept saying it was, they blew it off as stress.
Okay.
So at that point I'm thinking, okay, you have me on six different medications, not just
for blood pressure, but for my heart.
And you're telling me that I'm good except for stress.
Not one of the medicines was for stress, mind you.
Okay.
Not one.
That's wild.
Yeah.
I was like, no, not doing it.
Can't do it, you know.
And so I got back on my feet, got rid of four of them, currently still on two blood pressure
medicines.
One of them I do not take consistent only when it's out of control.
You have like one of those machines and stuff like you're measuring your heart rate, you
know, your heart rate and your blood pressure like I would imagine pretty frequently.
Yes.
And I can always tell when my blood pressure spikes on me.
That's just something that I figured out with how my body feels.
The flush, you know, the hot, the getting sick, nauseated, stuff like that.
I know.
So I'll take the one medicine consistently and then if I need, I'll take the other.
What would you say cannabis has done for helping you with that?
You know, manage some of those symptoms in your, you know, your high blood pressure because
I have people, myself who use CBD products, for example, and they claim and they continue
to use like, you know, hot products, cannabis products on the regular because it helps them
control their blood pressure.
How would you, how exactly how would you say that's accurate?
Has it helped you with that?
I would say it's helped me with the stress factor side of it as for trying to control
that until it builds up to it.
Anything after that, I'm not going to claim I'm on an amazing CBD or CBG regimen like I
need to be.
I'm more just kind of that whole plant.
So I know, I do believe if I would get a little more intensive with the CBD and the CBG and
a lot more of those other cannabinoids, I might be able to regulate it a little better.
I know, like personally, we didn't get into this before, but I have an absorption issue
as well.
They can't tell me why I lost 45 pounds in a year and since then, about 10 years ago,
I struggled to even maintain my weight.
Like I will lose in a heartbeat.
It's a real struggle for me.
So you have to, I'm imagining you're eating pretty consistently.
Yes.
And in that, I also stress kills my appetite.
So I rely on certain strains to help give me an appetite.
That's a good point.
You got to know what you're doing, got to know what medication you're taking.
And there are actually, I refer to them as like cannabinoid specialists who kind of help
guide you or educate you a little bit more because there's so much more to the plant.
There's the plant terpenes, there's the full spectrum aspect of it and the entourage effect
because that can be applied to not just THC, that can be applied to all the other 540 cannabinoids.
So there's a lot of layers to it.
And if you don't know what you're doing and let's say you get a sativa strain and you're
really just kind of trying to chill out, you might not get what you're looking for.
Exactly.
Me, I got to stay away from sativas.
They are not good for my blood pressure, not good for my heart rate.
I mean, not good for my focus.
They just, yeah, they throw me in a spin.
For sure.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
I have to at least stick with a hybrid to kind of counteract a little bit because if
I go full sativa, I'm spacing out and I'm a little wired up.
But.
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We were so I had mentioned that, you know, my mom had heart problems as well.
So for me, like I, I understand a little bit where some of the struggles would be with
with that because it's definitely doesn't, it definitely doesn't seem like an easy process.
It's like a, you know, with your heart, it's kind of like a life changing life altering
thing when you start to have chronicles with your heart, you know,
it definitely was.
And then for that six months, the doctors was telling me, Oh, stay in bed, stay in bed.
You're keeping yourself from having a heart attack or a stroke and all this and that.
So that compounded, of course, my stress, you know, so I hear I'm listening to them
and.
It's finishing your purpose as well because you're not doing nothing.
Yes, and so, you know, it did affect my partnership and business at that time.
And, but once I got back on my feet again, I mean, I just, holy cow, I'm just, it can't
catch up.
Now, I do still deal with blood pressure problems occasionally.
Um, like this last week, it was trying to spike, you know, running high and stuff.
And so it is something that I still battle, but I don't deal with all the heart palpitations
and all, all the extreme highs consistent like I was.
That's a win.
That's just a win in itself.
And kind of like this kind of ties into it a little bit because you, you hadn't, you
have your business, right?
You have Christian cannabis advocate is your business.
And that's basically, you know, that's you and that's, you know, you make a whole bunch
of different types of extracts, topicals, edibles, so on and so forth, right?
How would you say that, you know, your faith and, you know, your, how would you say your
religion basically how, how would you say that has helped you and like what are some
of the struggles that you've had, you know, going about it that way?
Um, I think that choosing this route, I think my faith has actually helped me because even
on those hard days or the hard weeks that every small business owner encounters, my
faith keeps me looking on the positive side and the positive side is knowing I'm helping
people.
I'm helping those, those people that has cancer or kidney failure or liver failure or whatever,
whatever the patients needs are at the time, you know, whoever I'm helping.
And so that has definitely helped keep me going and been a lot of my drive.
Uh, the struggles wise, it's been definitely difficult trying to intertwine the Christian
and the cannabis together.
I get a lot, a lot of judgment, a lot of animosity, a lot of, you know, I had people
delete me off social media even and that's fine.
You know, that's, that's our choice.
You know, people just don't understand how they can intertwine that there and that's
what I'm here to show.
We had, because we had talked a little bit about diversity us talking previously.
We had talked about diversity and how, um, you know, your faith had kind of opened your
eyes a little bit to how your situation and how your business could be applied to many
other religions and beliefs and, uh, their definition of faith and whatnot.
And the faith almost, you know, the religion has, I think in my opinion, um, because it
can be applied to many people, like people are missing the point, the, um, of what you're
doing.
It's not that, you know, you're trying to push, uh, cannabis and stuff on other people,
you know, on Christians or anything, because it's exactly, you know, it's exactly the opposite.
You're trying to bring in a completely different lifestyle than most are used to, you know,
they think about it as weed still, right?
You know, you know, I think on my profile saying the word holistic, it really means a
lot because to me it's well rounded.
The word holistic doesn't, to me, it doesn't mean you have to be a Christian or a Baptist
or a Muslim or whatever, you know, like you pointed out, you know, whatever your religion
is, I'm not there to judge that.
We're all diverse in that.
I'm just there to tie it together so that you can have everything right in the mind,
body, spiritual soul, that whole aspect realm just works together.
I agree.
You know, I agree.
And I, I support that too.
You know, when I first met you and I had seen you on social media before and I was, you
know, there are those people on social media that, you know, you don't talk to at first,
but you kind of keep your eye on them because you like what they're doing.
And you know what I mean?
So, you know, so I had, so I, you know, I appreciated, you know, being able to finally,
you know, talk to you about some of the stuff that had piqued my interest.
So I definitely wanted to thank you on my part because I think you're, what you're doing
is nothing short of amazing because you have your work cut out for you, most definitely
going forward.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
You know, I do, but I do need you.
So how do we, how do we get a hold of you?
Right.
So you got Facebook, Instagram, and then you have your email address, correct?
So you can get in contact with you by messenger or by email.
Yeah.
Or just get, picking up the phone and giving you a call would probably be the easiest,
right?
That is correct too.
They'll notice on my page, my phone number is usually listed from some flyer for an educational
class or something that I'm doing.
And so my phone number is pretty easy to find.
It's awesome.
Okay.
And I'll include some links to, in this podcast, Sheila's social media profile so you can easily
get in contact with her.
Another topic that I wanted to cover with you, how do you think we can move forward and progress
everything?
Because there, I have to like remind myself, right?
We had talked about this.
It's not like this everywhere in the United States because people who, you know, in Michigan,
I can go get cannabis products anytime I want.
But in Texas, for example, you'll get arrested and go to jail.
So how do you think we can all work together and start solving some of these issues, start
making more progress, start, you know, just being more holistic, more cannabis friendly?
I think the biggest thing that I've learned in the five years, seeing the community in
Missouri even and outstretched a little bit from what I've seen just starting out, is
we got to stick together supporting each other more.
Not just locally, but like you said, outstretched in these other states.
You know, just because you have that opportunity for that natural, you know, to help yourself,
our brother or sister four states over does not have that opportunity.
So the ones that are advocates going to the government, keep going.
The ones that are advocates writing the letters, keep writing.
You know, the ones that are advocates like you on podcasts, keep shouting it.
You know, we're on social media groups, keep sharing.
The more we support each other, instead of tearing each other down, I think that it's
going to really show astronomical in the end.
For sure.
A lot of progress has been made even in my lifetime.
You know, it was illegal.
I had my issues, you know, possessing it in the in the past.
Like it's like being, you know, it's just it's sucked.
Like you're always on edge, you know, and it's more of like, I would say cannabis is
like has a lot to do with spiritual beliefs too.
So I see, you know, when you do like the Christian cannabis advocate in this, like it just it
is very relatable to me because they're all about mind, body and soul, right?
And all that connection, you know, so they are very, in my opinion, and very intertwined.
I appreciate what you said about the podcast because it's not it is not easy to to keep
going sometimes, but I have definitely found the strength and I think my faith has a lot
to do with it and that's what resonated.
And that's why I think we connect so well.
You know, one last topic that I wanted to talk about was a little bit actually specifically
with your business.
It's also a little bit more about what you do because you you make these oils for, you
know, explain to me like a day, like what's the day for you?
How does how does a day look for you on this business?
Okay, a day usually looks starting at my phone because I'll have some patients that have
contacted me over the night, usually about every day, different needs.
I have I have come up with all natural, by the way, all of these different herbs, spices
and cannabis and oils.
I make pain cream, lotion, salt that you can sprinkle on your food, a lip balm, dog treats,
pain drops, like, I don't know.
I mean, seriously, if I can infuse it, if it's something out there, I guarantee I can
infuse it.
That's funny.
The biggest thing probably that I spend most of my time these days doing is probably the
capsules alongside the pain cream.
The capsules would entail anywhere from the chill pills that helps with anxiety, anxiety,
nausea, things like that.
I've got a patient that's anorexic.
It actually helps her have an appetite where I have another patient, it controls their
appetite.
A lot of that just depends on your own endocannabinoid systems.
I make a lot, a lot of fecal, that full extract cannabis oil.
There's a lot of patients with cancer that receive free medication from me thanks to
anyone that purchases any products from me or donates to my business.
That goes back into the FICO program I have for these patients in need.
I don't want them to ever have to worry about a cost.
That's awesome.
That's incredible.
That's awesome.
To me, that is the biggest one right there is trying to keep up with that need, to be
honest.
It's a struggle.
It's not easy.
A lot of things are easy, but it's definitely worth it.
That's what keeps me going.
That's awesome.
Real quick, can you explain a little bit about FICO?
Yeah.
I take the whole plant.
Roots, stems, stalks, sugar leaves, buds, the whole plant.
I like adding in extra CBD and CBG.
Personally, I use at least four strains.
That way I'm getting a variety whenever I make mine.
I'll soak that plant, the dried plant with high-proof alcohol, whether it be moonshine
or Everclear.
That is, mind you, very expensive.
I have a distiller, so I'll then be able to, once I strain that off, I'll distill it
down to be able to reclaim and save some of that alcohol.
It saves me a little bit of money.
Then I evaporate off the rest of the alcohol, and it makes that beautiful golden, brown,
full extract cannabis oil.
It'll kill cancer cells, protect them good cells, rebuild new cells.
The endocannabinoid system and this FICO, man, it's being hailed as a miracle medicine.
It's really awesome that it makes complete sense to me for that to be your main product,
because of it being such a strong medication and having so many good results.
I'm glad you shared that with us and educated us a little bit.
If you want to learn more about FICO, I would reach out to Sheila.
She has this excellent program, and she's helping a lot of people out here.
Go support Sheila.
Give her a call.
Reach out to her on social media.
Thank you for coming on the show, number, you know, that it means a lot to me, and I
know it will mean a lot to more people out there too who are struggling or on the fence
about cannabis medicine.
Thanks for having me anytime.
If anybody has any questions, I hope they reach out to me.
I do too.
I truly do.
So, we are, you have any last words for us before we wrap up?
Oh, I don't know.
I guess keep it natural.
Stay true to yourself.
Know your words.
Exactly.
Know your words.
Like your light shine because you never know who is helping.
Feel free to reach out to us with your experience questions or even just to say hello.
Until next time, take care of yourself and one another.
Embrace the power of nature.
Stay curious.
Stay inspired.
And most importantly, stay connected.
It's been a pleasure to be part of your dates today.
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