I Was 15 When My Body
Started Attacking Itself.
Here's What I Did About It.
Diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in high school. Thirty-three years of pain, dependency on medications I couldn't get off, and a relentless search for something better. This is the story behind Reclaim Labs.
Ron tells his story — 33 years of RA, two decades on steroids, and the month that changed everything.
The Diagnosis That Reshaped Everything
I was fifteen — a normal high school kid — when the doctors told me my immune system was attacking my own joints. Rheumatoid arthritis. Chronic. Progressive. No cure.
Most people picture arthritis as something that slows down grandparents. For me, it started at exactly the age you think you're invincible. And it never really left.
What followed were thirty-three years of navigating life with an invisible condition. One that nobody around me could see, but that I felt in every single movement I made — from the moment I woke up in the morning to the moment I finally went to sleep at night.
There were days I had to think twice about whether scratching my head was worth the pain of moving my arm.— Ron, Founder · Living with RA since age 15
What Living With Chronic Pain Actually Looks Like
People use the phrase "chronic pain" casually. But unless you've lived inside it, the weight of those two words doesn't fully land.
For me, it meant sitting on the sidelines in gym class — watching everyone else run, jump, and move freely — while I sat out. Not because I didn't want to be there, but because my body simply wouldn't let me.
It meant mornings that felt like coming back from the dead. Stiff, frozen, every joint on fire before I'd even tried to sit up. Getting out of bed wasn't just an act — it was a negotiation with my own body.
It meant planning the smallest things around pain. Getting in and out of the bath. Some days I barely made it in. Some days I had to crawl out. That's not a figure of speech — that's just a Tuesday.
This was my normal. For most of my adult life, this was just the baseline.
Twenty-Three Years on a Drug I Couldn't Stop Taking
Medicine offered an answer — of a kind. Prednisone. A corticosteroid that dampens your immune response and, with it, the inflammation that was tearing my joints apart. It worked well enough. I started on 5mg daily.
I stayed on it for twenty-three years.
Not by choice. Every single time I tried to come off it — and I tried many times — the pain came flooding back, harder than before. My body had essentially stopped knowing how to cope without it. The medication had become load-bearing.
There's a particular kind of frustration in being dependent on something that keeps you functional, while knowing that taking it long-term carries real risks. But the alternative — unmanaged RA — felt worse. So I stayed. Year after year. Pill after pill.
I tried everything else the doctors suggested. Different approaches, different medications. Nothing changed the equation. The steroids stayed, and so did the knowledge that I was not, in any meaningful sense, free.
Every time I tried to stop, the pain came back. For twenty-three years, I couldn't get off the steroids no matter what I tried.— Ron, Founder · Reclaim Labs
Skeptical of the Hype. Desperate Enough to Look Anyway.
A few years ago, CBD was everywhere. Everyone was talking about it, everyone was selling it, and most of those people were making claims they couldn't back up. My first instinct was genuine skepticism. I'd been around long enough to recognise a wellness trend.
But I was also a curious person who'd spent decades questioning the status quo. And beneath the hype, there was actual science — peer-reviewed research on cannabinoids, inflammation, and the endocannabinoid system. I decided to give it a real, serious look.
So I spent weeks reading studies, talking to suppliers, and examining what was actually in the products on the market. What I found was deeply disappointing. The CBD market was almost entirely unregulated. Products were mislabelled. Potencies were inconsistent. Nobody was making something I would actually trust putting into my body — especially not at the concentration and purity that the research suggested was needed.
It was snake oil dressed in wellness branding. And I had too much at stake to settle for that.
If I wanted it done right, I was going to have to do it myself.
What Happened When I Finally Got the Formula Right
I formulated a high-potency, full-spectrum hemp oil — clean, concentrated, and built from the actual science rather than marketing copy. Then I started taking it. I was still on my daily 5mg of Prednisone. Here's what happened, week by week.
-
Wk
1–2I cut my steroid dose in halfAfter two weeks on the oil, something felt different. Not dramatic — subtle, but real. Enough that I decided to try halving my Prednisone. Twenty-three years of failed attempts had made me cautious. I braced for a flare. It didn't come.
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Wk
3Halved it again — and felt genuinely goodA week later, I cut the remaining half dose in half again. A quarter of what I'd been taking for over two decades. And something unexpected happened: I felt really good. Not "managing" good. Not "coping" good. Actually good.
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Wk
4Stopped entirely. Waited for the crash. It never came.I looked at that last quarter-pill and thought: maybe I don't need these anymore. So I didn't take it. I waited for the familiar flood of pain that had always followed — the pain that had kept me dependent for twenty-three years. It didn't happen.
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7
yrsSeven years later — never looked backThat was the last Prednisone I ever took. Seven years have passed. I still take my oil every single day. And I have never needed the steroids again — and feel better than ever. I reclaimed my health. I reclaimed my freedom.
Then I Thought — Who Else Is Out There Still Searching?
That one question became Reclaim Labs.
Tens of millions of people in the US alone live with rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, or chronic pain. Most of them are on medications they'd rather not be on, in pain they've learned to manage rather than overcome. Most of them have tried the CBD products on the market and found them lacking — because they are.
I had already figured out the formula that worked. I had the science, the sourcing, and thirty-three years of firsthand experience as a patient. I turned my personal formula into a company — not to capitalise on a trend, but because I believe, based on everything I know and everything I've lived, that what I built can help people the way it helped me.
Reclaim Labs isn't a wellness brand. It's what happens when the patient becomes the formulator.
with RA
Prednisone
off steroids
& counting
The Formula I Built for Myself.
Now Available to You.
This isn't a product I endorse from the outside. It's the exact formula I developed when I couldn't find anything on the market worth trusting — and the same one I've taken every day for seven years.
High-potency, full-spectrum CBD hemp oil — formulated for maximum bioavailability and purity. No fillers, no compromise. The same formula Ron has taken every day for seven years.
If Any of This Sounds Familiar,
You're Exactly Who I Built This For.
I'm not promising miracles. I'm sharing what worked for me — after thirty-three years of searching — and turning it into the most honest, effective formula I know how to make. If you're still looking for something that actually works, I'd like you to try it.
Shop Reclaim Labs Read the science behind the formula →