Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Ankylosing Spondylitis Podcast. Wow, am I excited to be here today! It is really amazing as I looked at the stats the other day. I want to welcome people coming in from all over the world. We've had listeners pop up from Portugal from Costa Rica, from Guatemala, from Ecuador! Add that into, you know, Morocco, Algeria, England, Canada, the United States, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Switzerland and Turkey. You know, they're just coming in from everywhere. I'm so excited to see this. So excited to connect with everybody that's got ankylosing spondylitis, and bring everybody together to at least enjoy the show and know that they're not alone.
On this week's episode, we're going to be talking about CBD, whether it be CBD oil, gummies, cream, or vaping, I'm going to bring the little bit of knowledge that I have, and hopefully, get some more experts in here later on during the year that can talk far more in-depth about CBD and how to use it to the best of everybody's advantage.
Remember, I am not a doctor. These are entirely my opinions and not to be taken as medical advice. So please, if you have any questions about the use of CBD oil for yourself, consult your family physician, your rheumatologist, whoever you see, to talk about what you should and shouldn't be doing with it.
So what is CBD(cannabidiol)? Well, CBD is a compound derived from hemp. Yes, it can be derived from marijuana but we're going to be talking about the type derived from hemp. It can help soothe joint pain. And you know, it's been talked about for anxiety and a whole number of other things as well but we're gonna be looking at mostly joint pain for the use of CBD oil and in this particular episode, so it's always referred to as CBD for short. It stands for cannabidiol, also known as CBD, and many people will rave about it for its health benefits and potential medical benefits. There have been some studies done on it and shown that it may help with anxiety. There are some other childhood diseases and seizures that they're looking at, like with children, post traumatic stress disorder. So those are whole different topics. But again, there are a number of areas being looked at to use CBD oil. So you might be wondering how does it help people with Ankylosing Spondylitis, or in this case, even just arthritis and they're still trying to link all the different pieces together as to what it can do. But there's a lot of anecdotal reports from patients and some basic research that showing that it may help in a lot of areas that people talk about it. Now not everybody's going to react to it. You may have tried it and not had any reaction to it. I've been on it for probably 30 days now. You know, honestly, I can't tell you that it's made a difference or not made a difference. Maybe I'm calmer now so maybe it's helped with some anxiety. Pain wise, I haven't noticed a whole lot but I think it's really been more anxiety for me.
CBD is a chemical that's derived from hemp. Both hemp and marijuana are both types of the cannabis plants. But obviously as you know they're very different from each other with marijuana containing THC tetrahydrocannabinol and hemp well it does have some THC it's generally .3% or less so it's not enough to get your high off of or anything of that nature. But you know, obviously hemp and marijuana are very different from each other in the amount of obviously THC as well as the CBD percentages. But again, that's all changing because as these different folks grow the marijuana plants and get better at the cultivating of them. They're able to raise that CBD levels much, much higher in the plants than what it was, you know from nature did.
By altering cannabinoids, you can inhibit or excite the release of neurotransmitters, which are brain chemicals. They play a role in modulating the body's...
