Welcome to this episode of The ankylosing spondylitis podcast. This is going to be a little bit different of an episode today I'm really excited. I've got Courtney Garber on and Courtney is the Assistant Store Manager and CBD Educator of the Fort Collins, Colorado retail store for Joy Organics, which is a CBD manufacturing company, retail sales. They just cover all sorts of different angles and have a great line of products. So I'm really excited to have you on Courtney, how are you? 

Courtney - Good. How are you doing? Jason? 

Jayson - Fantastic. I'm really excited because CBD is one of those topics that there's so much information out there and there's so many people that want to consider it for their chronic pain issues, anxiety, whatever it may be, and they just don't know where to start. So it's really great to have somebody on that can kind of take my listeners by the hand and start them on the journey.

Courtney - Yes, and I appreciate you having me on.  Every day I encounter people that just have gotten a lot of misinformation from the web or even from family and friends. So it's really good to have educational material to kind of clear up a lot of these issues.

Jayson - It is because there's so much being written about CBD, that it could help things like anxiety, PTSD, chronic pain, Parkinson's, epilepsy and the list goes on. But I think the key is, let's say that I was, you know, or any of my listeners were to walk into your store, where would you start with them? How do they even know how much CBD to take? What products appropriate? How do you guys help them determine that?

Courtney - Yeah, so often when people walk into the store, the first question we asked them is what brings you in today, they will reveal like what they're trying to treat. They might even come in specifically asking for products that will help with this. What we do at the store is we don't like definitively say this product is going to work for whatever you're trying to treat, kind of just describe how the different products work, and then they can make an informed decision what they think will work best for their condition, and we often describe to CBD does affect everybody. So Individually, it does take a little experimentation in the beginning to find the right product and the right milligrams to take.

Jayson - I wondered about that. So like a lot of drugs, things like weight can even affect the amount of your dosage. So is that something you find also with, say CBD oil is somebody that is a 250 pound guy is going to need more than 120 pound woman.

Courtney - You know, interestingly enough, so often when people come into the store and from our feedback, it's not necessarily by weight. We have a lot of repeat customers in the store. So we do get a lot of feedback. Sometimes people need very small amounts and sometimes people need very large amounts. It really depends on how their endocannabinoid system is functioning. So when we recommend milligram strength for people, but with CBD, it does affect everybody. So individually, a perfect example is my significant other. We both have taken the same amount of CBD for pain issues. And for him, it made him drowsy. He does weigh more than me. I'm a pretty slender woman. So often people will just start off with a low milligram amount and increase it until they're getting the effects they need. Some people do require just a small amount to feel the effects more some people do need a larger amount other people do need to take it kind of consistently for a few weeks to really benefit from the full effect. We have a lot of customers that use the lowest drink tincture for sleep and we have some customers that need to take two of our highest drink soft gels for sleep so it does really very often I will ask people if they're sensitive to other medications and supplements and usually that's a prime candidate for