What You Need To Know About Dosing Your Own CBD

With the mounting amount of evidence, both anecdotal and scientific, pointing to the therapeutic potential of CBD, it’s no surprise that it’s taken over the mass market. From local dispensaries to farmers markets, natural grocery stores, and e-commerce businesses, it seems like CBD has finally become more accessible to the masses than ever before.

With so many colorful and promising options, from gummy bears to topical patches and small pills, making a decision can feel daunting and overwhelming. There haven’t yet been any standard guidelines out in place for recommended dosages so many people must go off of a combination of manufacturer suggested dosages and those of helpful friends. The truth is, the way your body responds to CBD is way more complicated than this as it involves everything from your weight, age, gut health, genetics, and overall wellbeing.

Start At The Beginning: Basic Research

Understand Your Why

Assuming you’re approaching CBD for the first time or reconsidering your current relationship with this plant extract, having a clear understanding of why you are choosing to take CBD is vital.

Perhaps you have had back pain for years and you finally want to get off pain medication and heard your friend had promising results with CBD. Or maybe you are having difficulty fitting in with a new work environment which has led you to experience anxiety and depression more frequently? In one study published in Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research scientists found that out of approximately 2,000 participants 62% had been using CBD to treat medical conditions with the most common including pain, anxiety, and depression.

Whatever your situation, make sure you know what you are trying to support, heal, or soothe before you go researching products. This will save you quite some time in the long run when you’re not getting lost in a sea of products.

Dosage Considerations

Timeframe

Once you know what you want to treat or experience with CBD, the next step is to consider how long you want to feel the effects. Are you searching for a quick onset of relief for painful arthritis symptoms or anxiety? Or perhaps instead you need a long-lasting, steady release of CBD for your insomnia?

These types of questions are very important as they will significantly help you filter out the categories of CBD products that won’t work for you. If you’re looking for quick onset of relief, a vaporizer pen or sublingual tincture could provide you the results you’re looking for. For a slower release of CBD, edibles, and pills would be your best bet as they take anywhere between 1–6 hours to peak in effect as they must go through the digestive system first to be absorbed.

How Much is Enough?

It’s important to point out that although there are ways to estimate dosage based on body weight and age there is no “one-way-fits-all” solution. Getting the perfect dose of CBD is complicated on many levels.

First, CBD affects multiple interconnected systems such as the endocannabinoid, nervous, and immune system. Researchers have noted a bell-shaped curve for some conditions, such as anxiety where a medium-sized dose produces the best results reducing the effectiveness with a higher dosage. Second, the density of our cannabinoid receptors changes during the course of our life making the optimal dosage a moving target.

A good starting point is to take 1–6mg of CBD per 10 lbs of body weight. So a 150 lb individual would take between 15–25mg of CBD to start.

Another method for keeping track of CBD oil or tincture dosage is to utilize a simple calculation. A typical dropper can hold 1 ml of liquid, so let’s stick with this number for our example. To calculate how much CBD you are consuming per dropper (1ml volume) take:

[Total CBD in bottle] ÷ [Number of milliliters in the bottle]

= number of mg of CBD per 1ml dropper

Tracking your CBD intake can provide useful future information when considering switching how you take CBD or deciding if you should modify your intake. Starting low and going slow is definitely the best method for beginners to prevent any potential unwanted side effects.

Method of Delivery

Quick Onset

Sublingual tinctures, transdermal patches, and vape pens are part of the fast-acting category of CBD delivery methods. All of these products are quick because they bypass the digestive tract and directly enter the bloodstream through capillaries under the tongue, skin, or alveoli of the lungs.

Just remember, that even with the fast-acting CBD products, you will likely not absorb the maximum/total dosage. To increase the bioavailability of oral products, hold them under the tongue or the cheek to access high-density areas of capillaries and mucosal tissue; sublingual application found to be faster than buccal.

Sustained, Slow Release

CBD oil, capsules, edibles, drinks, topical lotions are part of the slow-release CBD category. CBD has very poor oral bioavailability so it’s not uncommon to see individuals using these types of products for delayed and extended effects often accompanied by the “entourage” effect — when the produced sensation is an accumulation of the effects of all the dosages combined.

Flavored gummies, cookies, and chocolates are amongst the most favored edibles because they are so tasty and easy to take. Consider dosing yourself after you eat as a full stomach absorbs more cannabinoids. If you have local pain, consider a topical patch or cream that is formulated to provide relief locally. As with any other mode of dosing, be patient and accept the experimentation process that comes with choosing what works best for you.

Since CBD is a fat-soluble molecule, combining it with fats or oils can increase its bioavailability by three times! Thus, it’s advised that before you go upping your dosage you consider if you’re really properly taking your current dose. For example, are you cleaning your skin of any lotions before applying the CBD patch? Are you holding the sublingual tincture under the tongue or are you forgetting and swallowing it immediately?

CBD Quality

Due to the influx of competitors jumping in to join the wave of CBD products, do not be surprised to find scammers lining the shelves of your local store or being advertised online. Always make sure to check for testing and purity certifications to ensure that you are receiving the same dose of the same high-quality extract every time.

When considering CBD products, you can choose from either CBD isolates that are pure CBD or broad-spectrum CBD which is a more crude extraction that contains a mixture of other cannabinoids. Researchers in Israel found that broad-spectrum CBD not only diverted from the traditional bell-shaped curve, creating a great effect at a higher dosage but produced the same analgesic effects at a smaller dose than pure CBD isolate.

Whatever option you choose, don’t forget to be willing to experiment and track your progress to get to the right dose for you. And if this changes, be willing to go with the flow and appreciating the complexities of your ever-changing body.