How Much CBD Should A Beginner Start With? A Look At Dosages
CBD

How Much CBD Should A Beginner Start With? A Look At Dosages

Everyone knows how much ibuprofen, acetaminophen, or aspirin they should take when they have a headache or a backache. CBD dosing, though, is a different story. No one’s quite sure how much CBD you should take.

Sure, CBD products are legal for sale and use, but CBD hasn’t been approved as a prescription medicine (except for a few rare types of childhood epilepsy). That means there are no “recommended” doses for beginners or anyone else.

You may see dosage guidelines on the packaging, but those are just ballpark figures at best. Some experts say 5 or 10 milligrams is a good starting point, others say 25mg is the right starting dose — and the limited number of research studies conducted to date have generally found much higher amounts of CBD to be effective for a laundry list of medical conditions.

The UK’s Food Standards Agency’s “precautionary advice” is to consume no more than 10mg of CBD per day, and that’s in line with the most common advice you’ll hear from those in the scientific and medical worlds, 5mg taken twice a day. Many say a better starting dose for beginners might be 2.5mg twice daily.

However, the “right dose” can also depend on your weight, metabolism, medical condition, and the medications you take, as well as what you’re trying to accomplish by taking CBD. The type of CBD product you’re using plays a role in determining a dosage as well.

In short, there’s no right answer. The best approach is to consult with your doctor or another medical professional before deciding whether to try CBD and how much to use. But if you want more information to help you navigate the complicated world of CBD dosing, read on.

What You Need to Know About CBD

Let’s start at the beginning. CBD, or cannabidiol, is one of more than 100 plant compounds known as cannabinoids that are found in the hemp and cannabis plants. The other major cannabinoid is THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). CBD and THC have similar chemical structures and do their work similarly in the body, but THC is psychoactive while CBD is non-intoxicating.

Hemp contains very low levels of THC, not enough to make users high. By contrast, cannabis plants contain lots of THC and small amounts of CBD. That’s why the cannabidiol in CBD products is sourced from hemp, and the many forms of marijuana all come from the cannabis plant.

Research has shown that both cannabinoids appear to provide potential wellness benefits by interacting with the body’s endocannabinoid system (ECS). They don’t always deliver the same potential benefits, though, because THC and CBD generally interact with different ECS receptors.

Here’s what that means. THC binds to receptors that help regulate important functions such as sleep, explaining why its activities in the body can get users high. CBD interacts with a different set of receptors that primarily support other functions, so it doesn’t cause intoxicating effects.

No specific benefits of cannabidiol have yet been proven to the satisfaction of regulatory authorities. However, studies have shown great promise for CBD’s support potential including:

  • Everyday stress management

That’s just a partial list of the potential benefits, and it explains why CBD products exploded in popularity once their sale was approved by the government a few years ago. It’s important to understand, though, that cannabidiol is not prescribed or “recommended” for those wellness benefits — which explains why there are no firm dosing guidelines.

Types of CBD

When CBD is extracted from hemp plants, its small amount of THC comes along, as do other cannabinoids and terpenes found in the plants. That cannabidiol is known as full-spectrum CBD because its full spectrum of plant compounds works together in an “entourage effect” to boost the effectiveness of cannabidiol.

Not everyone wants THC in their CBD products, however, either because they are allergic to it or they’re afraid they might not pass a cannabis drug test. (That does happen occasionally.) Producers accommodate them by creating two other types of CBD.

  • Broad-spectrum CBD is full-spectrum cannabidiol that has had its THC content removed. There’s less of an entourage effect, so broad-spectrum products aren’t quite as effective. Traces of THC may still be left behind as well.
  • CBD isolate is pure CBD with all of the other plant compounds completely removed. There’s no entourage effect, making it the least effective type of cannabidiol, but it contains zero THC.

Products manufactured with all three types of cannabidiol are easy to find online and in most shops selling CBD. The most important point for our purposes, though, is that higher doses of broad-spectrum or isolate may be required to provide the same apparent medical effects that full-spectrum cannabidiol delivers.

Forms of CBD

CBD products are available in many forms, largely because of the cannabinoid’s enormous popularity. Most users consider factors like convenience, discretion, or personal preference when choosing a preferred form of CBD, but there are also issues of potency and effectiveness that can play a role in determining dosages.

These are the commonly available forms of CBD products.

CBD Oil

This product is a combination of cannabidiol and a carrier oil like MCT or coconut oil, sometimes with flavorings or other supplements added. CBD oil is one of the fastest and most effective ways to use CBD — but only if the oil is dropped under the tongue.

So-called sublingual administration allows the cannabidiol to be absorbed by membranes beneath the tongue and quickly moved through the bloodstream. It also preserves the largest amount of cannabidiol because it doesn’t have to be digested, meaning it’s the most effective way to use CBD oil.

The oil can also be mixed with foods or beverages, but it must first be processed in the digestive system before reaching the bloodstream. That “detour” can delay the CBD’s effectiveness for as long as two hours, and some of it will be lost during digestion. More cannabidiol may be needed to provide the same effects that sublingual oil use delivers.

Dosing CBD oil can be difficult.

First, the oil is usually labelled with the total amount of CBD in the bottle, not how much is in each drop or dose. Second, the liquid is measured in milliliters but the amount of cannabidiol it contains is measured in milligrams; most packaging doesn’t disclose the milligrams per milliliter (mg/mL) of CBD in the oil a bottle contains. Finally, not all droppers are marked in milliliters.

If you don’t want to do the math to figure out how much cannabidiol you’ll be consuming, you have to rely on the packaging’s suggested dose (if it even includes one). One additional drawback to CBD oil: it’s not easy to use in public without drawing attention.

CBD Capsules

These may contain additional ingredients (like vitamins or other health supplements), but most are simply gelcaps or other types of capsules containing CBD oil.

Many people choose CBD capsules because they’re easy to take and easy to use discreetly, and they come in specified dosage amounts that don’t vary. However, the capsules must first be digested, so they carry the same drawbacks we mentioned for CBD oil mixed with food. You also can’t make small changes to the dose you’re taking without buying new capsules.

CBD Edibles

CBD gummies, candies, and other premade edible products are one of the fastest-growing categories of CBD products. They provide the same benefits as CBD capsules but are (theoretically) more delicious and enjoyable to consume.

Edibles also come with most of the same drawbacks we’ve discussed. They have to be digested before the cannabidiol is available, so some of the CBD is lost and its effectiveness is significantly delayed.

CBD Vapes

Vaping isn’t for everyone, and many people have no interest in CBD vapes for that very valid reason. It’s a fast and effective administration method, though, since the vapor goes straight to users’ lungs where the cannabidiol is absorbed by lung tissues and moved into the bloodstream without digestion-related delays or loss of potency.

Less CBD should be needed for this method of administration because of CBD vape juice’s efficiency, but it’s very difficult to measure how much cannabidiol is being consumed while vaping.

CBD Topical Products

This is a different group of options, because CBD lotions, creams, and similar products are administered to the skin and rarely penetrate far enough to reach the bloodstream. They appear to relieve topical aches and pains (as well as conditions like acne) by interacting with ECS receptors in the skin, but they can’t provide cannabidiol’s other apparent effects in the body.

Other Factors Affecting CBD’s Absorption and Effectiveness

You’ve probably realized a key fact from our discussion so far. The amount of cannabidiol that is contained in various forms of CBD, and the amount that may be absorbed and used by the body, is extremely difficult to predict. In short, dosing is more of an art than a science; it might even be fair to say that it’s a matter of trial and error.

And that’s not considering other factors that help determine the dose of CBD you might need. CBD affects everyone differently, so some of the considerations that may come into play are your body weight and BMI, your body’s natural metabolic rate, any existing medical conditions you’re dealing with, and any medications you take that might interact with cannabidiol.

Any or all of those factors could mean that you’d have to increase the amount of CBD you take — that is, if there even was reliable information on recommended dosages. Once again, the best advice is to speak with your doctor or a healthcare professional with some experience in the use and dosing of CBD and how various personal and medical factors affect it.

So How Much CBD Should a Beginner Start With?

Assuming that you’ve decided not to ask your doctor (or that they’re clueless about CBD use), we’ll briefly repeat the guidance we mentioned at the start and then provide more information that might be helpful.

The most common suggestion for CBD dosage, and the government’s recommended maximum dose, is 5mg of cannabidiol twice a day. Many experts suggest that beginners start even lower, with 2.5mg twice per day, and increase if no results are noticed within a couple of weeks.

The overall approach to CBD (and many other substances, for that matter) should always be “start low, and increase slow.” And before thinking about increasing your dose, it’s smart to be sure cannabidiol doesn’t affect you negatively.

CBD is considered safe and non-addictive, and it doesn’t get you high or make you disoriented. But some minor side effects like dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea have occasionally been reported, mostly among those using high doses regularly or taking extremely high doses.

Once you’re comfortable that you don’t react poorly to the CBD product you’ve chosen — and if you’re thinking about taking more than 10 milligrams per day — here’s some possible guidance.

Published studies showing CBD’s apparent benefits generally used much larger doses of cannabidiol than the ones we’ve discussed. It’s important to emphasize that no medical authority has recommended the following dosage levels, but some people find it useful to know how much CBD seems to provide benefits for different conditions and disorders.

As you’ll see, there’s a wide range of apparently effective daily dosages reported in separate studies.

  • Insomnia and poor sleep quality: 25mg
  • Pain relief: 30-600mg
  • Parkinson’s disease: 75-300mg
  • Anxiety and depression: 300-600mg

Needless to say, those doses are substantially higher than the 10mg/day maximum often recommended. However, CBD products are sold in a large variety of dosages, so it’s not difficult to find products containing 25mg, 50mg, 100mg, or even more.

We’ll close with a bit of good news. Multiple studies have reported that people can generally tolerate as much as 1500mg of cannabidiol per day without serious negative effects, perhaps other than the side effects associated with very high doses that we mentioned earlier.

How much is 1500mg of cannabidiol? Here’s an example: it’s the amount generally contained in 1-2 full bottles of CBD gummies. In other words, taking 25 milligrams of cannabidiol because you can’t get to sleep shouldn’t cause any major health issues — but we’ll repeat one final time: you should speak to a healthcare professional before using high doses of CBD.

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