How To Stop Nausea From CBD Oil: Try Using Less

CBD oil has generated large-scale interest among medical researchers. Why? It appears to provide many of the same health and wellness benefits as prescription drugs, but without the often-serious side effects those drugs may trigger.

That doesn’t mean users never suffer side effects. Dry mouth and fatigue are common among those new to CBD, and a relatively small number of people may experience upset stomachs, reduced appetites, nausea, or vomiting.

In almost all cases, the latter effects are caused by extremely high doses of CBD, or by using very high doses on a daily basis — and while the side effects can cause mild to moderate pain or discomfort, they’re certainly not life-threatening. No deaths associated with CBD use have ever been reported.

Nausea or most other gastrointestinal issues triggered by CBD oil or other CBD products can be dealt with in the same way they’d be handled when caused by almost anything else: fresh air, sitting quietly, deep breathing, hydration, bland food, or home remedies like peppermint or ginger tea.

However, there’s a better way to avoid feeling nauseous or sick in other ways after using CBD, and it’s almost foolproof: lower your dose.

CBD isn’t approved for the treatment of any condition (except for a few rare forms of childhood epilepsy), so there are no medically-recommended dosage guidelines. Most doses suggested by CBD producers and experts, though, range from 5-10 milligrams for those just starting, to as much as 20, 30, 50, or even more for some conditions.

By contrast, the few available, documented cases of nausea and other more serious side effects were triggered by CBD doses well over 1,000 milligrams. It’s also been reported that users taking hundreds of milligrams of CBD per day for prolonged periods are more likely to experience adverse effects like nausea.

In some of those cases, though, the dosages were administered in clinical settings to test CBD’s effectiveness for the treatment of different medical issues. The best advice for ordinary users feeling nauseous or sick in other ways after using CBD oil, however, is simple. Lower your dose or the frequency of your use, and you should be fine.

Here’s a deeper dive.

The A-B-Cs of CBD and CBD Oil

CBD (cannabidiol) is a plant compound known as a cannabinoid, and it’s found in hemp and cannabis plants. It’s extremely similar to the most famous cannabinoid contained in both plants, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), with one important difference: THC gets users high, but CBD doesn’t.

The cannabidiol used to make CBD oil and other CBD products is extracted from hemp plants because they’re rich in the compound and contain very little THC — explaining why CBD oil doesn’t intoxicate users. There’s not enough of the psychoactive cannabinoid in hemp to alter users’ consciousness in any way.

Once cannabidiol is extracted from hemp plants, it can be combined with a so-called carrier oil to create CBD oil.

A carrier oil is needed because CBD is absorbed poorly by the body. MCT oil, coconut oil, and hempseed oil are most commonly used as carriers because they dramatically boost the bioavailability of cannabidiol (the amount available to be absorbed by the body) and also allow CBD oil to quickly pass through the digestive system without significant loss of the cannabinoid.

The best way to use CBD oil is to drop it under the tongue in what’s known as sublingual administration. This method allows the cannabidiol to be absorbed by the tissues under the tongue (the sublingual tissues) and moved quickly into the bloodstream. When CBD oil is added to food or beverages it must first be digested, delaying and diminishing its effectiveness.

Cannabidiol has not been approved by any government authority as a medical treatment, except as the prescription medication Epidiolex used to treat the rare epilepsy cases mentioned earlier. Even so, its use as a supplement has become widespread now that most Western nations have legalised the sale and use of CBD products.

The explanation for its popularity is simple. Preliminary research has shown that cannabidiol appears to help ease a large number of medical conditions:

• Anxiety, depression, stress, and more serious mental health disorders
• Chronic pain caused by anti-immune and inflammatory conditions and diseases like arthritis, fibromyalgia, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, gout, and asthma
• Insomnia and other sleep quality issues
• Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative diseases
• Heart health risks like high cholesterol levels and high blood pressure
• Acne and other skin diseases
• Epilepsy
• Substance abuse disorders
• Some types of cancer

And researchers report that CBD’s apparent benefits are delivered without serious side effects. Let’s talk about that next.

Possible Negative Effects of CBD Oil

There’s really no “bad” news to pass along, but we’ll start with the “best” news first.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared in 2017 that CBD “does not appear to have abuse potential or cause harm,” and added that there’s no evidence of any public health-related problems associated with its use. That declaration was a major factor leading nations throughout the Western world to legalise the sale and use of cannabidiol and CBD products.

Additionally, a comprehensive research review conducted around that same time concluded that CBD has a favorable safety profile that’s more positive than many of the drugs used to treat the conditions for which cannabidiol appears to be effective. A later review concluded that CBD is “well tolerated and has relatively few serious adverse side effects.”

As for those side effects, they’re uncommon and don’t affect the majority of CBD users. Dry mouth is most often reported; it’s apparently caused by cannabidiol’s interaction with the internal system that regulates saliva (THC causes the same effect for cannabis users). Fatigue or drowsiness is also possible since one of CBD’s potential benefits is helping users sleep.

The more serious negative effects associated with the use of CBD oil and other CBD products are gastrointestinal issues like stomach aches, reduced appetite, nausea, and vomiting. Those problems don’t affect the vast majority of users, though.

Those most likely to notice one or more of those problems fall into three categories:

• New users, whose bodies haven’t yet acclimated to the effects of CBD
• Users who consume extremely high doses of CBD, much higher than are generally used or recommended
• Users who consume very high doses of CBD on a daily basis

People might occasionally experience troublesome side effects for several other reasons. Their bodies may have an unusually poor tolerance of cannabidiol, the CBD may be interacting negatively with other medications they’re taking, or they may have other medical conditions that contraindicate the use of CBD. We’ll look further at those issues shortly.

First, though, let’s talk about the “very high” and “extremely high” doses of CBD oil that might trigger side effects.

In reality, we’ll just be speculating about them. No medical or governmental authorities have issued dosage recommendations or guidelines, so there’s no way to say how much CBD is “too much.” Here are some numbers that might help, however.

• 5-10 milligrams: The starting doses suggested by many CBD producers and experts
• 10mg: The UK government’s maximum suggested daily dose
• 20-30mg: The most common dosages taken by users
• 25mg: The dose shown by some research studies to be effective for insomnia
• 30-600mg: The doses shown by some studies to be effective for chronic pain
• 75-300mg: The doses shown by some studies to be effective for Parkinson’s disease
• 200mg: The doses shown by some studies to be effective for diabetes
• 200-800mg: The doses shown by some studies to be effective for schizophrenia
• 300-600mg: The doses shown by some studies to be effective for anxiety

Most documented cases of nausea and the other more serious issues we’ve mentioned occurred in people taking dosages well over 1,000 mg of cannabidiol, though, so it’s unlikely that those using “normal” doses of CBD would be at risk.

One final note before we move on: some reports have cited the possibility of liver damage being a potential long-term effect of CBD use, but those reports are greatly exaggerated. A comprehensive research review found that there’s a low risk of liver damage even at very high doses, and a much lower risk than at the dosage levels found in commercially-sold CBD oil.

CBD Oil and Drug Interactions

Most of the interactions between CBD oil and other medications could best be described as problematic, not dangerous. Even so, the clashes could have major effects on your health, so you should always seek advice from your doctor or another healthcare professional before deciding to try any CBD product.

The first thing you can do when checking for possible interactions between CBD oil and other meds is to check the labels of the drugs you take. If they have what’s commonly called a “grapefruit warning” — meaning that you shouldn’t eat grapefruit while taking them — they’re likely to clash with cannabidiol as well.

The issue is drug metabolisation. Most substances are broken down in the liver, and any med with a grapefruit warning is metabolised by the same enzymes that break down CBD; cannabidiol might also block the enzymes from doing their work. The conflict could put too much of the drug into your system and increase the risk of medication side effects.

Some commonly used prescription drugs do interact negatively with CBD. This is only a partial list; as we’ve said, be sure to check with your doctor to make sure you won’t run into difficulties.

• Zocor (simvastatin), Lipitor (atorvastatin), and some other statins
• Xanax (alprazolam), Valium (diazepam), Ativan (lorazepam) and some other antianxiety medications
• Some high blood pressure, heart rhythm, diabetes, antiepileptic, thyroid, and corticosteroid drugs
• Some antibiotics, antihistamines, opioids, blood thinners, proton pump inhibitors, prostate, and allergy pills, including some sold over-the-counter like Benadryl, melatonin, and Allegra

Patients being treated for liver or kidney disease should also consult with a medical professional before trying CBD because it might worsen their condition.

For the vast majority of people, though, the use of CBD oil is unlikely to trigger nausea — and if it does, they’re probably taking too much.

Shop our CBD products:

• CBD oils
• CBD gummies
• CBD capsules
• CBD creams
• CBD patches
• CBD vape pens
• CBD vape juice