What is an effective dose of CBD? One of the most common questions we get all the time pretty much every day is how much CBD should I take for my back pain, for my anxiety, for my depression, for my arthritis? What’s the right dose for my condition and how often should I take it?
The answer is we don’t know and nobody knows. Nobody knows yet what the standardized protocol of CBD for specific conditions is. There is one exception to this and that would be things like Epidiolex where a doctor is prescribing that under specific circumstances for people to use it for epilepsy. In that case, there is a specific dosing protocol based on the studies that have been done on Epidiolex.
But most of the people that are asking this question are not using Epidiolex, they’re using a CBD product that they bought at the store or ordered online and now they’re wondering how much of this stuff they are supposed to take and how often.
No standardized Dosing Protocol of CBD
We’ve written articles about this before, that really it’s mostly experimentation and self-titration. Which just means you take a dose you see if it works and then if needed you either increase or decrease the dose.
The easiest way to do that is to start with a small dose. Typically the serving size of the product you bought. So it might be 15- 20 milligrams of CBD per serving. Most people will start with that. Then they will only increase it or decrease.
In some cases, maybe it made them too drowsy, so they might decrease it but they’ll change the dose based on how it makes them feel or if it solves the problem or not. In some cases, it doesn’t solve their problem at all and it’s nothing new that CBD does not work for everybody.
CBD is no Miracle Drug that solves all your problems
In fact, we just read an article where a guy said that he tried it for two weeks straight and it did nothing for him and now he is going for surgery because the CBD didn’t solve his problem. From day one we’ve said that’s it’s not some kind of cure-all, its not magic or a miracle drug that solve all your problems or anything like that.
What are people doing and what are some of the data say? The dosing that is used in the studies is often way higher than the dose that people are typically using. In studies, the doses are typically hundreds of milligrams and it is typically a CBD isolate.
High doses of CBD isolate used in studies
The argument that some people are making is, that with a full-spectrum product you don’t need as high of a dose as you would with a CBD isolate product. That has yet to be completely established. But we will see as time goes on. Hopefully, there will be an effective dosing protocol established for various conditions.
There are good resources out there, like ProjectCBD or Dr.Axe. We think Dr.Axe has a particularly good page on his site where he shows typical dosing for different conditions. We think he did a good job putting that chart together showing typical dosing is between on a low side of around 10 milligrams going all the way up to about a hundred milligrams on the high side. We think that that is what people typically are using.
Related Articles:
- CBD Isolate & Full Plant Extract CBD – Which one is better?
- How often should you take CBD Oil? How many times a Day?
Start low and increase gradually
Typically what people do is they’ll start with the serving size and then gradually increase the dose. So they start with the serving size, they try it for a few days and then gradually increase it by a fraction of that serving size for another few days and see if that works.
Just to give you an example. If someone was to start with 20 milligrams for a few days and then they decided to increase it, they might increase it by 5 milligrams. Five milligrams is 25% of the original dose and now they’ll be doing 25 milligrams maybe twice a day for a few days to see if that’ll work. They just gradually increase the dose to see if that is working.
There’s no reason to take mega doses, you’re going to waste your money and just you might have a side effect that you don’t want. What’s the point if you don’t need that big of a dose. So typically people just start low and then go slow. That’s really the mantra.
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No established effective dose for certain conditions
There is no established effective dose for arthritis, there is no established effective dose for anxiety, it really is a trial and error process that people are doing as is the case with a lot of herbal supplements. They’re not like pharmaceuticals where they’ve been studied extensively and there’s been established like a very specific dosing protocol.
In the future, we think this will change when CBD becomes even a bigger pharmaceutical for more things than just epilepsy (Epidiolex). There will probably be more established dosing protocols. But for now, it’s a lot of experimentation. It’s trial and error.
Fortunately, as we’ve talked about in a lot of our other articles, even though this trial and error it’s annoying that there isn’t a straight answer, at least CBD is relatively safe with very little negative side effects for the most part.
What is your effective CBD dose?
We would like to reach out to you. what are the effective doses that you are finding? What are the products you’re using and in what doses how many times a day? What are the doses that you’re using and what are the doses that you’re finding effective and for what conditions?
What do you think about Dr.Axe article where he has a nice dosing-table. We think he sums it up pretty well in terms of what are the typical doses that we see people using.
Please do share that in the comments section down below or visit our Reviews and Testimonials Section. We think this information could help a lot of other people that are reading the comments section.
What else might interest you:
- What is the difference between Full Spectrum & Broad Spectrum CBD Oil?
- The Theory of the Entourage Effect of Cannabinoids & less Drug Interaction
How do u use the oil? Do you do it on you ur tongue or mix it with you tea , or
Some other way?
We have written a post about that: https://thehempoilbenefits.com/how-to-use-cbd-oil-guide-beginners