It’s important to really monitor your symptoms rather than trying to lock in a particular milligram that you think is beneficial to you.

I think sometimes we put a little too much work into really thinking about what the starting serving size is and making sure that we’re very exact with this. Remember that CBD and other cannabinoids are plants and oftentimes you’re administering to the point that you’re seeing a return on the administration, a result rather than looking at a particular number of milligrams in the serving size.

I just wanted to bring a couple of samples to show you from my own cabinet. I get so many samples of CBD given what I do for work, and here are three different products that I just pulled up quickly before I came to speak with you today.

If I were to tell you to choose a product and then take a half a dropper full as your first serving size, you can see how that’s a completely ridiculous thing to suggest because there is such a wide variability.

And in these different bottles there’s 4,000 milligrams in one bottle, just 500 milligrams in another and 1,000 milligrams in the next.

Oftentimes when you’re starting with a product, starting with a small serving size and increasing from there is reasonable. I think in every case here, I would start with a half a drop or full. See if there is a result, the kind of results you were anticipating. And if there isn’t, then you can go ahead and increase on your serving size.

Photo by CRYSTALWEED cannabis via Unsplash

Determining a dose is difficult with a tincture for sure, but it’s even more difficult if you’ve identified a bud or flower and you’re using that in a pipe or a cigarette. We really have a very hard time knowing exactly how much product is being used from inhalation to inhalation or across different buds. There’s just a lot of variability.

To some degree, you’re going to have to trust yourself and how you’re responding. Be aware of how you’re feeling and take an appropriate amount to get the result that you’re looking for. 

Photo by HighGradeRoots/Getty Images

The same thing could be true for vaping. You have an amount that we would expect to get with each inhalation, but one person may inhale longer than another person. One person may hold the inhalation in their lungs for longer so that the absorption of the CBD across the long membranes is going to be different.

In different people, the use of a vape is going to lead to different serving sizes per inhalation.

When it comes to edibles, you may be able to really lock in the number of milligrams per serving size that you’re getting and feel very confident with that. But it’s going to have different breakdowns in different stomach assets, and as it passes through the liver, there may be further breakdown through the cytochrome p450 systems that leads an edible to have an unreliable response person to person.

Photo by Jamie Grill/Getty Images

In terms of determining a dose or determining a serving size, it’s important to just really monitor your symptoms rather than trying to lock in a particular milligram that you think is beneficial to you. In most cases, people feel differently on different days and you may have a different level of anxiety or a different level of trouble falling asleep or a different level of pain based on how much exercise you’ve had or what you’ve eaten or how your sleep patterns have been. You could modulate things in between a couple of fairly loose points and be able to come up with a determining a serving size that is suitable to you.

Taking some time and getting to know the product and how it works in your own body is going to be so beneficial for you.