How Do I Take CBD?

Today, I want to write about bioavailability – a big word that is important in determining how you will take CBD. Because, in order for you to feel any effects from CBD, you need to introduce the CBD molecules into your bloodstream.

That is what bioavailability means – how much of anything can you get in your bloodstream so your body can use it in its biological processes – bio + available. With CBD, there are a few ways that you can take it and each way results in a different level of CBD bioavailability.

So, before you choose how you will take CBD, it is important that you understand how you can maximize its bioavailability. And to do that, you need to understand how different consumption methods affect bioavailability.

When you ingest CBD, it is absorbed by your body through the digestive tract. From there, it is processed by the liver, which converts it into metabolites that your body can use and then releases them into your bloodstream.

One thing to remember about eating CBD, it is one of the least effective methods for making CBD available to your body. A lot of it is processed by your digestive system and sent right out with the rest of the solid waste you eliminate during bowel movements.

That’s right, you will shit out a lot of the CBD you eat without getting any benefit from it. However, that doesn’t mean you should rule out CBD edibles. I’ve had good results from eating a Dr. Norm’s CBD cookie before bed.

There are some really great CBD edibles available on the market, like gummies, candies, cookies, and drinks. But remember, the FDA says that these are illegal. That’s why I don’t carry them yet in the store.

If you’d like to try the cookies I mentioned, you can get some over at Dr. Norm’s website. They’ve also got some gummies, jelly beans, and caramel chews you can try, each with a precise dose of CBD.

When you inhale CBD, you are introducing it directly into your bloodstream via your lungs. This method skips all the digestive processes, making CBD available to you quickly for rapid use. Inhaling CBD is ideal when you are looking for a fast, rescue dose. You can inhale CBD via a vaporizer or by smoking hemp flower.

There are a lot of cases of vaporizing illness reported and it is something very real that you need to understand. The reason that people are getting sick from vaping is because of the type of oil being used in the vape liquids.

In a lot of the cases, the people who got sick vaporirzed an oil which contains Vitamin E that is designed to be applied to your skin. When this is vaporized and inhaled in the lungs, it is converted to something awful that makes us sick.

The best way to avoid vaporizing illness is to buy products from a reputable store. Products that are manufactured with the correct vaping oils. Avoid buying vape cartridges from people off the street as you just don’t know what they are made with.

Or you could try smoking a hemp cigarette or preroll. Hemp usually contains a much higher concentration of CBD while having very minute amounts of THC, making it both legal to buy and smoke. And you won’t get high from it. There are several different CBD pre rolls to choose from.

Sublingual is a fancy word that means to absorb something under your tongue. You see, there are a ton of blood vessels under your tongue that are very close to the surface. They absorb nutrients via diffusion directly across their membranes.

Taking CBD sublingually also skips the digestive tract and makes CBD available directly to your bloodstream, and like inhaling, it is also a way to quickly get a dose of CBD.

The best way to take CBD sublingually is by dropping an oil or other tincture directly under your tongue and holding it there for 30 to 60 seconds before swallowing it. In this way, you get a quick dose of CBD and the benefit of a slower distribution as it is processed through your digestive tract.

This method for taking CBD seems to be one of the most popular because of the high demand for CBD oils and tinctures. No other CBD product is searched more on Google than CBD oil.

Subcutaneous is another fancy word that simply means absorbing something through your skin. Studies have demonstrated that we are very capable of absorbing CBD into our bloodstream via our skin.

You can rub CBD directly on a spot that is bothering you and introduce it to the bloodstream in that very spot. What better way to get the benefits you seek than by putting it right where you need them most.

Like inhaling and sublingual CBD, this method introduces CBD directly into your bloodstream without having to go through your liver, allowing it to provide benefit to you faster.

The CBD products that are formulated to put on your skin are called topicals and they include lotions, bath bombs, balms and salves, skin creams, and more. The main differences between them usually revolves around the other ingredients that are used to make them as well as the amount of CBD available in each.

The hard part of using CBD topicals is calculating how much CBD you get from each use. It’s hard to know how many squirts of lotion are in each bottle or how many times you can rub it on your shoulder before the bottle is empty. So you don’t really know the number of doses in the bottle, making the calculation of the CBD per dose impossible.

With all the different ways we can absorb CBD into our bodies so we can benefit from it, there are a ton of options for you to choose from when buying CBD products. So which one is the best?

That is a tough question to answer without appearing to provide medical advice. I can’t tell you what you should do, but I can tell you how I make my own decisions when choosing CBD products.

I personally use a combination of CBD topicals, edibles and oils, along with vaporizers and hemp flower, depending on my circumstances.

For example, if I’m having any type of muscle, joint or other body ache, I will use a topical applied directly to the area that is bothering me and let it absorb right to the problem area. I then adjust the amount of CBD and how often I apply it by how the area feels.

Tough pain gets a higher-dosed product (say 500mg CBD instead of 100mg CBD), delivered in a product that also contains menthol or camphor and other essential oils known to help with pain and relaxation.

If I’m experiencing anxiety, I prefer to use either the CBD vaporizer pen or hemp flower to inhale the CBD and get the calming effects I experience as quickly as I can. I also use this if I am having an extreme amount of pain, usually from an injury or a migraine headache.

Because I have a hard time sleeping all the way through the night, I will either eat an edible or do a dropperful of CBD oil under my tongue before I go to sleep. Sometimes, I will do both.

Again, I choose the dose of the CBD in the oil or edible based on how much trouble I have been having sleeping. The more trouble, the higher the dose of CBD.

So, my advice when choosing which products to use for yourself is to ask how quickly you need to get the CBD into your system and then how much do you need, depending on the amount of benefit and relief you need.

Please keep in mind, I am not a doctor and have no medical training. All of the above is only based on my own experience using and studying CBD. The best thing you can do is to experiment with how you feel after trying different methods and strengths and use that experience to determine what type of CBD makes you feel your best.