The Difference in CBD Oil Strengths: Understanding CBD Dosage

Shopping for the right CBD products can be challenging, especially when you’re trying to figure out CBD potency levels. It can be hard to know what strength you will need for the right CBD oil benefits you are looking for. cbdMD’s products, for instance, range from 150 mg for a dog or cat tincture to 7500 mg for our strongest human tincture.

But what does that tell you? What exactly are these milligrams measuring, and how do you know what CBD oil potency you or your pet should be taking?

In this article, we’ll explain:

 

• The difference in CBD oil strengths.
• What is meant by CBD oil concentrations?
• Why the strength of CBD oil matters.
• CBD oil benefits and how that relates to its strength.
• How you can use this information to choose the right CBD oil for yourself or your pet.

 

CBD Oil Strength Explained

If you browse cbdMD’s CBD oils, you’ll find a range of strengths, from 1500 mg CBD oil to 7500 mg CBD oil. It’s important to ask yourself a few questions to understand what CBD strength means. 

What’s the Standard CBD Dosage?

The CBD dosage is the amount of CBD in milligrams that you take at a time. The serving size is the amount of the product that you take to get that dosage.

cbdMD’s packages list the amount of CBD per serving, so it’s important to know what’s considered a serving. For instance, if you look at the CBD oil softgels, they’re available with 50 mg, 100 mg, or 200 mg per serving. However, the 200 mg serving size is two softgels, while the other two concentrations are based on a serving size of one softgel. That’s why the 200 mg serving size has 60 softgels per bottle while the others have 30 – they’re all meant to provide you with a 30-day supply.

Is It Milligrams of Pure CBD?

There are many CBD companies out there, and not all of them use precisely the same formula, so there are differences in CBD oil potency.

Some companies use CBD isolate in their products, which makes measurement simple. Many manufacturers prefer either full spectrum CBD oil or broad spectrum CBD oil, including other valuable extracts from the hemp plant such as additional cannabinoids and terpenes.

Such formulas bring added benefits but can make it tricky to determine the actual CBD oil concentrations of the product. At cbdMD, we list the milligrams of pure CBD per serving and, in full spectrum products, the amount of THC. So for instance, you can get full spectrum CBD gummies with 200 mg of CBD and 4 mg of THC.

However, there’s more than just CBD and THC in there. If you look at the label on the back you’ll see that each serving has 220 mg of “full spectrum hemp extract.” That means 200 mg of CBD, 4 mg of THC, and 16 mg of other components of hemp – cannabinoids, terpenes, and all that good stuff. To get a fuller picture of precisely what’s in your product, check out our lab results.

What Is the Delivery Method?

By this, we don’t mean FedEx or UPS – we’re talking about the method by which the product delivers CBD into your body. Different ways can have a profound impact on CBD oil strength.

There are four ways to get CBD into your system: swallowing, absorption through a mucous membrane, inhalation, and absorption through the skin. In all of those methods, some of the CBD gets broken down before it reaches your bloodstream. The percentage of CBD that makes it to the blood determines the product’s bioavailability.

The precise bioavailability depends partly on your metabolism, but here’s a rough guide.

Ingesting CBD 

Whether through CBD capsules or edibles such as gummies, swallowing has the lowest bioavailability because it has to go through your digestive system before getting to your bloodstream. Swallowing can be useful if you like your CBD slow and steady because it lasts for about seven hours.

 

 

CBD Through a Mucous Membrane

Absorption through the mucous membrane is generally done by putting CBD oil under your tongue and holding it there for 30 to 60 seconds before swallowing. This is recommended with all of the CBD tincture formulas for best results. Bioavailability through this method is a bit higher, and it will also hang around in your body for many hours.

Inhaled CBD 

Inhalation, generally through vaping, yields a much higher bioavailability than oral methods since your lungs are full of tiny blood vessels designed to absorb the gasses found there. This method yields a faster, stronger, but shorter-lived impact, usually around three or four hours.

Topical CBD 

Absorption through the skin depends on what product you use. Typical CBD topicals such as CBD lotions, CBD creams, and bath bombs don’t get into your bloodstream at all, though since your skin also has endocannabinoid receptors, you can still derive some benefit from them.

However, a CBD transdermal patch works differently. If you leave it on for six or eight hours, the CBD will slowly work its way through your skin and into your bloodstream, potentially making it the most potent CBD delivery method of all.

How Much CBD Should I Take?

We get this question a lot, along with even more specific queries like “How much CBD to relax?” I wish there was a simple answer to this, but there isn’t. Research on CBD has only really gotten off the ground in the last few years, so this is not yet an exact science. 

However, research has been suggesting that most people would benefit from higher CBD potency levels than many current products offer. Especially in the early days when CBD was more expensive, you’d often see servings sizes with as little as 5 mg of CBD. That’s unlikely to do much for you, though.

So cbdMD has recently launched new high potency CBD products, and is phasing out anything with less than 50 mg of CBD per serving. Based on what we know so far, the best CBD oil dosage for most people is 200 mg a day. So when choosing the strength CBD oil for you, that’s a good starting point.

Remember also that you can spread that daily dosage among different products. So you might take a 100 mg softgel in the morning, a 50 mg gummy in the afternoon, and a 50 mg serving of a CBD sleep aid before bed. The key is to take a consistent amount every day.

CBD Results Can Take Time

Another thing we know is that CBD tends to accumulate in your body over time. While some people report dramatic results on first use, many others find that the benefits creep up on them after a few weeks of daily consumption. 

For that reason, we advise starting slow. Try taking a modest CBD oil strength every morning and evening, monitor the responses, and gradually increase if necessary. 

Give it about a month before adjusting the serving size up, if needed. But if you feel it is too much, you can decrease the serving size at any time. Just know as you adjust up, you need time for the product to work in your system adequately, and it takes a few weeks to assess this appropriately.

What Is the Strongest Strength of CBD I Can Take?

Or to put it another way, how much CBD is too much? There isn’t a definitive answer to that either, but it is way, way above 200 mg – well past 1000 mg a day. So if you’re not getting your desired results from 200 mg a day, it’s fine to bump it up. Just do it gradually so that your body has time to adjust and you have time to assess the results.

Building Your Own CBD Regimen

Another important consideration is why you’re taking CBD exactly. What CBD oil benefits you are looking for plays a role in what product you choose to use. That can vary depending on what’s going on in your life. It’s good to keep a daily CBD wellness regimen to give you a baseline, but you might also use different products in times of physical or mental stress.

CBD Oil Benefits

Some desired CBD oil benefits could include:

 

• General improved wellness.
• Better rest.
• Help winding down at bedtime.
• A more balanced sense of calm.
• Help with managing daily stress.
• Help with common aches from, for example, “overdoing it.”
• Workout recovery, using products designed with ingredients such as histamine dihydrochloride to help with pain and soreness.

 

Daily CBD Oil for Wellness

The easiest way to keep a daily CBD regimen is to fit it into your existing routine. For instance, if you take supplements every morning, you can add a CBD oil capsule to the set. Or, if you’re religious about your morning coffee, try adding a few drops of CBD oil to get you started on the right foot.

 

 

CBD Oil for Exercise Recovery

If you’re leading an active lifestyle or have a particularly strenuous project set up like a home repair or a hiking trip, you might want to take a more concentrated CBD oil to aid in exercise recovery. Joint and muscle strains can benefit from CBD Freeze or CBD Recover, thanks to added topical painkillers. The difference in CBD oil strengths is an important factor in how you use it. 

CBD Oil for Sleep

Times of physical or mental strain can also make it tough to maintain normal sleep patterns. On such occasions, a nightly dropper full of CBD oil with melatonin could be just the thing. Melatonin enhances the relaxing powers of CBD and helps stabilize your circadian rhythms.

Talk to Your Doctor – and Your Friends – About CBD Oil Strengths

We can only give you general advice about CBD oil strengths because we don’t personally know you. Fortunately, your physician probably knows you and your body a lot better, so it’s always a good idea to talk to them before starting any CBD regimen. They can also ensure that you aren’t taking any medications that might interact with CBD.

At this point in the CBD market, the users’ experience can also be extremely informative. Longtime users often have insights about the difference in CBD oil strengths and regimens that can be especially helpful if they have similar physiology and lifestyle.

That’s why we always like to hear from our customers about their experiences with CBD products. Write a review on our product pages, or comment on our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram posts. Good or bad, we want to know! 

Also, follow our blog for more helpful information about CBD dosage, CBD oil strengths and formulas, and news about our new products!