CAVEAT: I'm not an expert, a medical professional, or even a drug user. The following is a combination of things I've read and my own direct limited experience with a handful of products. It is not authoritative.
I've tried several forms of CBD for dealing with some pretty serious anxiety (but not full blown panic attacks.) I've written a lot here but I'd still love to hear what other people have to say about it.
My overall verdict is that it works for anxiety. It also seems to help my body generally. Maybe that's just a different way to say I feel less anxiety in my body (as opposed to emotion). Maybe that's what people mean when they talk about anti-inflammatory properties.
I haven't noticed any mental effects or distortions in perception due to CBD. But it does seem to calm my body down. Something that might seem antagonizing, abrasive, or threatening on a bad day instead seems neutral. So even though my brain's perception isn't altered, my body is calmer and I draw different, more helpful conclusions. In turn, I probably make better choices. Instead of feeling like there's an obstacle in every direction, it's easier to just take the obstacles in stride and 'step over' them because they aren't really obstacles at all. I just feel better when I take it.
First I tried two different 'tinctures' from Lazarus Naturals. The idea with tinctures is you let the stuff absorb into your system through the skin in your mouth. LN provides third party testing lab results to prove you're getting the good stuff and no bad stuff from their product. This is important since there's no regulation of the industry right now. LN seems to have some of the best prices online, too. Local shops are VERY expensive in comparison. Both bottles combined were <$80 (2 x750mg CBD). I think local stores at the time were charging >$200 for the same quantity and it was a questionable brand to boot.
The first tincture seemed to work ok. I tried various doses and ended up settling on 25mg in morning and night. That was 1/2 eyedropper of their high potency stuff which contains 50 milligrams of CBD per milliliter of tincture. It helped me with really bad morning anxiety which made the whole day seem easier. It also seemed to help with better sleep, especially if I went to sleep relatively soon after taking it. I think a higher dose would have been better but I was too cheap and 25mg was good enough. I think it may have helped with the body aches and pains of old age but wasn't paying much attention.
The second tincture worked less well. I'm tempted to say it didn't work at all except I did notice an effect occasionally. Not sure if the batch wasn't as strong or what. After some reading, it sounds like I should have been taking this one more consistently instead of just here and there. It was same strength as the first and I was taking similar doses.
Next I decided to try vaping despite being a rabid non-smoker. With a vape pen, more of the CBD is absorbed into your system since the lungs are better at getting it into your bloodstream than the skin is via tincture. Vaping is supposed to have a more immediate effect than other forms. It seems to be more geared toward taking it for immediate relief when you need it instead of consistently over time.
I tried two different vape pens. They were more expensive per mg of CBD than the Lazarus Naturals tinctures. They were also more effective for my use case - immediate relief of anxiety. The SelectCBD Relax Lavender worked really well but I think the lavender irritated my lungs. I liked it anyway. The Canna Hemp Calm worked ok. I liked it better but it didn't work as well as the SelectCBD. I suspect I wasn't dosing high enough because after I bought it I realized it only had half the CBD I expected. I felt like I was wasting money every time I used it so didn't puff as long. It was a bad value even if it was working. It was $35 for the SelectCBD which has 250mg CBD versus $30 for the Canna Hemp which only has 101mg. Canna Hemp might try to point to the terpene profile to justify the cost but the SelectCBD seemed superior and cheaper. The Canna Hemp packaging and pen itself were MUCH nicer, but I don't care about stuff like that. (Note that the tincture gave me roughly 3x as much CBD for the same money but the body doesn't absorb as much with tincture.)
Measuring dosage on a vape pen seems nebulous to me. My standard was six 3-second draws but sometimes I would do eight. I would also do it repeatedly throughout the day. Probably at least three times and not more than six times. With the vape pen it was a lot easier to just indulge myself when I felt the need. Easy to carry around, easy to just grab it and discretely puff a couple of times. Quite tempting. Not addictive, but I could see it being habit-forming.
After a week or two of vaping I started developing a smokers cough. It took a couple of weeks to go away after I stopped vaping. I've read there is some concern about MCT oil in pens going into the lungs. My own coughs are enough anecdotal evidence for me to decide vaping is probably not harmless so I (sadly) decided to discontinue use.
The local shop had a variety of edibles in the form of gummy bears, candies, etc. These were sold individually so it was easy to just spend $2-3 on each just to try them. I tried several and they had no effect even though the doses were higher than I had been using with the tinctures. This isn't surprising. I've read edibles need much higher doses because the body doesn't absorb much CBD through the digestive system. Unless CBD gets much cheaper I won't be trying any more edible variations.
I plan on trying Nasodol next. Nasodol is a nasal spray. Supposedly nasal sprays have even better bioavailability than vape pens. I also think it won't have coughing as a side effect.
The general sense I get is the more bioavailable the CBD is, the faster it works but it is also less long-lasting. If it's less bioavailable, you need a higher dose to have the same effect. From lowest to highest it's oral/edible, then sublingual/tincture, then vape, then nasal. I'm not sure where things like topical cream and soap fit into this but imagine it's similar to tincture. (I may be drawing some incorrect conclusions here, but it's my current understanding.)
Another thing I'll add is I know some people combine using tinctures and vaping. At first this seemed like overkill but I get it now. You can use the tincture to improve your basic experience of life, but then resort to a vape pen if things start getting too dicey.
In short, I say give it a try and experiment to the extent you can afford it. I worry about legality, but if it's in a storefront in a strip mall it is surely legal. I also worry about taking different chemicals into my body. But marijuana, and therefore CBD and hemp, which is the exact same species of plant, has been used for thousands of years by many cultures. The additives in modern food are probably more harmful than CBD. I see minimal risk of harm.
In case anyone is wondering, I have no affiliation with any of the products or vendors I may have mentioned.
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Best way to describe CBD at least a good CBD, is getting high without getting high. Any cannabis smokers know what I mean. You only get the good parts or should I say the non-negative parts of getting high. When I'm on CBD oil I don't have mental fog, I'm quicker, and sharper mentally. The body high or pain relief aspect is real as well but for me, the mental aspects are the greatest purpose. Anyone who smokes really good sativa strains, it's like that in terms of the mental high. Could chug out a 5000-word essay within an hour on CBD without missing a beat. NO brain fog. As a nootropic, it works amazingly. I don't care about studies proving this. For me, it works amazingly as a nootropic and I can see why other people use it for anxiety.
I use Nuleaf CBD oil. 3rd party tested and has a high rating online but it's really, really expensive. For me, a 1.5 month supply costs me around $300-400. I take the oil sublingual so no vaping inferior CBD oil or anything like that. Under the tongue once a day and I'm buzzing the entire day on peak efficiency.
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