Crossposted using Lemmit.

Original post from /r/cbd by /u/AyenneTeajay on 2023-07-07 15:24:14+00:00.

Dear fellows,

I use a full-spectrum CBD 20% sublingually, 3 times daily for 9 months and it’s a true life-saviour! During that time though, I experienced many unpleasant situations of various substances (foods, drinks, meds) inhibiting the effect of the CBD, hence rendering me a dysfunctional suicidal blob (DSB for short), so I wanted to share my experience with you in order to help you avoid such situations.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor, neither am a scientist, therefore what I write is merely a personal experience and observations and should NOT be considered a medical advice in any way.

Before I dive into details, I think it’s good to know my overall state because it matters a lot when it comes to adding substances to your daily intake. So, I am a 42MTF from the Czech Republic, I have ASD, ADHD, OCD, depression, anxiety, IBS, intolerances and allergies towards lactose, casein, ovalbumine, yeast, histamine, pollen, and some other not so popular substances. I have been a vegetarian for my entire life until a year ago, when I was diagnosed with all the intolerances and allergies, so I was forced to start eating meat in order to get enough proteins in my diet. Since then, I am very meticulous about what I eat and I do everything in my powers to maintain a healthy, nutritious, and suitable for me diet, which pays off quite well.

I am a non-smoker for 10+ years, as I was a chain smoker (2 packs per day) from the age of 17 up until I turned 32 and I quit all the nasty habits. I was a heavy drinker too, I used drugs (not too heavy stuff), and was eating a lot of junk food until that point at 32, when I started my transition and got rid of everything unhealthy. I started working out, I maintained healthy diet, and lost 31 kg within 1,5 years.

In the past, I’ve been taking all kinds of medications - antidepressants, anti-psychotics, sedatives, stimulants, as most of them only lead to unpleasant side effects and almost no positive effects, One of them - Sertraline (aka Zoloft) even brought me to the point of calling an ambulance and ending up in hospital last year. Later, I found out that it’s been due to a severe serotonin syndrome so now I am always extra careful about things that could play with the serotonin, which is part of my current objective.

Currently, along with the CBD, I am taking Ritalin for my ADHD, and Estrofem (my hormonal replacement therapy). The Ritalin alone doesn’t help me enough, neither the CBD alone but when they’re combined, they do magic to me and I am very sensitive to when these effects wear off so I learnt to detect when there is an interaction.

***

Normally, when a substance which inhibits the effects of the Ritalin and the CBD (collectivelly “The Meds”) is introduced, it takes about a week to gradually bring me to the DSB state and in the beginning, I wasn’t sure what’s the problem until I started reading extensively nutrition facts and scientific papers. Then I started recognising the patterns and once they happen, I immediately start reading all the ingredients of everything I consume and start consulting charts. I have a spreadsheet, where I write all those things down and now, after another of these inhibition episodes, I finally found the missing link between all of these - the CYP450 enzymes and the Vitamin C.

So, the CYP450 enzymes are a group of enzymes which deal with metabolising certain substances, including cannabinoids. There are a lot of substances, which are CYP450 modulators (inhubitors or inducers) and respectively, they affect how CBD is metabolised. A full list of these modulators is available on Wikipedia here. After going through this list, I saw that all of the substances from my spreadsheet which were marked as inhibiting the effect of CBD and Ritalin, were in this list of modulators. So, the simple logic shows that if one consumes daily things like caffeine, peppermint, grapefruit or other items on the list, the effect of the The Meds gradually weakens either because the CYP450 are hyperactive (hence metabolising The Meds too fast, making them ineffective) or hypoactive (hence unable to metabolise The Meds, respectively they don’t work). Of course, that’s a simplification but it’s enough to understand what things one should be mindful about.

The other “danger” is Vitamin C, which generally inhibits the effect of Ritalin and CBD so doctors sometimes (when they care enough) advise taking Ritalin at least one hour before/after taking Vitamin C. My personal experience is that one hour is far from enough, especially if one takes higher dosages of Vitamin C. Another problem is, that if one is prone to getting serotonin syndrome, should be extra careful when it comes to Vitamin C because it’s one of the most potent serotonin boosters there are, so taking too much of it will not only weaken the effect of CBD but also create serotonin syndrome - I have learnt to recognise this condition good enough so I catch it before I reach the point of calling an ambulance.

Charts say that for an adult woman, 75 mg of Vitamin C per day is the maximum healthy intake so yesterday, when I started calculating the nutrition facts of my meals, it turned out that the newly introduced raspberries and blueberries lead to a notable excess of this limit, hence the declining episode, going for a week already, leading to the continuation of my research. So, that’s just a simple example to show how I monitor my substance intake to prevent further problems.

***

Again, I am not a doctor or a scientist, I don’t pretend to be well-versed in the topic, so don’t consider my post as an advice. Quite the opposite - question it, research it, ask actual doctors and scientists, make your own spreadsheets maintain statistics for yourself. If I have written something which is scientifically inaccurate, please, correct me and provide the necessary scientifically proven info, so others can benefit from the discussion.

I hope that my experience will be helpful to you.

Take care and stay healthy!