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Comment by aphextron | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotally, as someone with moderate bipolar depression and severe anxiety, a 1:1 THC/CBD tincture has been a miracle cure for me. I’ve spent my whole life going through every SSRI and mood stabilizer in the book, and the side effects have always been worse than just going unmedicated. This is the only thing that has ever truly helped me. Cannabinoids seem to be highly synergistic, where THC can ease the depression but increase anxiety, while CBD decreases the anxiety to be manageable. Either one alone is far less effective.

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How long have you been using this approach? (Curious to know if it remains effective over several years).

Anecdotal, but... It’s worked for me and several people I am close with, over several years.

What dosage are you taking? On what schedule do you take it?

This is cannabis, I don't think you ever actually get "prescribed" your medically necessary recreational activity.

Maybe so, if you're dosing from the bag of shake you bought behind the bleachers off that guy who drives a brown pinto and once hit on your girlfriend.

but in California, for example, I could simply just ask the doctor writing my cannabis prescription what's their dosage suggestion based upon the medical reasons they were writing my presciption in the first place.

And it would mainly be a guess on the Doctor’s part as there isn’t enough science either way. Expect that to change in the next 10-20 years but at this point, your doctor, even with all the medical degrees behind them, know just as much as the bud tender behind the counter. Compound that with the fact that cannabis affects everyone differently then it all becomes a subjective mess.

I was fishing for "1 drop per day in the morning of $SOME_TINCTURE". My questions could have been phrased better.

But you're not wrong. If you wanna figure out what works for you, you'll have to experiment for yourself without a medical professionals help. That's true for any over the counter (OTC) medication in your local pharmacy, too.

Cannabis dosing is so particular to the specific tolerance level, brain chemistry, and body mass of an individual, that it's impossible to give any kind of general advice. Especially given the massive variation among products, even if they list the same milligram dosages.

The best guess I could give you for a "minimum therapeutic dose" for THC/CBD would be 5MG. Start from there and move your way up to what works for you.

so what do I have to buy? I live in Amsterdam. Is it just a specific sort of weed from the coffeeshop or do I need something special?

The strains are harder to find as they are considered premium strains these days with the rise of CBD but an easy replacement would be to consume your regular cannabis and then take a CBD pill immediately afterwards. It won’t be exact 1:1 but you can play around with it to get the effect you desire.

It's special. Unless advertised as such, it's not going to contain much CBD.

I appreciate this answer!

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