Wherever you have a group of medical cannabis users talking about their experiences, you will hear discussions about dosage. The interesting thing is that you can have two patients with seemingly identical health conditions reporting different experiences with the exact same dosage. Why is that?
Determining the right dosage for any medication isn’t an exact science. It is even less exact in the medical cannabis realm due to a lack of clinical evidence pointing to standard dosages for particular conditions. Right off the bat, this means that patients need to go through a bit of trial-and-error to figure out what works for them.
Above and beyond that, there are a number of things that impact dosage. Here are five of them, compliments of Salt Lake City, Utah’s Beehive Farmacy:
1. Patient Age
As people age, their bodies begin to react differently to medications. A general rule among medical professionals is that frailty comes with age. Therefore, older patients generally start with smaller doses and work up from there. This thinking absolutely applies to medical cannabis.
The younger a patient is, the better his body should be able to tolerate THC. An older person’s body may not tolerate it so well. Therefore, a lower dose may be appropriate.
2. Patient Weight
Next up is a patient’s weight. We know that weight can impact metabolism. Likewise, metabolism affects how the body processes medical cannabis. A heavier person may not experience sufficient relief from a low dose simply because his body does not distribute the THC as well. On the other hand, the same dose given to a lighter person could prove to be more than enough.
Weight and metabolism combined play a critical role in how effective medical cannabis edibles are. For example, edibles take longer to kick in because they need to make their way through a person’s digestive tract. Weight and metabolism affect the speed at which it occurs.
3. General Health
A patient’s general health can impact dosage inasmuch as her medical provider has to consider cannabis’s impacts on her. Imagine a patient with liver or kidney disease. Her doctor would most likely start her on a much lower dose to see how well her body metabolizes it.
You might have another patient suffering from a chronic condition like diabetes perhaps. Diabetes tends to produce neuropathic pain that can be quite uncomfortable. But there are other diabetes symptoms and concerns to worry about. A doctor would take those things into consideration when making a medical cannabis recommendation.
4. Patient Perception
Patient perception plays a critical role in just about every medical therapy. In other words, a patient’s perception of his own health, his treatment, and the potential outcomes will influence everything from emotional wellbeing to how strictly he adheres to the treatment plan. Doctors must consider patient perception when recommending a starting dose.
A positive perception may indicate starting at a lower dose and vice versa. A patient with a negative perception might not only need a higher dose but also some companion therapies capable of providing more complete relief.
5. Delivery Method
Rounding out the list is the delivery method. A cannabis vape works far more quickly than an edible. Its effects don’t last as long, though. Likewise, the effects experienced from a topical lotion will differ from the effects of using a tincture. Doctors must consider the delivery method in order to recommend a good starting dose.
There is no single dosage for every patient and condition. Instead, doctors need to consider a variety of factors when making recommendations. That is just the way it works.
