Mental Health Using CBD as an antipsychotic

[cowardescent]

Does anyone have any experience with this? I'm terrified that I'm developing psychosis (I keep hearing my name called when my desk fan and bathroom fan are on). I've used cannabis only twice in my entire life and the first time, I heard a voice saying "cowardescent, kill yourself" which subsided when I turned on the lights in my bedroom. The second time, I didn't have any auditory hallucinations but had a visual hallucination of a human/cat figure that walked across my vision for 30 seconds and fizzled out.

I've not suffered and psychotic symptoms long term but since the last year, I keep hearing my name being called (however only when other noises are around). Someone on Reddit said it might be schizotypal as opposed to psychosis or schizophrenia.

 

[AlphaMethylPhenyl]

Best to stay away from any cannabis. It makes psychotic symptoms much worse, as is evident in your experience, mine, and that of many others.

Schizotypal is a form of a psychotic disorder.

If things get worse in any way, or the symptoms return, please do seek treatment. That sounds like a particularly nasty reaction.

CBD can have antipsychotic effects at high doses. So, more like 100mg+ than the 2mg or so gummies they have. This can furthermore get quite expensive! I don't think it is cleared as a monotherapy, but with an antipsychotic, things might do ya better. Antipscyhotic copays are also probably less expensive. A good thing is that they have APs these days that are much easier to tolerate than in the past. Abilify, Vraylar, and Rexulti come to mind.

What do you think?

 

[arrall]

I use moderate doses of CBD (40mg/day) to treat PTSD among other issues, but I honestly don't notice a huge difference from it and I don't think that I'd solely rely on it to treat your condition if it worsens into full psychosis.

As @AlphaMethylPhenyl said, the dosages needed to treat psychosis are quite high and can get pretty pricey. Not to mention that CBD products are often pretty sketchy and low quality (or even scams) outside of places with legalized/medicinally legalized cannabis.

It isn't something that isn't worth trying, but I believe that medical full spectrum CBD could cost you $3-10/day for 100 or so mg vs. antipsychotics which may be far cheaper where you live. If you decide to go with CBD, best choice would be full spectrum tincture taken sublingually (under your tongue). Full spectrum includes other terpenes and cannabinoids that increase CBD's effect, and sublingual has the best balance of bioavailability and duration (vaporized is more bioavailable but far shorter duration, oral is only slightly shorter duration but significantly less bioavailability)

On the flip side, antipsychotics can suck to be on due to the physiological and mental side effects. And they may be a bit overkill for what you are experiencing unless you notice things getting worse and/or more frequent. But a low dose of antipsychotics may not have a drastically different side effect profiles to high dose CBD (YMMV).

Regardless, stay away from THC and be extremely careful if you use psychedelics or stimulants (which would honestly both also be best to avoid.)

 

[plumbus-nine]

Oh yeah, hearing stuff in running water or fans is indeed a symptom of emerging psychosis but it doesn't need to mean you will get psychosis, things can heal at any point but like already been said, it's crucial to avoid THC and to sleep well.

Stimulants might be bad as well, the two things which exacerbated these acoustic hallucinations into full on heating voices were DXM and 'bath salt' stims (don't remember which one, got them sold as deschloroketamine - dissociatives aren't too good as well but strangely arylcyclohexylamines didn't trigger or exacerbate for me).

Did you try an antipsychotic? Maybe cariprazol, the one with the highest partial agonism. In my case aripiprazole did even worsen things acutely and I can fully relate to that you want to try other things / avoid antipsychotics.

CBD is mostly effective in reversing THC intoxication, alone I got nothing at all from high amounts but other people praise it. 2mgs aren't going to do anything though and as been said, it can get pretty expensive. For these guys it's a cash cow, you can't tell me that mass growing a plant is so expensive.

 

[AlphaMethylPhenyl]

For these guys it's a cash cow, you can't tell me that mass growing a plant is so expensive.

Great point!

I think that abilify, vraylar, and rexulti are roughly equivalent, making it up tot the patient to decide what one has the lowest burden of side effects. Abilify is generic, though, so that makes it a good starting point, if you're looking for an AP with a lower side effect profile and higher tolerability.