(Joy Organics is currently offering a 15% discount to the Meniere’s community on their excellent CBD products which are all both full spectrum and 100% THC free! Click here and use the discount code mindover for 15% off your entire order!)

(CBDistillery – my other favorite CBD company – is offering a discount to the Meniere’s and tinnitus community as well! Click here and use the code tinnituscbd for a 10% discount on your entire order.)

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A DOCTOR or a medical health professional. Always speak with your doctor before trying CBD or any other new drug, supplement, or treatment.

As many of you know, I’ve used CBD products for several years now to help me manage my Meniere’s Disease symptoms.

If you haven’t heard of CBD (short for cannabidiol), here’s a quick overview: CBD is one of 113 cannabinoids (active compounds) found in marijuana/hemp, and is believed to be responsible for many of the medicinal benefits of the plant but none of the psychoactive properties. CBD is non-psychoactive, meaning you can’t get high from consuming it.

When I take CBD, it doesn’t seem to directly reduce my symptoms, but it relieves my anxiety and lowers my stress levels more than any other supplement I’ve ever tried. And because Meniere’s disease is so severely worsened by stress and anxiety, CBD makes a huge difference in my quality of life.

Now it’s certainly not the only thing I’ve tried that helps my anxiety. I’ve experimented with countless supplements and substances over the years to try to find something that can reliably help me on a regular basis. And I’ve written about some of the other products – like kava– that I also find helpful.

But CBD relieves my anxiety without impairing my cognition or causing side effects like many other substances. And as far as I’m concerned, that makes all the difference.

When you live with a chronic illness like Meniere’s disease that causes severe brain fog (cognitive impairment) and fatigue, there is a tradeoff you have to make when taking drugs or supplements that can further impair your mental function.

Drugs that reduce anxiety/stress sometimes also have a strong psychoactive effect that can worsen brain fog. I’m not saying the tradeoff isn’t worth it, or that you should stop taking these drugs. But it’s a tradeoff nonetheless: mental acuity for anxiety/stress relief.

Finding something that could effectively manage my anxiety AND NOT affect my cognitive performance was game changing for me.

A confusing CBD landscape:

It’s very much the wild west right now in the CBD world, and that’s a problem because the CBD market has exploded over the last few years.

Thousands of companies are popping up left and right, offering a seemingly endless variety of products with little to no oversight. And you don’t always know if you are getting what was advertised.

Many companies don’t test the products they are selling for CBD concentration, let alone for contaminants.And pricing varies wildly as the market hasn’t really matured at all.

(Never order from a company that doesn’t publish 3rd party lab testing – here’s why.)

To further complicate matters, everyone reacts differently to CBD. Some people get an immediate effect like I do. It’s subtle but can always tell when it’s working. I feel a calm relaxation in my body and a lessening of my anxiety.

Other people don’t notice an immediate effect but find a cumulative benefit from taking every day for several weeks. While a minority of people get no effect at all, at any dose, ever.

Because of this, it’s difficult to make an “effective” CBD recommendation, and if you want to try it, you are probably going to have to experiment a bit to figure out what type and dosage works best for you.

And there are different types of CBD products, with various methods of ingestion and varying absorption rates associated with each:

  • Smoked/Vaped CBD: Fastest onset, highest absorption rate, shortest duration
    • CBD Vape Pens and cartridges, CBD Vape Juice, smoked hemp CBD plant/buds
  • Sublingual CBD: Medium onset, medium absorption rate, medium duration.
    • CBD oil, Sublingual CBD tablets
  • Oral CBD: Slowest onset, lowest absorption rate, longest effect duration
    • CBD pills and softgels, CBD food and drink products

And then you have CBD creams and topicals as well, which can work well for certain applications, but aren’t the best product for chronic illness in my opinion.

CBD oil is the most commonly available CBD product and the one I recommend most.

It can be taken sublingually by leaving it under your tongue for 1-2 minutes before swallowing, or orally by swallowing it immediately or by adding it to food or drinks. It’s also the easiest to work with, as you can adjust the dose in small increments to figure out what works best for you.

How I Use CBD (and what I take):

For a long time, I used CBD oil exclusively. I would take about 10-30mg of CBD in oil form, letting it absorb under my tongue for a minute before swallowing. And I prefer higher concentration CBD oils even though they’re more expensive because you only have to use a tiny amount of oil per serving.

I’ve tried a ton of different CBD oils over the past few years, but only really recommend a select few: Joy Organics, CBDistillery, and Charlotte’s Web. I know there are other reputable brands, but I haven’t found anything better than these three as of yet.

More recently, I’ve started to use CBD pills and CBD vape pens way more than oil. There are several reasons for this: I already know what dosage works best for me, the effect lasts longer, and the oil carrier in many CBD oils often triggers my reflux.

So I’ve been using CBD pills and vape pens more often than not for a while now. For pills, I alternate between the 25mg softgels with curcumin from Joy Organics (and sometimes the regular 25mg softgels as well), the 15mg capsules from Charlotte’s Web (I take 1 or 2 depending on my stress levels), and the 30mg full spectrum softgels from CBDistillery.

For vaping, I use the Joy Organics full spectrum CBD vape pen (currently not available) and the CBDistillery disposable vape pens.

Most of the time, I only take CBD at night – every night – about 30 minutes before I go to bed. It doesn’t knock me out, but it calms my mind which helps me fall asleep.

Occasionally, I’ll take an additional (smaller) dose in the day time, if my anxiety or stress is spiking for whatever reason. These daytime doses have been more common lately, as I’ve recently gone through one of the most stressful ordeals of my entire life.

Where to start if you want to try CBD:

If you are looking to try CBD for the first time, or if you are simply wanting to try a new company, I always recommend starting with CBD oil. With CBD oil, you can try CBD both orally and sublingually, and you can adjust the dose very easily. This is important because most people have to experiment a bit to figure out what dose works best.

If you want a good oil to try, Joy Organic’s broad spectrum CBD oils are excellent and 100% THC free, and you can use the offer code mindover – for 15% off your order!

I recommend the 500 or 1000mg oil in the tranquil mint flavor, but the other flavors are great too.

Alternatively, CBDistillery’s CBD oils are also fantastic and excellently priced, but like many full spectrum CBD oils, they contain trace quantities of THC, which may be an issue for some people. If trace quantities of THC are not an issue for you, CBDistillery offers some of the best pricing (and quality) in the business by far!

I also always recommend starting small and slowly increasing your dose. At higher dosages, I experience a few minor side effects like a slight head pressure and a little bit of fatigue. So a very small dose of 5mg CBD is a good place to start, and you can slowly increase the dose from there to try to find the smallest effective dose for you.

(Pro Tip for measuring/dosing CBD Oil: Most CBD oils are shipped in 1oz/30mL glass bottles, and label concentration as milligrams of CBD per milliliter. The problem is that most oils do not have measuring markers on the dropper. But with 1oz (30mL) bottles, 1 mL of oil is one full dropper, which in practice will only be about 3/4 full. So if your oil is 33.33mg/ml strong, one dropper full will be 33.33mg CBD.)

I hope you guys find this little guide helpful!

If you’ve tried CBD for Meniere’s disease or tinnitus, tell us about your experience! Leave a comment below.

(NOTE: I received some of these CBD products for free to test out and provide an honest review. I receive many free products (and purchase many products too) but only ever end up writing about a very small percentage of them that work well for me, that I personally stand behind, and actually use myself. Some of the links featured in this post are affiliate links. If you decide to purchase a product through these links, Mind Over Meniere’s may receive a small commission that goes toward the maintenance cost of the website.)

    • Hi Glenn
      I’ve used both the CBD oil sublingually and CBD pure hemp capsules which I get here in a store in Dublin Ireland. I found the oil good for anxiety spikes, but found the capsules better for a prolonged effect. Both helped me with stress and anxiety and sleep. I used to take mine in the morning but intend to start taking at night when I get them again. I don’t know if Joy Organics or Charlottes Web are stocked here in Ireland. Could you try to find out for me?
      Thank you!

  1. Hi Glen, I find that if I take some CBD cream or lotion and rub it just below my ear it seems to help with the fullness feeling, Best Chas.

    • Mish it’s just MIND30 – there is no exclamation point on the end of it. I just tested it, it’s still working and should be active through Sunday.

  2. I tried to take it internally for anxiety/sleep, tension etc.. Didn’t work for me (different concentrations). I use it externally now, for spinal cord pain- always works.

  3. Hi Glenn, first of all can I say thanks, for setting up this wed site. I have found more easeful and informative information on this site than any where else, including the doctors and hospital consultants in my home town of Oxford UK. Using your daily chart helped me reducing my salt levels to below 2gm a day and the spinning days have almost stopped. I have also been using CBD oil for a month now and it as reduced my anxiety and muggy head levels to almost zero. I research the UK CBD options and most of the best of CBD oil reviews seem to point to the Povacan brand, I have been using 2 drops twice a day of their 1200mg product. Thanks you for the advice you have given, it as made a real difference to my life, in that I feel like I have a life again and for that I am so grateful. – As a footnote, so difficult to find food with low or no salt content in the UK, considering the number of people with heart problems that also need to go on a low salt diet, I though there would be a bigger market for low or no salt products.

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