CBD Oil and My Missing Thoughts

“My thoughts are gone. I have no thoughts,” I say as I enter the ER at a small hospital in Puerto Rico, where I live. The receptionist speaks no English and since my thoughts are missing, any Spanish I might normally string together left my brain.

“It’s going to be OK,” the security guard tells me with a very knowing look in his eye. “We can help you. Tell us what happened.”

But I sense he already knows what happened since he is likely familiar with people who show up to the ER blabbering ridiculous words: I am tripping.

And that’s kinda what happened that evening – a year and a half ago – except I did not take any drugs – or at least I did not think I did. But I did have a hunch as to the cause of my thoughts disappearing… if only I could get the words out of my mouth from my seemingly empty brain to tell him what it was.

“CBD oil,” I told him. “It was CBD oil.”

The security guard, a spritely young man, was very curious to know precisely which brand of CBD oil and how much I had taken, and where I might have purchased it.

But his own interests aside, he also graciously translated for me and helped me check in to the ER.

Once inside the waiting room, I finally felt safe after two hours of thinking I might die from CBD oil poisoning and trying to get myself together enough to get to a hospital.

I had been on the phone with my very worried mother who lives 2,500 miles away the duration of this two-hour episode – from the time I first realized I was high to when I nearly blacked out to when I tried unsuccessfully to drink water to flush it out to my arrival at the ER.

What happened I will describe below, but first, you should know that this post is not to deter people from taking CBD oil. Maybe there are benefits for some people and I have no medical background to say one way or another. I can only offer my experience as a cautionary, anecdotal tale to make sure if you do take CBD oil, you know the risks. Because the kind of high I had was no fun – it was not like a marijuana high at all. It was mostly very unpleasant, and I felt sick – not dopey, goofy, or funny – only bloated and weak and extraordinarily paranoid. I think drugs affect everyone very differently and my one experience is not enough to determine anything.

First, I had been taking CBD oil – an expensive, reputable brand – to combat inflammation and I also thought maybe it was helping me sleep better. But looking back, I am not sure it did anything for me. Which is probably why I stopped taking it. Or maybe it was because I heard that I could build up a tolerance to it by taking it daily and so I stopped. I do not know if that is true and there is too much conflicting information on the internet for me to know definitively without doing a lot of research. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on the matter.

This CBD oil, if it did anything at all for me, had certainly never gotten me anywhere close to high or buzzed or even feeling dizzy or light-headed in the six months I had taken it.

But it had been in my refrigerator for over a year, untouched. I discovered this almost empty bottle late one Friday evening when I thought to myself “Hey, I’ll have a little bit of this, eat dinner, and then go to bed early”. Because that is what one does on a Friday night when they are in their 40s: turn in early. Not end up in the ER.

The bottle of CBD oil was almost empty and the dropper could not reach to grab what was in the bottom. So, I forewent the dropper, tilted the bottle back, and held the liquid under my tongue for a few minutes. This is what I had done every other time I took it from the dropper and what the instructions say to do: hold it under your tongue so you absorb the full effects. I assumed the amount was no more than a dropper full. I thought nothing of it. I thought maybe it would help me sleep a little better since I am an insomniac at times.

A half-hour later, I am sitting comfy in my PJs watching Jeopardy like I typically do. I had planned to make myself dinner but grabbed a bag of chips instead. Soon I noticed all the chips were gone and I was no longer hungry. Then I remembered I told my mother I would call her, so I did. She was talking to me about something when I realized I could not follow the conversation or what she was saying … and then it hit me…

… the potato chips … the munchies!

… why do I feel strange? … the CBD oil … could that have made me a little high?

I was about to tell my mother I thought I was buzzed from the CBD oil when I realized I could not speak. I could not find the thoughts in my brain to translate them from my head to my mouth. Suddenly I felt dizzy, from trying to find my thoughts and then very panicked … so I stood up … and I nearly fell face first on the floor. I was on my knees. I balanced myself and got back to my feet, but I felt so hot and I wanted fresh air so I headed for the door and all I could think to say to my dear mother, whom I frightened to death was, “Mom, something is wrong with me. Something is very, very wrong.”

I went outside, took some deep breaths, and convinced myself I was not going to pass out but that I probably needed to simply calm down and wait it out.

But several minutes later, this feeling wasn’t going away, and I could still not speak coherently to my mother. I asked her what I needed to do. She did not know, but at this point, I at least was able to tell her that I had taken the CBD oil.

She told me to try flushing it out by drinking water, but I only became very bloated and thought I might throw up. I tried making myself throw up, but I have never, not once, been successful in attempting such a disgusting task.

At this point, I wanted to go to the ER but I did not know what to do to get there, starting with putting on my shoes. I asked Mom to keep reminding me of what I needed to do to get to the hospital because I kept forgetting what I needed to do next.

“My shoes, Mom. Do I need my shoes?” “My purse, Mom. Do I need my purse?”

It took two hours before I figured out how to put my socks and shoes on, but a long story short: I made it to the ER.

Once the doctor realized what had happened, she hooked me to an IV. I assume she also ran some other tests to make sure she was following the right protocol, but I can’t remember anything until about the 3rd IV bag. At that point, she came back to check on me and asked “How are you doing?”

“My thoughts came back!” I said with probably too big of a grin on my face. “Has this ever happened before, it is possible that people overdose on CBD oil?”

“I’ve seen it” she nodded.

This made me wonder if this sort of thing happens often and if so, is it ever reported?

She hooked me up to my 4th IV bag and let me go home after that.

I guess the moral of the story is: don’t take CBD oil that may have expired – does it expire? I never checked the label and I threw the bottle away as soon as I got back home. Also, don’t take CBD oil without properly measuring how much – was it a lot more than a dropper full? It didn’t feel like it. Finally, shake the bottle before each use so you don’t end up with a lot of concentration at the bottom of the bottle.

What I do know is that CBD oil is not approved by the FDA. As of January 2023, the FDA says “CBD products cannot be considered dietary supplements or food additives.” The FDA is making plans to work with Congress on developing new regulations:

“We have not found adequate evidence to determine how much CBD can be consumed, and for how long, before causing harm. Therefore, we do not intend to pursue rulemaking allowing the use of CBD in dietary supplements or conventional foods,” FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said in a statement.

What happened to me occurred over a year and a half ago and this is the first time I wrote about it. I never bothered contacting the CBD oil company that sold me this brand to tell them what happened. I probably should have in retrospect. I was just grateful to be alive and did not want to think about it anymore. I threw away other old CBD bottles I found in my fridge, including some I had bought for my cat.

In any event, I won’t be trying CBD oil again. And with today’s news about an off-duty airline pilot attempting to down a commercial flight, I won’t be trying any magic mushrooms either! Geesh. Stay safe out there, people! It’s a crazy enough world without hallucinogens.