13 - Methods Of Consumption with Kyla De Clifford.

Ever had a gummy that hit you like a freight train two hours later? Or vaped and wondered why the effect disappeared in under an hour? Welcome to the world of ca**abis consumption methods where how you take it can totally change how it works.

In this episode of Canna Curious, Kyla breaks down the different ways we take  ca**abis. From fast-acting vapes to long-lasting oils, topicals that stay skin-deep to suppositories that change the gamethis is your guide to doing it smarter, not stronger.

Whether you’re here for pain, sleep, mood, or hormone support, knowing the right method for the moment could be the missing piece.

 What I Cover:

• Why your body reacts differently to each method (hello, liver!)
• The bioavailability breakdown: how much actually makes it into your system
• Smoking vs edibles vs sublinguals—timing, intensity, and duration
• Topicals, patches & why they don’t get you high
• Vaginal suppositories and pelvic relief (yes, we went there)
• Real-life stories and common mistakes (including Kyla’s paprika crisis)

More Information:

Click here for the FREE PDF of consumption methods.

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.

Transcript

Hey, I'm Kyla and you're listening to Canna Curious, the podcast for women navigating wellness, hormones and life with a little help from a misunderstood plant. Today we're talking about something a lot of people overlook. the method, not the strain, not the dose, but how you take your cannabis and how it moves through your body. Because depending on how you consume it, the same dose can hit very differently. It's the reason one person can take a 10 milligram edible and sleep like a baby while someone else ends up reorganizing their entire life at 3am. Let's walk through the options, the science and some real life stories to help you figure out what works for you and what...

definitely doesn't. Before we get into the how, I want to ask you something. What are you hoping cannabis helps with? Pain, sleep, mood, hormones? Do you want to feel relief or do you want to feel nothing at all and just get on with your day? Because the method you choose has to match your goal. There is definitely no one size fits all.

So let's say you've got sudden anxiety, cramps that just hit out of nowhere, or a wave of frustration from perimenopausal rage. I get this often. You probably want something fast, right? Now contrast that with ongoing sleep issues, chronic back pain, or a goal to gently regulate mood through your cycle. You probably want something that lasts and is steady. So let's break it all down.

See what works, when and why. Now we'll start from where I guess the OG is and that's inhalation. So inhalation, you've got smoking, vaping and dabbing. Now smoking can be in a pipe, in a bong, in a joint and there is also vaping which is a different method.

So with smoking, it obviously creates smoke, which is not good for your lungs. And a lot of people use tobacco with it and you shouldn't. If you're going to use tobacco, please at least get some organic tobacco from the farmer's market. Otherwise, you're better just having it green because unfortunately, tobacco is laced with so many things these days. So why is inhalation in any of these methods the quickest delivery method? So when you inhale cannabis, the cannabinoids enter your lungs and go straight into your bloodstream. No pit stop in the liver. So that means you're going to feel it within one to five minutes.

It peaks fast, wears off in about 90 minutes to two hours. Now, of course, there's always going to be some outliers to this. It is ideal for breakthrough pain, panic attacks, and the I need to calm the hell down right now moment. I once took a few puffs before cleaning the kitchen and ended up sitting on the floor questioning why I own six kinds of paprika. It's fine. It's fine. I'm fine.

The downside to inhalation is that it's not discreet. There's still stigma and you will smell. But efficiency-wise, inhalation is really hard to beat. And look, to be fair, if we go back and talk about vaping, you won't smell. In Australia, being on the medicinal cannabis program, you will be directed by your doctor to purchase.

a medicinal vape so you it's it's still not legal if you roll a joint and go outside and say well it's my medicinal cannabis it's it's not okay to do that um it's it's okay though to have a vaporizer now the vaporizer heats up the cannabis but it doesn't actually set fire to it and it releases all of the oils the cannabinoids terpenes and then you inhale them now the

you know the the best part about this and the thing i love is that it is a flavor journey you can really taste all those beautiful beautiful terpenes and you can dial it right down so you can start at 180 degrees or 170 degrees and grab the cbd on the way up and then 185 you're going to get your cbn i mean 200 you're definitely going to get your thc out of it and at 210 you're probably going to start coughing like you are having a bong anyway so

If you are going to inhale, please get yourself a vaping device. Now, we've talked about inhalation. Next one, one of my favourites, edibles. So edibles are the trapdoor of the can of world. They're so appealing because they are discreet, there's no smell, easy to dose theoretically.

but they come with a delay and a punch. So what happens? So when you eat THC and it goes through your liver, it converts it into a different form of THC called 11-hydroxytetrahydrocannabinol. Now that compound is more potent and longer lasting than the THC when you smoke or inhale. The onset is anywhere between 30 minutes and two hours, although...

I have had an experience where it's taken four hours. I have heard other people say the same. So your duration is about four to eight hours, sometimes more. And the peak effect, well, it often sneaks up just as you're saying, oh, I don't feel anything. And so many people think it's not working after an hour, an hour and a half and double dose. And that is where you're in green out territory.

And just a quick side note, if you get to green our territory, please take CBD, hold it under your tongue for a minute or so, and within 20 minutes you're going to feel better, not perfectly better, but a lot better than greening out and white-knuckling it. Now, a word of caution. Some of you, about 20% of you, won't feel edibles properly at all.

Why? Genetics, liver function, gut health. But if you have a CYP2C93 variant or gut liver issues like IBS or Crohn's, your body may not convert THC properly or absorb it at all. So don't panic if this is you. You're not broken. Just have a different way of absorbing and you need a different method.

So oils then maybe for you, but I'm just going to go back to edibles. And again, please go start low and go slow. If you are cannabis naive and your doctor has prescribed you 10 milligrams, you can cut that into four pieces. I would always start at about two milligrams. And you are looking for a dose that helps what you are trying to treat without you going too far over and into that space where you are intoxicated.

So oils. We'll go on to oils again. A lot of people use oils. You hold them under your tongue for 30 to 60 seconds. Sometimes I do it for longer. So some of this then bypasses digestion. Through the submucosal tissue in the mouth, you absorb cannabinoids. It's a faster onset. It's a more consistent experience than edibles, and it's less likely to sneak up on you in the produce aisles when you're at the supermarket. If you do have an edible, going back to edibles and oils,

And then think, oh my gosh, it's not working. It can be because you haven't eaten. So eat a fatty meal. Like I actually have it with a tablespoon of butter if I really want it to kick in. I love butter. Oh, butter is the best. And it helps, you know, it's a fat soluble molecule. So it helps transport the CBD and THC where it needs to be. All right, I'm going to stop banging on about edibles and let's get to skin and body topicals.

I think topicals are an absolute game changer. They're your non-high options. They're the ones that people often skip past, but I think really they're the unsung heroes. They don't mess with your head, but they do melt tension, ease, cramps, and they can soothe sore muscles. I use a patch and a balm when my period's due. I have adenomyosis, so I really struggle with pain, but I don't like.

to use an inhalation method during the day, particularly if I've got meetings on, I always get paranoid like, oh my gosh, everyone knows. So I use a layering effect. I'll get into that. So how does it work? You rub it on, the medicine stays locally and the cannabinoids interact with the receptors in your skin and muscle tissue without really reaching your bloodstream. Relief where you need it with no intoxication.

So transdermal patches are a little bit different. You pop one on and they cross the skin barrier and enter your bloodstream. And effects come on slowly and they do last for hours. And they're great for, you know, that chronic pain if you've got a long shift and you don't want to think about redosing. And, look, when I use them for pain, and I do get a lot of joint pain being in this perimenopausal stage of life,

a balm and a patch and, you know, not needing to have any inhalation. Layering is just magic. So the next method, which again, one of my favorites, do I keep saying that? I think I do because I do love them, but are pessaries, suppositories, whatever you want to call them. Everyone corrects each other on terminology. I call them suppositories, whether they're vaginal or rectal. So yes.

vaginal and rectal cannabis products exist. And no, they're not weird. They're absolutely fucking brilliant. They're fast acting, highly absorbent, completely bypass the liver, which means you get strong pelvic or body relief without a strong head high. They're often used for endometriosis, adenomyosis, period, pain.

You can also use them for vulvodynia. I'm probably saying that incorrectly. And PCOS, any issues if you've got painful sex or you've got some post-op inflammation. So the first time I got a – I used a cannabis pessary for adenomyosis. I don't know. It kind of felt a bit weird, but what did I get? I got a wave of relief, a gentle softness, and –

The only high feeling I had was the middle of my tongue goes dry, which is quite interesting. But I was able to continue on with my day without having to inhale. So it was kind of amazing. And I find that not enough women are talking about this. In Australia, not enough of us are doing it. And, yes, it's still under research.

I tell you from all the anecdotal evidence that we have, it works. And women, you deserve to know about it. So I thought we'd take a little detour into the science zone. What is important to understand is bioavailability, which is a term for how much of what you take that actually gets into your bloodstream and does the work. So when it's...

Inhalation, so smoking or vaping, 30% to 50% is absorbed. Edibles are as low as 4%, which breaks my brain because they come on so strong. So thank goodness you don't get 50% to 100% of it because of the digestion and the liver enzymes breaking it down. The sublingual oils or lozenges can be sort of 15% to 35%.

Topicals, you're only going to get that local relief, so nothing in the bloodstream. Transdermal patches is low bioavailability, but you're still getting that delivery. In a suppository pessary, you're going to get a high absorption, fast pelvic relief with very, very minimal intoxication.

So if you have ever thought, why didn't this hit me in the same way, that is why. It's not just about the dose, but it's how your body receives it. And I just also want to note here that when you're looking at edibles or oil, what you eat and how your hormones are functioning, because estrogen does impact the way THC affects our bodies.

keep a journal. If you can keep a journal for six weeks and write down your dose, what you ate before, because again, I've had these times where I've taken an edible, nothing's worked. It hasn't worked. So I've been so frustrated and I'm not great eating during the day. I really am a late sort of eater. I don't start eating till two. And so on an empty stomach, it just doesn't work for me. And I'm sure that's for many of you, but it can happen. Then I'll have a snack.

or have lunch and suddenly think oh my goodness me i feel very very intoxicated what has happened here and this could be hours later so by keeping a journal you can learn to recognize those patterns in yourself and what works for you and you can tailor your medicine and look it helps your doctor to understand what um what method is is right for you so the part that i really want you to

to hear from going through the methods is that there is no perfect method. There is just your method for your body and for your life. So you might love a vape when you're overwhelmed and need quick calm. You might swear by edibles for sleep. I do. You might never want to feel high but find huge relief with a balm or suppository.

So the most powerful thing you can do is just start slow, track what works, and don't let anybody else's way of using the plant tell you what your way should be. So in today's episode, we have covered inhalation, edibles,

and oils and topicals, pessaries. I don't think I talked about wafers, so I'll just quickly talk about wafers. They're also available. They're very easy to use because, and I have some CBD wafers, you can just pop them inside your submucosal tissue and they melt down really quickly. The thing I don't love about them is that they are an isolate and I always prefer a full spectrum.

but they do work for me in times of really high anxiety when I really need to throw everything at it. So what I'll do is in the show notes, I'm going to pop a PDF file, if I can do that, I don't even know if I can do that, which explains the different methods and also the time until onset and the duration so that you've got a handy little go-to guide.

that will help you understand what may be a different method to what you are currently using. So I hope that helps clear up some of the methods of consumption. And if you've got any questions or queries, please don't hesitate to get in touch. This is a topic that I love. I have found it weird talking about it over a podcast because usually I'll have a show and tell, but I will follow up with this week's socials.

and show some of the methods that are available. That's it for me for now. Have an amazing day.