Weed is famous for its ability to relieve nausea, but it can have the opposite effect in people who smoke a lot of it. The little-known condition, called cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS), involves bouts of extreme nausea, vomiting, and stomach pain, and can be temporarily relieved by a hot shower.
The condition has only been known to scientists for a few years, and it’s still rare. But it’s also hard to diagnose: many doctors don’t know about it, and many cannabis users find it hard to believe that something they have been using for years could suddenly cause problems.
A recent study found that CHS may be more common than we realised. Researchers gave a questionnaire to people who were at a New York City emergency room for other reasons, and not currently experiencing nausea. (Many medical conditions can cause nausea, so they wanted to rule out the possibility that people were suffering from something else. If you have CHS, it tends to come and go.)
Of 155 patients who filled out the survey and who used cannabis at least 20 days per month, 33 per cent said that they find hot showers to be an effective way to relieve nausea. If those numbers turn out to be representative of cannabis users in general, that means a few million people in the US might experience CHS, and probably most of them have no idea.
We don’t know exactly what causes CHS, or why hot showers help. Our digestive system contains receptors for endocannabinoids, our body’s natural chemicals that cannabis mimics. Meanwhile, a region of the brain that controls body temperature, the hypothalamus, also has cannabinoid receptors — so there may be a connection between that brain area and the hot shower relief.
If you think you have CHS, get checked out — your nausea may end up being caused by something else. But if it really is the cannabis that’s at fault, the only known cure is to stop using it. You can read more about cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome here.
Comments
8 responses to “Too Much Weed Can Cause Nausea And Vomiting”
Cannabis is still far less damaging than alcohol and a hell of a lot less carcinogenic than tobacco. I’m not a greeny, but I hope Dr Di Natale gets his proposal through to legalise it.
The “less carcinogenic” aspect is not exactly settled. It has more carcinogenic compounds, but people smoke less of it. Some claim the pot has anti-cancer compounds that counteract it. Bottom line is, we don’t know any any animal models and testing can’t draw firm conclusions. As you can’t test on humans, and it’s been illegal for so long. Like smoking it’ll take time drawing from the results of what happens. Smoking things is bad no matter what. Although there are other ways to enjoy pot.
As for worse than alcohol, there’s just different measures. There’s a lot of negatives for pot which are known and often glossed over. Deal with anyone who works in the mental health industry and they will tend to not have nice things to say about it. One of the problems with pot goes back to it simply being illegal for so long and so it hasn’t been studied well enough.
People should be cautious about claiming cannabis is better because it just isn’t studied enough to know and what is known doesn’t point to this natural, healthy no downsides to it view it’s supporters claim.
I think it’s been pretty well established that it does less harm than booze, physically, mentally and socially. Regardless, legalising it is a step in the right direction, the tax collected on it would help to get all that information you mentioned and probably add to Gov’t coffers as well. In fact, legalising all current illicit drugs would be a good thing, it will bring it under the same umbrella and help to detox those that are currently addicted and reduce drug-related crime.
There are different harms and a lot is still unclear. Just because there are dangers with alcohol, isn’t actually an argument for allowing the dangers of pot.
As far as mentally and socially. Go to a mental warm and the prison system and see how many people there smoked pot as teenagers.
I wasn’t going to reply, because you obviously have a hard line drawn under your opinion, but as far as the mental wards and prisons are concerned, if the stuff was legal, chances are pretty high they wouldn’t be in there in the first place. Just saying.
Anyway, Nuff said.
The “less carcinogenic” aspect is not exactly settled. It has more carcinogenic compounds, but people smoke less of it. Some claim the pot has anti-cancer compounds that counteract it. Bottom line is, we don’t know any any animal models and testing can’t draw firm conclusions. As you can’t test on humans, and it’s been illegal for so long. Like smoking it’ll take time drawing from the results of what happens. Smoking things is bad no matter what. Although there are other ways to enjoy pot.
As for worse than alcohol, there’s just different measures. There’s a lot of negatives for pot which are known and often glossed over. Deal with anyone who works in the mental health industry and they will tend to not have nice things to say about it. One of the problems with pot goes back to it simply being illegal for so long and so it hasn’t been studied well enough.
People should be cautious about claiming cannabis is better because it just isn’t studied enough to know and what is known doesn’t point to this natural, healthy no downsides to it view it’s supporters claim.
??? Seriously.
Too much of anything is a high probability of nausea and vomiting. Human body doesn’t like excess of most things
Scientists just discovered “greening out”.