Medical marijuana has been often touted as a remedy for nausea and vomiting, but did you know it may actually also be the cause for some people?
According to emergency medicine physicians at UC Davis Medical Center, there are young patients who come in once or twice a day because of this.
Dr. John Richards, an emergency medicine physician and professor at UC Davis explains, “They keep moaning, shouting and yelling after they vomit. It’s very dramatic. It sounds like someone is dying.”
These young people, often around college age, are vomiting multiple times a day because of weed. Despite running numerous tests, including ultrasounds and CT scans, they could not find out what was going on.
A study however from 2004 may have the answer. Australian doctors have connected vomiting and stomach pain with marijuana use.
The study found that smoking weed everyday with potent strains of marijuana was creating the symptoms.
“Imagine you have a beer every day and then one day I give you 100 proof alcohol and I say, ‘Go at it,’ ” explained Dr. Jeff LaPoint, a toxicologist and emergency medicine physician in San Diego. “That’s similar to the effect potent marijuana strains have.”
There’s actually a name for it, its called cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome. According to doctors its when cannabinoids in cannabis, collide with neurotransmitters and thus leads to an imbalance in the body’s regulatory system.
At least there’s a name for it and an explanation. Kind of scary to imagine young people vomiting uncontrollably and screaming like they are dying without knowing why.
