According to a new study, uncontrollable vomiting due to marijuana use is on the rise across the U.S., particularly in states where marijuana has been legalized.
Habitual users are showing up in emergency rooms complaining of severe intestinal distress.
“They are writhing, holding their stomach, complaining of really bad abdominal pain and nausea,” said Dr. Sam Wang, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist and toxicologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado said to CNN. Wang treats adolescents with the condition.
“They vomit and then just continue to vomit whatever they have in their stomach, which can go on for hours,” said Wang. “They often say they took a scalding hot shower before they came to the ER but it didn’t help.
“That’s when we know we may have a case of cannabis hyperemesis syndrome, or CHS.”
Cannabis hyperemesis syndrome came around when a group of Australian researchers wrote about 19 chronic marijuana users who had repeated episodes of abdominal pain and retching. The researchers had followed nine of the patients over time and found symptoms went away when cannabis use was stopped but returned when it was restarted.
“Patients often say, ‘You know, it’s always in the evening when I get this nausea, vomiting,'” Wang said. “So, they tell me, ‘I go take a hot shower, and it gets better, then it happens again the next night.’ in regards to how many opt to take hot showers during the symptoms.
“It’s pretty universal for these patients to say they need a really, really hot shower, or a really hot bath, to improve their symptoms,” he said.
When asked about why a hot shower over a cold shower, Wang said, “That’s not entirely clear.”
Not all users are affected however. “It’s not entirely clear who is predisposed to getting it,” Wang said. “Is it a certain frequency or duration of use? Is it a specific potency? Or is it a specific type of product? We don’t have that data.”
