silnaja toshnota

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Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome – What Exactly Is It?

Byking_adm on August 6, 2021

The majority of people that smoke weed has most likely never heard of cannabis hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) before. Until you get sick after smoking a joint and experience it for yourself, you would probably never have to worry or concern yourself with it. For those that do get sick after smoking weed, CHS symptoms might pop up after you checked the internet on what might be causing it.

Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome

Cannabis is typically fairly safe to use, and it’s been used for hundreds of years with practically no deaths associated with it. That means the risks from using it are pretty low. The majority of people consume cannabis as a way to chill back and relax after a long day at work. Others use it to boost their creativity and social levels.

A very small portion of people accidentally experience some pretty uncomfortable symptoms after smoking weed. When people do experience symptoms like pain, vomiting, or weird behavior, this is known as cannabis hyperemesis syndrome.

What Exactly Is CHS?

CHS is a myriad of symptoms that are caused by long and heavy exposure to cannabis usage. CHS was initially discovered in 2004 by a few practitioners in Australia, but there were other researchers that found the first case to be in 1996 by someone that had the same symptoms.

Cannabis users that display symptoms of CHS have typically been heavily using marijuana for many years before displaying symptoms of this condition. After long and repeated use of cannabis, people eventually started to show symptoms such as vomiting, and that’s what hyperemesis refers to.

Individuals who deal with CHS go through a phase of persistent vomiting and nausea for many months at a time. This can result in them being hospitalized due to how severe it gets. Many times, people get misdiagnosed with other things before they have eventually diagnosed with CHS.

More and more medical practitioners are starting to become more familiar with CHS, and a lot of scientists and researchers state that CHS isn’t reported nearly as much as it should be. THC levels in cannabis are rising more and more as the years go on, and this might be a potential factor in the increasing rates of CHS that practitioners are seeing in hospitals.

Because of the rising THC levels in newer strains of cannabis, more people are experiencing the toxic reactions that sometimes result from it.

Symptoms Of CHS

There are a variety of symptoms that CHS can cause, and the illness is categorized into three different stages

Prodromal Phase

The initial period of CHS is known as the prodromal phase and it’s between the first symptoms you experience and the severe symptoms of it. Patients typically report experiencing the symptoms for a few weeks or up to a few years. Some of the more prevalent symptoms that people experience during this stage are:

• Nausea during the morning
• Pain in the abdomen
• Vomiting fears

Hyperemetic Phase

During the hyperemetic phase, symptoms start to get to their most extreme. Some of the symptoms that people experience during this phase are:

• Repeated nausea throughout the day
• Repeated instances of vomiting throughout the day
• Feeling dehydrated
• Not eating much foot and experiencing weight loss

Recovery Phase

When people stop using weed, they will enter the recovery phase. All of the symptoms will gradually dissipate and the person will start to eat food again. This phase usually lasts from a week to over half of a year.

Isn’t THC Used To Help People With Nausea-Related Symptoms?

A lot of people that experience CHS symptoms are surprised because of the fact that many people use cannabis in order to provide them relief from nausea. While THC is used to reduce nausea in smaller doses, it actually can cause it in higher doses.

Weird Behaviors In CHS Patients

Aside from nausea and vomiting, CHS can cause a variety of other weird symptoms in people. In one case, a person repeatedly bathed in very hot water. This hasn’t only happened to one person, either. Nearly 93% of people experiencing CHS reportedly go for hot showers or baths to help them with their unpleasant symptoms.

Some people will spend nearly the entire day in their bath because of the relief that it provides for their symptoms.

Causes Of CHS

THC consumption in high amounts can make anyone feel sick. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been smoking for years and think you might have an extremely high tolerance to weed. If you smoke enough of a certain strain of weed that contains a tremendously high THC content, you’re going to experience some unpleasant symptoms.

A lot of cannabis consumers won’t believe that THC is the cause of all of their unpleasant symptoms, and that’s understandable. A lot of people use their medicinal marijuana to provide them with relief from their unpleasant symptoms, so it’s easy to see why they wouldn’t want to all of a sudden stop using it.

Some people have also blamed the strain of cannabis that they are consuming for the negative effects they experience. Others will say that pesticides were used during the cultivation of their strain, but this claim doesn’t hold much weight because pesticide poisoning doesn’t lead to the same symptoms that CHS is associated with.

For people dealing with CHS, their genetic profile might play a role in it. There was a study that found a few different genetic mutations in a few patients that had CHS in comparison to cannabis consumers that didn’t have any CHS symptoms after use. The study also pointed to the fact that everyone has a different endocannabinoid system, and that could be part of the larger story.

Endocannabinoid System

The endocannabinoid system (ECS) is responsible for the regulation of a variety of different physiological processes throughout the body. Scientists involved in the study above found that those that experienced CHS had a couple of different changes in their ECS:

• Downregulation of their CB1 receptor
• TRPV1 mutations
• Liver enzyme deficiency
• Dopamine signaling problems

Can CBD Cause CHS?

Even though THC appears to be the main factor associated with CHS, CBD might also cause it, as well. Cannabinoids have the tendency to make you feel sick when they are consumed in large doses, but there needs to be more research conducted to develop more concrete evidence.

How Do You Diagnose CHS?

When someone comes into the hospital, there are a variety of symptoms that can lead to a diagnosis of CHS. Things that the clinician will want to keep an eye out for are:

• The amount of cannabis use that the patient has been consuming over the past year
• The severity of their vomiting and levels of nausea
• How frequent they have been vomiting over the course of the past few months
• How frequently they are taking showers or baths
• If they are experiencing any type of pain in the abdomen

How Do You Treat CHS?

There are a couple of different options to treat CHS. Once the patient stops using weed, a treatment plan will consist of:

• Capsaicin – this might assist with nausea
• Antipsychotics – This will assist with some of the more mental health-related symptoms
• Intravenous treatment – This will assist with dehydration
• Pain medications – This will provide relief from abdominal pain

How Long Does CHS Last?

CHS is known to be one of those chronic conditions that people have to deal with for the foreseeable future if they continue to consume cannabis. More and more research is being conducted on CHS, but the more research that is done, the more that CHS has been proving to have a genetic component to it. The CHS disease symptoms should dissipate once a patient stops consuming cannabis, but they will flare up again if the patient resumes use.