Uncontrollable vomiting due to marijuana use on rise, study finds

From CNN, by Sandee LaMotte, 09/17/21

An unusual illness is on the rise in the United States, especially in states that have legalized marijuana. Habitual users of cannabis, including teenagers, 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, who treats adolescents with the condition.

young person smoking marijuana with cloud of smoke in front of their face — Image by Jantaaa from Pixabay

“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.”

A bizarre condition

Cannabis hyperemesis syndrome burst upon the medical scene in 2004, when a group of Australian researchers wrote about 19 chronic marijuana users who had repeated episodes of abdominal pain and retching. The researchers followed nine of the patients over time and found symptoms went away when cannabis use was stopped but returned when it was restarted.

Oddly, over half of the 19 reported using extremely hot baths or showers to self-treat their symptoms. As more and more cases of CHS began to appear, hot bathing as a home treatment became a recurring theme.

“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.’

“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.

Why hot? “That’s not entirely clear,” said Wang, who is also an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado.

Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the main psychoactive compound in weed, has access to the body’s pain receptors, so one theory is that the distracting sensation of the extreme heat interrupts the pain cycle, thus easing symptoms.

To compound the strangeness of the new disorder, THC and other cannabinoids in the marijuana plant have been used for pain relief — paradoxically relieving nausea and vomiting in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. However, despite the popularity of marijuana as a pain killer, study results on its effectiveness have been mixed.

Still, why would the same compound relieve and also cause pain? Among a myriad of possibilities: dosage levels. Wang points to the ever increasing potency of THC in today’s marijuana products.

“It’s been well documented that the amount of THC that now comes in cannabis is increasing substantially,” Wang said. “In the ’90s the average was like 4% or 5%. Now in Colorado, it’s anywhere from 15% to 20%.”

Another mystery: Not all heavy users of weed are affected by CHS.

“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.”

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