Frans
New Member
(I'm new here as I just found this forum, and I'm sure glad I did.)
In the hopes I can help someone else, and find a fix for this issue, I'd like to share my story. I have no doubt CHS is real and I feel lucky to have found this forum when I did. The time from when I started using weed, to getting sick, is quite short compared to some of these cases. I only threw up for the first time a couple weeks ago.
Background: I'm 38 and smoked weed very rarely growing up (like maybe 10 times or so before turning 36). It was only as it became legal, under 2 years ago, that I started experimenting with weed. And I love it. It makes me creative, movies are fascinating, I feel music, and, *ahem* I love how horny I get. TMI, perhaps. This past year I've been pretty much eating pot brownies every evening. (I make them myself. Using medical blue dream, white widow, girl scout cookies, by cooking the herb in oil at a low temp.)
I had no problems until, in retrospect, about 8 months ago. I was brushing my teeth one morning and it felt like my toothbrush kicked in my gag reflex. I didn't think anything of it at the time. But then it started happening every morning I brushed my teeth. Then it started every morning not when I brushed my teeth. Then about a month or two ago (after 1 year of daily brownies), I had my first dry heave. Then a couple weeks later had my first vomit. Warning gross next sentence: it was just this yellow bile stuff. My stomach was empty. So it seemed to be getting progressively worse and worse every morning.
I haven't had any health issues otherwise (I'm in good health. I eat and exercise a lot. I've had no other major health, activity, diet changes over this time.) So I started to wonder if it was the weed. Once I Googled "morning marijuana sickness", "marijuana hangover", "male morning sickness", those lead me to some forums, then a clinical paper that mentioned "cannabanoid hyperemeisis". Search for that finally lead me here. This is by far the most helpful discussion and best source of info on the subject. Reading this I had no doubt it was what I was experiencing, or starting to. I was shocked to learn it's an actual syndrome and people with way worse symptoms out there.
So I quit.
But I had shakes, cold sweats, hot flashes, massive anxiety. It was marijuana withdrawal. Which I was lead to believe wasn't possible. Thankfully it just lasted a few days. So it's been a week now and I have no symptoms. But I miss it! For these past two years I thought it was totally awesome. My questions:
- What is the root cause?
- When should I try consume again?
- Would vaping be different than brownies?
- Is it strain dependent? The onset of nausea was up and down as I experimented with indicas vs sativas.
- Is it the quantity or frequency?
- Is there another trigger? Something that sets it off instead of building up?
After reading the stories here I think I dodged a bullet. If I didn't connect the dots, I probably would have continued and starting having even worse symptoms. In retrospect I was probably consuming too much and/or too often. This CHS thing is going to more and more prevalent as more people get access and start consuming. I'm quite disappointed but I feel even worse for people who actually need to use weed for medical reasons. It really shows the lack of research over the past decades of what could be a very beneficial plant. What can we do?
In the hopes I can help someone else, and find a fix for this issue, I'd like to share my story. I have no doubt CHS is real and I feel lucky to have found this forum when I did. The time from when I started using weed, to getting sick, is quite short compared to some of these cases. I only threw up for the first time a couple weeks ago.
Background: I'm 38 and smoked weed very rarely growing up (like maybe 10 times or so before turning 36). It was only as it became legal, under 2 years ago, that I started experimenting with weed. And I love it. It makes me creative, movies are fascinating, I feel music, and, *ahem* I love how horny I get. TMI, perhaps. This past year I've been pretty much eating pot brownies every evening. (I make them myself. Using medical blue dream, white widow, girl scout cookies, by cooking the herb in oil at a low temp.)
I had no problems until, in retrospect, about 8 months ago. I was brushing my teeth one morning and it felt like my toothbrush kicked in my gag reflex. I didn't think anything of it at the time. But then it started happening every morning I brushed my teeth. Then it started every morning not when I brushed my teeth. Then about a month or two ago (after 1 year of daily brownies), I had my first dry heave. Then a couple weeks later had my first vomit. Warning gross next sentence: it was just this yellow bile stuff. My stomach was empty. So it seemed to be getting progressively worse and worse every morning.
I haven't had any health issues otherwise (I'm in good health. I eat and exercise a lot. I've had no other major health, activity, diet changes over this time.) So I started to wonder if it was the weed. Once I Googled "morning marijuana sickness", "marijuana hangover", "male morning sickness", those lead me to some forums, then a clinical paper that mentioned "cannabanoid hyperemeisis". Search for that finally lead me here. This is by far the most helpful discussion and best source of info on the subject. Reading this I had no doubt it was what I was experiencing, or starting to. I was shocked to learn it's an actual syndrome and people with way worse symptoms out there.
So I quit.
But I had shakes, cold sweats, hot flashes, massive anxiety. It was marijuana withdrawal. Which I was lead to believe wasn't possible. Thankfully it just lasted a few days. So it's been a week now and I have no symptoms. But I miss it! For these past two years I thought it was totally awesome. My questions:
- What is the root cause?
- When should I try consume again?
- Would vaping be different than brownies?
- Is it strain dependent? The onset of nausea was up and down as I experimented with indicas vs sativas.
- Is it the quantity or frequency?
- Is there another trigger? Something that sets it off instead of building up?
After reading the stories here I think I dodged a bullet. If I didn't connect the dots, I probably would have continued and starting having even worse symptoms. In retrospect I was probably consuming too much and/or too often. This CHS thing is going to more and more prevalent as more people get access and start consuming. I'm quite disappointed but I feel even worse for people who actually need to use weed for medical reasons. It really shows the lack of research over the past decades of what could be a very beneficial plant. What can we do?
