Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. ~Marcel Proust
Chronic marijuana abuse may cause a distinct medical condition characterized mainly by severe recurrent vomiting. In the World Journal of Gastroenterology, Dr. Siva P. Sontineni and colleagues from Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska describe a 22-year-old man who had been using marijuana for six years.
“He suffered severe vomiting episodes with visits to the emergency room requiring expensive investigations and hospitalizations,” Sontineni said. “Each episode would occur periodically and there was a peculiar phenomenon of hot showers helping to relieve his symptoms transiently.” When the patient abstained from smoking marijuana, the vomiting and abdominal pain stopped.
The precise mechanisms leading to the vomiting syndrome and the questions of why it appears only after several years of marijuana use and why hot showers help relieve the symptoms are being studied.
Since the publication of this case report, Sontineni has had several e-mails and phone calls from people recounting similar symptoms they have experienced while using marijuana. “It clearly shows that ‘cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome’ is more prevalent than the medical community currently recognizes.”