New studies in the US of cannabis smokers admitted to hospital indicate that a number of them are suffering from a rather ghastly condition that's being referred to as 'scromiting'.
That's a blend of screaming and vomiting, which is what doctors have observed their patients who are long-term weed smokers doing and it's very unpleasant.
The official term for this is 'cannabis hyperemesis syndrome' (CHS), which results in terrible stomach pain and can affect regular cannabis smokers multiple times a year.
CHS can cause nausea, abdominal pain and severe vomiting which can occur up to five times an hour and potentially last for days, which lands them in the ER and has resulted in the development of the 'scromiting' name.
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The new study warns that there is still much unknown about 'scromiting', but a man who was willing to share his experience with it described some very horrific symptoms.
He told Dr Larry B. Mellick that in the span of about six months he'd been admitted to the ER 'four to five times'.
The man was taking 'steaming hot showers' four or five times a day in an attempt to relieve the pain, with his sister saying that the water was so hot she couldn't bear to go near it.
He said his symptoms were 'massive vomiting, nausea and pain in the stomach not in one specific area', and when he was in hospital they put him on morphine which finally helped soothe his pain.
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Speaking of a 'burning' pain, he described 'agony around the stomach', the doctor told him this all tallied with 'cannabis hyperemesis syndrome' and the man explained that he'd been smoking cannabis for around three years.
He confirmed that 'if I have it on me' he was smoking weed four or five times a day every day, with him left in significant pain from CHS.
While people have been suffering from it for a long time, but it was only in October that a standard way to document the illness was laid down by the World Health Organisation.
Others who've suffered from 'scromiting' have painted a grim picture of what it really feels like, with one woman saying the pain was 'some of the worst physical pain I’ve ever experienced in my life' and claiming it was worse than the time she gave birth to a nine pound baby.
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“I was crying and screaming, like I can’t take this anymore, I’m just begging God, please make it stop," she said.
Someone else said they 'almost died from it' as they couldn't eat or drink as they were just constantly throwing up.
The Cleveland Clinic says the only way to get clear of CHS and 'scromiting' is to completely quit smoking weed.
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Joe Harker