SEATTLE — The University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOC) doctors have been noticing a trend among some chronic cannabis users: stomach pain and prolonged or severe vomiting. These symptoms, which have been increasingly observed in emergency rooms, according to UWSOC, are now officially recognized as “cannabis hyperemesis syndrome.”
Dr. Chris Buresh, an emergency medicine specialist at UW Medicine and Seattle Children’s, noted, “It seems like we see a lot of people coming in with this nausea, and this vomiting. A lot of belly pain.” He added that as he and his colleagues would talk to patients, they often found that the patients experiencing these problems were regular cannabis users. Cannabis hyperemesis syndrome is “a gut problem that starts within 24 hours of the most recent use and can last for days. Users experience symptoms cyclically three or four times a year,” according to UWSOC.
The formal name was recognized by the the World Health Organization on Oct. 1. The WHO updated its “International Classification of Diseases manual (ICD-10, currently) standardized the new code, R11.16, which also was updated for U.S. clinicians by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”…