hey guys, I was led to this thread after an emergency room visit on monday. I figured I would add some more anecdotal data to this thread. This is the second time that this same set of symptoms happened to me and this time the doctor mentioned it could be CHS. She noticed because of the really strong odor of terpenes in my sweat.
Here's what happened:
I was trimming some bud at someones ranch last sunday. The people who were growing on the ranch make this concentrate called "The Clear" which is super hot in at least southern CA right now. Some kind of distillate, supposedly the purest thing you can inhale. Almost pure thc, most of everything including terpenes are stripped out - I have NO idea how it's made. In retrospect, this was probably like taking a shot of moonshine instead of a glass of wine or whiskey. I took a glob-sized dab of it and immediately felt nauseous and light headed like the old days when I first began smoking (about 8 years ago). I have a really high tolerance and was surprised at how strong it was (shouldn't have been, it is a distillate after all) The nausea eventually subsided and I continued trimming. I was a bit too medicated for my liking all the way until I fell asleep later that night. (Edit: just realized I had a 7mg edible when I got home like a complete idiot)
The next morning I woke up and felt like I had really bad gas, like a lactose reaction. Just as described many times in this thread, I went to the bathroom and sat, trying to clear it all out of my stomach and nothing really was happening until my body heat started to rise, my forearms started tingling, and I started dry heaving like I was about to throw up. Had to sprint to go get a trash bag so I could be ready for anything. It got worse and worse, the retching got louder and louder. At this point I'm sweating so much that there's a puddle on the floor where I'm crouched over, trying to throw up but only getting stomach acid.
I had no idea the shower thing was a common symptom but the only thing I could think to do was to climb in the shower and sit down and let the hot water run over me. This helped temporarily and then it just went to hell from there. I couldn't lay in bed because I would instantly soak the sheets with sweat so I had to just stay in the shower. Tried to take some activated charcoal, all it did was make my throwup black. Stabbing pain, nausea, every time i transitioned form inhalation to exhalation, I felt like I was going to puke my guts out.
I went to the ER and the first thing the doctor says when she walks in is "It smells like a pot farm in here". I told her I smoke daily and she mentioned I should look up CHS. Had to be hooked up to an IV, they gave me like 4 or 5 liters of liquid along with a bunch of different nausea medications, none of which worked. Just the pain meds kind of worked for the burning but it came back shortly thereafter.
They finally ended up giving me a "GI cocktail" of maalox, lidocaine, and benadryl which helped immensely. Didn't know you could drink lidocaine. The day after (4th of july) I hadn't yet researched it and I ate an edible for the nausea like an idiot. To be honest it didn't make me relapse and it did help (it was a pretty big dose of RSO syrup). Then i took a dab and I instantly got a migraine and felt nauseous. I didn't make the connection but I figured my body had enough stuff in it for the last couple days and I put the wax down.
The time before this, I thought I got food poisoning. This was months ago. I chalked it up as a stomach bug because a lot of people were getting the stomach flu that week. Same symptoms and I daresay even more painful. They thought it was an infection and put me on antibiotics.
The thing is, two of my friends got the same thing I did (albeit not as bad, no ER visit). One of my friends and I were smoking a LOT of rosin at the time and I think it was when we really first got into dabbing. Another friend of mine got dab sick around the same time and he thought it was improperly purged BHO.
What I'm getting at is that both these episodes happened after dabbing way more than usual or way more than needed, supplementing with needless edibles, etc. I don't know if its because of contaminants or because a toxic level of terpenes are in your body. I know they've done plenty of studies on THC toxicity but I haven't seen any done on bodily reactions to terpene levels, which are way more abundant per weight in a concentrate form than they are in flower (right?).
My friend who got dab sick went back to smoking flower only and he hasn't had a problem.
Also I clearly remember last week eating pizza and waking up with a miniature version of what happened to me monday, i thought it was the cheese and that my stomach was getting less tolerant with dairy but I can eat ice cream or eat a cheeseburger with no issues. Maybe it was my body warning me in the prodrome phase? Come to think of it I get little "lactose" attacks all the time but I'm beginning to think its CHS.
I've been nauseous since monday but nowhere near as bad and my appetite is good.
My plan is to take a tolerance break, dry myself up, take some coQ10 and b12 and see how I feel. Cannabis really does help me with a lot of things but if I go back to flower and this happens again I think I'm going to quit. Not worth it. Still hopeful.