Educational self-assessment

Is it the cannabis? A CHS pattern check.

Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) causes cycles of severe vomiting in some people who use cannabis heavily over a long time. It looks almost identical to other conditions, so it is often missed for years. This short check walks through the pattern clinicians actually look for. It takes about two minutes.

This is an educational tool, not a diagnosis and not medical advice. It cannot tell you whether you have CHS. Only a clinician can do that. Use your results to have a better conversation with one.

If you are severely ill right now, this is not the place to start. Go to an emergency room if you cannot keep any fluids down, you are urinating very little or your urine is dark, you feel faint, dizzy, or confused, there is blood in your vomit, or you have chest pain. Repeated vomiting can cause dangerous dehydration quickly.
1. Do you get recurring episodes of severe nausea and vomiting, with stretches of feeling essentially normal in between?
2. When an episode hits, do your episodes tend to look the same each time (a similar, predictable build-up, peak, and let-up)?
3. How often do you use cannabis?
4. If you use cannabis regularly, how long have you been using it at that level?
5. During an episode, do hot showers or hot baths relieve the nausea?
6. Have you found yourself taking unusually long or unusually frequent hot showers or baths to cope with the nausea?
7. If you have ever stopped cannabis completely for an extended stretch (weeks to months), what happened to the episodes?
8. Are you having any of these right now: unable to keep fluids down, very little or very dark urine, feeling faint or confused, blood in your vomit, or chest pain?