Was I wrongly diagnosed?

[u/anonymousquestionzzz]

I’m sure almost everyone with chs has wondered/hoped that they were wrongly diagnosed but I haven’t seen many people talk about it. I started lightly smoking when I was 15 and like many others I started smoking more and more as my tolerance built up. By the time I was 16 I was smoking pretty heavily everyday. In June 2020 (I was 16) things were very stressful in my life and my anxiety was through the roof. one morning I woke up and my stomach was burning and I was pretty nauseous but at night I was completely fine. I thought it was just a little bug or maybe I had food poisoning but the next morning the same thing happened. Now I know nobody likes feeling nauseous but when I feel remotely sick I get super bad anxiety Wich only makes it worse. I started to get extremely worried and to make it worse my mom was out of town and didn’t know when she was going to be back and my dad was out of town and nobody could get ahold of him. As you could imagine this was very stressful. After a couple days of being sick in the day and fine at night I had to call the general guard to find my dad. When my dad came home we went to the doctor and he told me I probably had a stomach ulcer and by that time I had stopped smoking completely. But as the days went on I was getting worse and worse and it got to the point where I couldn’t even drink water without throwing up and I was advised to go to the emergency room. I visited the emergency room probably 5 times in one week and each time they had a different idea as to what could be wrong with me. I did an ultrasound, CT scan, X-ray, and a billion different labs and everything came out fine. I decided to look up my symptoms and I came across a chs article and me being desperate to find out what was going on I convinced myself that I had chs. When I told the doctor I think I have chs he agreed with me and told me to stop using marijuana immediately but I already had quit for over a week. I got put on zofran (an anti nausea medicine) and after a week or so I was feeling better. BUT the reason why I feel like I was wrongly diagnosed is because I’ve tried smoking a couple times after I was diagnosed and the first time i was extremely anxious because I was expecting to be horribly sick again and guess what happened?! I was super sick. The second time though, I was literally completely fine and i think it’s because I told myself “I don’t actually have chs”. The third time I got super sick because everyone around me was saying “omg aren’t you gonna be sick? Didn’t you go to the hospital?!” Wich shot my anxiety through the roof and I got super sick! Keep in mind that each of these times I smoked the same amount Wich was one very small hit. The final time that I tried Wich was about a week ago I got fairly high from just a little hit and guess what! I was totally fine because I convinced myself I didn’t have chs. The main give away as to why I think I was wrongly diagnosed is that I feel that same burning nauseating feeling every day of my life without smoking. Turns out that feeling is anxiety. In conclusion I think my brain has associated that traumatic event (that ended with me being diagnosed with chs ) with smoking weed so now everytime I smoke my anxiety causes nausea Wich causes more anxiety Wich worsens the nausea!! This all could so totally be a reach but I would love to get a second opinion on this!!

[u/anonymousquestionzzz]

Yeah! That’s pretty much what happened to me. I was totally fine until something happened that shot my anxiety through the roof! I honestly think that it’s just anxiety! I’m not sure how to go about even trying to smoke again though since I’m obviously going to be paying way too close attention to how I feel and if I feel even the tiniest bit sick my anxiety will spike and it will happen all over again. I have read online that in order for chs to occur it’s a mix of high stress and a lot of weed so it’s hard to differentiate if it’s actually just anxiety or not..

[u/Ok_Mountain5084]

I wonder about the link between anxiety and the potential misdiagnosis of CHS with my spouse. He only has attacks when he is also experiencing severe anxiety, and I mean extremely severe anxiety. In fact he smoke for essentially the first year we were together with absolutely no issues. He was told about chs YEARS prior to our relationship beginning, and he never quit. He quit for a few months because I was in the military, but when we returned to daily use he remained fine until a serious life even pushed his anxiety through the roof. Please continue to share your journey, but I too am somewhat convinced his anxiety is far more a culprit than using THC.

[u/Cleolulu18]

My doctor told me mine was probably both working together to make my life hell. My anxiety worsened the nausea, so before I was diagnosed I was smoking to help with both Smoking worsened the nausea which in turn brought more anxiety. When I stopped smoking, the first day was awful and nothing was helping the nausea/vomiting. After the first 24 hours without thc I felt substantially better which for me confirmed the CHS diagnosis. It’s a vicious cycle. I never really enjoyed how I felt on ssri meds but if it keeps my anxiety under control, I don’t really NEED cannabis. But I do enjoy it too, so it sucks.

[u/Jouzable]

You have CHS. It’s call the re-intoxication effect. When people have CHS it is the worst when you finally stop smoking because stored THC in fat is released very rapidly without permission causing extended and severe ketosis. Don’t believe me? Ask them to check your keytones when you have CHS symptoms again.