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LearnNauseaMedical marijuana and nausea

April 25, 20192132

Nausea, which can be chronic or short-lived, depending on the cause, is simply described as having the urge to vomit.

While nausea and vomiting are an important physical response to prevent the ingestion of poisons or toxic levels of a potentially harmful substance, in some cases it can completely disrupt a person’s quality of life.

Reasons for nausea range from extreme pain, a negative reaction to the medications used to treat diseases such as cancer, the diseases themselves, illness, morning sickness, food poisoning, a response to anesthesia, gastrointestinal issues, or stimuli that trigger the area of the brain that controls vomiting (such as seeing someone else vomit or smelling something noxious, including vomit).

Symptoms include:

  • Discomfort in the back of the throat
  • Discomfort in the stomach
  • Headache
  • Fever
  • Diarrhea
  • Gas
  • Vomiting
  • Dizziness
  • Lightheadedness
  • Abdominal pain

Medical marijuana has long been used to help treat nausea, which is one of the reasons why it is so often recommended to cancer patients struggling with the side effects of strong chemotherapy. (A synthetic form of the drug was created specifically to treat nausea, and was at the forefront of medical marijuana research.)

This is particularly important because it allows people to eat and keep food down, helping to prevent cachexia, or chronic wasting disease, which often accompanies certain illnesses and is more likely to be the cause of death than the illness itself.

It also allows those with nausea to keep down any medications required to treat illness.

Medical marijuana is believed to be effective because the two main cannabinoids in cannabis, THC and CBD, interact with the endocannabinoid system’s cannabinoid receptor 1, which suppresses vomiting.

For patients suffering from nausea following cancer treatments, cannabis has effectively treated the more challenging symptoms of nausea, including anticipatory nausea in chemotherapy patients.

A 1975 study appearing in the New York State Journal of Medicine reported than more than three quarters of those whose nausea was not successfully controlled by traditional drugs saw relief after smoking medical marijuana.

In 1999, the Institutes of Medicine determined that medical marijuana in pill form were not the best method of delivery.

“In patients already experiencing severe nausea or vomiting, pills are generally ineffective, because of the difficulty in swallowing or keeping a pill down and slow onset of the drug effect. Thus, an inhalation (preferably not smoking) cannabinoid drug delivery system would be advantageous for treating chemotherapy-induced nausea,” the organization said in a report.

More recently, a 2014 report from researchers in Canada and the United States that appeared in the European Journal of Pharmacology looked at decades of medical marijuana research and concluded: “Nausea and vomiting are frequently debilitating conditions that require substantial effort and cost to manage. Advances in recent progress in understanding the regulation of nausea and vomiting by cannabinoids and the endocannabinoid system have revealed significant potential for therapeutic approaches to be developed. Future efforts aimed at developing new endocannabinoid-based anti-nausea and anti-emetic therapies are clearly warranted.”

Vaporized medical marijuana would be an effective alternative to smoking.

The medical marijuana strains most effective for treating nausea include Chemo (an indica-dominant strain developed in the 1970s to address nausea related to chemotherapy), OG Kush, Jack Herer, Mazar, New York City Diesel and Strawberry Cough.

If you or a loved one has nausea and want to get medical marijuana treatment in Puerto Rico, we can help. We make the process easy. Click here to get started.  This process is legal and your privacy is assured.

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