The pain was “worse than childbirth,” a TikTok mother recalled as she described terrifying episodes of nonstop vomiting that followed her marijuana use.
“I was crying and screaming, saying I couldn’t take it anymore,” she said in her video, describing how she begged for the agony to stop.
On social media, the condition has been nicknamed “scromiting” — a mashup of “screaming” and “vomiting.” In medical terms, it’s known as cannabis hyperemesis syndrome (CHS), and cases are rising across the United States. Regular cannabis users, including teenagers, are increasingly showing up in emergency rooms with intense gastrointestinal distress.
“They’re doubled over, clutching their stomachs, and complaining of severe abdominal pain and nausea,” said Dr. Sam Wang, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist and toxicologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado, who treats adolescents with CHS.
According to Wang, once the vomiting starts, it can be relentless. “They’ll throw up, and then keep throwing up whatever is in their stomach — sometimes for hours,” he previously told CNN. Many patients report taking extremely hot showers before heading to the hospital, hoping it might offer relief, but often it doesn’t.
Initial treatment typically includes anti-nausea medications and intravenous fluids to address dehydration. At the same time, doctors often run extensive tests to rule out other illnesses — blood and urine workups, CT scans, upper GI endoscopy, gastric emptying studies, and more.
For some teens, this becomes a repeated ordeal.
“For some of our patients, it’s their fifth ER visit in two months with the same symptoms they can’t control,” Wang said.
If they delay care too long, the condition can become dangerous.
“Whether it’s CHS or another illness that causes frequent vomiting, if it goes on too long you can develop severe electrolyte imbalances, go into shock, and experience organ failure,” Wang said. “Cannabis hyperemesis syndrome is no exception.”
A Strange Side Effect of Heavy Cannabis Use
CHS first entered the medical literature in 2004, when Australian researchers reported on 19 chronic marijuana users who repeatedly experienced abdominal pain and retching. In follow-up, nine patients improved when they stopped using cannabis, only to have the symptoms return once they started again.
One curious detail stood out: More than half said they relied on very hot baths or showers to soothe their symptoms. As more cases emerged, this odd behavior became a hallmark of the syndrome.
“It’s almost universal that these patients say they need a really, really hot shower or bath to feel any relief,” Wang said.
Why heat helps — or seems to — is still unclear. One theory centers on tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive compound in marijuana. THC interacts with pain receptors in the body, so the intense heat may distract the brain from the abdominal pain and nausea, temporarily interrupting the cycle.
The paradox is striking: THC and other cannabinoids are often used to ease pain and reduce nausea and vomiting, especially in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Yet in CHS, the same drug appears to trigger extreme nausea and vomiting in some heavy users. Research on marijuana’s effectiveness as a pain reliever has been mixed, and experts are still trying to understand why it can help some people while harming others.
One factor may be how potent today’s products have become.
“It’s well documented that THC levels in cannabis have risen significantly,” Wang said. “In the 1990s, the average THC content was around 4% or 5%. Now in Colorado, you commonly see products ranging from 15% to 20%.”
Another open question: why only some frequent users develop CHS.
“We don’t yet know who is more likely to get it,” Wang said. “Is it related to how often they use, how long they’ve been using, the potency, or the type of product? We simply don’t have that data yet.”
Evidence That CHS Is Growing More Common
Research suggests CHS is now a nationwide issue. A 2020 study looking at hospitalizations for cyclical vomiting between 2005 and 2014 — when most states had only legalized medical marijuana — found that nearly 1 in 5 hospitalized patients with that diagnosis reported using cannabis.
After Colorado legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, Wang and colleagues examined ER data and found more than 800,000 cases of vomiting attributed to cannabis between 2013 and 2018 — roughly a 29% increase after legalization. Their study, published in September 2021, found the highest rates in counties that previously had no marijuana dispensaries.
A more recent study, released in July 2025, reported that emergency room visits for adolescents ages 13 to 21 increased more than tenfold between 2016 and 2023. Another study published in November 2025 found that CHS rates among adults ages 18 to 35 surged during the early pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 and have remained elevated.
All of these findings, however, come with an important caveat. There is still no dedicated medical diagnosis or insurance billing code specifically for cannabis hyperemesis syndrome, which makes it hard to track accurately. To study CHS, researchers have had to cross-reference medical records of vomiting with documented or self-reported cannabis use — information many patients may be hesitant to share.
Even with those limitations, the trend is clear: As cannabis use — and THC potency — has climbed, so have reports of this painful and sometimes dangerous syndrome.
