Are you having surgery in the new year? While marijuana may help with pain management afterward, it could be a problem before the procedure.
“In the surgical world, there’s some concerns with increases in marijuana use and their impact on anesthesia,” said Dr. Kaitlin Mirkin, a bariatric surgeon who warns that cannabis users could require 10 times more anesthesia than non-users in order to stay asleep during the surgery.
“Anesthesia providers are seeing that people that routinely use a lot of marijuana have higher needs for pain medication preoperatively,” Mirkin said. “So during anesthesia, during the actual surgery itself, the anesthesia providers were asking to give them more pain medication, and sometimes afterwards as well.”
Doctors are also reporting a number of people coming into emergency rooms with stomach pain, and they said marijuana use might be to blame.
Mirkin said using too much marijuana can cause something called cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, or CHS.
“People are chronically nauseated, or have more vomiting issues, when they routinely use large amounts of marijuana,” she said.
Mirkin added that symptoms can include nausea, vomiting, dehydration and can even make patients go in and out of consciousness.
“If you’re using a lot of marijuana and you’re noticing that you are nauseated all the time, or you’re frequently vomiting, definitely talk to your doctor about it,” she said.
