Marijuana and panic attacks

ok so i dont ever post replies, but i think i can help in this situation.

I have an MSc in Addiction Psychology, and I am also an avid smoker. Im 28 and I've been smoking on and off (mostly on) for 12 years. Please dont reply with 'I should know better' because with all my training and eductation,  I know more than you and still choose to smoke. That should tell you something.

I have only very recently starting experiencing panic attacks after smoking. The first one was about 4 months ago and was so bad I called a close friend and told him to call me back in 10 minutes and if I didnt answer, to call an ambulance to my house. I had never felt that way before. Im going to try and keep this short so I wont get into details, but similar to the rest of the posters in here. In the end nothing happened and I was fine. Since then, I have had a couple of milder attacks, but again, nothing has happened to me.

SO. The basic idea is that prolonged marijuana use, whether we like to admit or not, leads to paranoia and anxiety. Its just a fact. I do not mean extreme cases and links to schizophrenia are weak at best, but you DO develop an increase in paranoia and anxiety. Sometimes this anxiety can mount to the point where it overwhelms you, but the MOST IMPORTANT thing to remember is that it is ALL in your mind. You can overcome anxiety attacks ONLY by convincing yourself you are ok. Focus on your breathing and remind yourself that this is normal. It is not strange, and as you can see in the posts above, you are NOT the only one experiencing this. We have all lived to tell our tales, as will you. Identify in your mind that you are experiencing a panic attack, then repeatedly convince yourself that you have nothing to worry about and you NEED to relax. get mad at yourself if you need to! call yourself stupid! once you have convinced yourself of the fact that you are ok and do not need to go to the hospital, and did not smoke 'laced' weed, and your mind just got the better of you, you will very quickly calm down. 

So if you have the occasional panic attack after smoking a joint or hitting the bong, please try out my advice. Im speaking from experience and qualification. This being said, if you experience panic attacks on the regular, even when you are sober, then you should most definitely go see a psychologist or your GP. That is a whole other situtation.

I hope this helps someone :) enjoy your greenery! (but please stay away from all other drugs...the rest actually ARE bad)

I had the same attack idk what happens felt like I popped a x or a Molly

I'm so glad I found this page! I'm not a regular smoker but I do smoke occasionally with friends. last night I smoked and I got pretty high. my heart was racing so bad and I could like hear it in my ears. I couldn't hear anything else. I barley could even walk. I started to freak out. my body was like completely numb. I also kept having muscle spasms. I seriously thought I was going to die. never have I ever been so scared in my life. after all the stuff I read I'm assuming I was having a really bad panic attack. it lasted for like 3 hours. I tried to fall asleep but I was convinced that if I did, I would never wake up again. I think I'm done with smoking because that was honestly the scariest thing ever. I would never wish for anyone to go through that. If anyone reads this it'd be cool if maybe you could tell me why I had such a bad panic attack? like is there any reason, or does weed just affect people differently? any other time I have smoked I felt fine, just super chill.

You explain it exactly the way I do I feel like somsomeone is sitting on my chest but I sit in A hot shower and I feel bette

I just had a panic attack after smoking last night. It was the first time it had ever happened to me. I was calm and watching TV one minute and then I started thinking about the stresses going on in my life, and then boom.. it started. I felt like I was stuck in some other realm. I didnt know who I was, where I was, what life was, what the TV was.. etc. I couldnt remember anything and a voice inside kept screaming, wake up! But i was awake so I started to panic and my heart started to race so I drank a bottle of gatorade and tried eating but I couldnt remember how to swallow or at least it felt like it.. the guy i was with was so freaked out and he was talking to me about who i was and my friends and family so I could come back down from the trip. I was getting so cold and getting colder by the second, shivvering, tingling etc. Getting under 4 blankets started to help but my heart was beating so fast I could literally feel it through my chest (it was faster than a small rodents heart beat) it hurt to sit still so I kept moving and sitting up..i just remember thinking to myself that this was it, I was going to die. I was crying because I was scared but I still had no idea who I was and kept needing to be reminded by him. I finally fell asleep thinking I wasnt going to wake up but when I did I was so relieved I cried again. That was the worst experience of my life. I felt trapt in an internal hell of fear of what was reality and what was my imagination. The feeling of not coming out of a bad trip really started the entire panic and it just got worse from there. Id say what helped me was drinking a lot of water and telling myself it was ok, just a bad trip and itll end soon just sleep it off..

Hey could you maybe helo me ..as you started to smoke when you were 15 I have a question on you ... Ive had a joint when I was 15 with my friend and he was totaly chilled just laying back on the chair while my heart started racing like crazy and mywhole body started to have this unconntrollable shaking and I couldnt stop it my mouth was very dry and my hands were cold and sweaty and I didnt want to tell him so I jst said Im going to sleep because I was tired nd I shaked so much I couldnt talk properly... Do you k^maybe know why this happened? Couod it be because I was very stressed that day por because I was tired?

HI - what you said spoke to me. That one thing that got me on the path to beating panic attacks was when a doctor told me that one of the biggest fears people with panic attacks is passing out. He then told me out of all of the people that the treats for panic attacks - he can only recall a few people who actually passed out. Basically - the thing a lot of people are most fearful of is something that never happens. I think that started my recovery. Not overnight - but happened. I'm free.

Hiii! Even i had similar symptoms. I'm 17 and have been smoking weed for about 4 monthd and i have had a moment once where I was panicking amd thought i was zoning out. It was a string weed so i thought that was the reason why i felt that way and ignored whatever had hapoen that time. So yesterday i was annoyed and smoked weed just a joint all by myself and within 3-4 minutes it made ma feel sick. I was zoning out and the fact that i was zoning out made me scared. I started shuvering so baadd soo baad and slowly the bad things started kicking in. My heart started racing ssooo freaking fast i think it was 210 per second. I thought i was having a heart attack and slowly my whole body was soo cold soo cold that i thought my soul was leaving my body and then my hips started feeling numb and then i thought my body was getting paralyzed and slowly when i was trying to calm myself down carbonated bubbles started coming out of my mouth and then i thought the weed acted for me like a poison. I freaked out. I thought i was gonna die and later i slowly started calming down and thought it was a bad trip. Then i called my sister and started talking to her and even while talking to her i would zone out. I would talk to her about my "bad trip" but somehow i would end up mumbling about some lipstick. That is soo weiirddd. I have never ever felt that way and i'm so f*****g scared right now. Was it an illusion or was it something bad?

Are you a dropout Christian? Did you go to a parochial school at one time? Part of what you say sounds very familiar to what I went through years ago. I grappled with the guilt of quitting religion and at times it could be quite intense. So conditioned to church dogma and never really questioned it until I was in high school and quit going to church. I am now 68, still don't do church but am still torn at times about the conflicts I had 50 years ago along with new ones like getting old and dying. I smoke pot on pretty regular basis but have to take a break from it occasionally because it loses it's effectiveness over time and ineffectiveness also opens me to a lot of the nasty side effects of the plant such as tremors, panic, fear etc. I have found it best to just stop using for awhile (couple weeks or a month) and deal with the insomnia in other ways. My last 2 times smoking have been very upsetting with chills, shaking, tenseness, chattering teeth. I am able to make a conscious effort to control them some through breathing steady, drinking water and mental exercises.