Marijuana - permanent anxiety?

Anthony, 22

I have been increasingly dependent on weed for the last 6 years or so.. This is my first day sober and my stomach is killing me. On top of that im feeling increasingly anxious (repeating melodies in my head over and over).. Man this is gonna suck! im more concerned about the stomach pain as it feels very solid behind my chest, as if im not digesting anything.. is there any way to sort of Relax the upper stomach?

Hey guy, I have had this exact same experience. Down to every little heart skip and continued, but lessoned experiences after quitting. I am soon to be 21 years old. I quit smoking nearly around 3 years ago and the small "explosions" as you call them haven't stopped. I get them anywhere from 0-30 times a day. I think I have less of a vision blackout as you describe it, but I definitely can relate to the sudden instant rush from the skip and thats right when I know the first one for the day has occurred. I have seriously spent 100's of hours investigating this experience and have a few possible answers.

THINGS TO NOTE:

1. Your heart was beating incredibly fast. My heart would increase to over 200 beats per minute during an episode and sustain that rate for 2-10 minutes without slowing. Such a speed is very dangerous and you should quit smoking because It does decrease the episodes strength and quantity.



2. I have developed a few techniques for muffling the effects of each episode. One major and most necessary tactic is to keep your mind occupied! Seriously, if you feel that first skip or feel your heart rate increasing without warning, go start doing the dishes or call somebody close to you.



3. I have heard on several accounts that smoking marijuana can trigger the development of heart murmers. Perhaps that is what the skipping is all about, but who knows. I have been hospitalized from these episodes before and been hooked up to heart monitors, but I was unfortunate enough to not have a skip, so nobody has a clue yet what I have been talking about.



4. I smoked for around 2 years (several times a day) and never really had a calm high. It was always a very intense and nervous experience. I, somehow, found myself addicted until the day my first episode occurred. Within a few months of that experience, I had completely quit and never intend on returning to such horror.



5. Be prepared to lose friends and respect of friends. I am still offered/asked to smoke several times a week and I havent smoked in around 3 years, but as I'm sure you are aware of, such a loss is nothing after the experience we have endured. I have family and I want to stay with them, so there is no reason to risk death (that is the risk, don't convince yourself otherwise).



6. I still enjoy looking at marijuana and even roll up for my friends quite often, but I have NO craving whatsoever. Unfortunately, I am reminded almost every day of the skip and increased heart rate when I have a mini episode. I say mini because It has become a normal part of my life. You could honestly catch me doing dishes at 3 in the morning with a heart rate of 180+ per minute and hardly notice anything all that much out of the ordinary. It has been with me for so long that I have learned to conceal such horror. Once each episode is over, I am incredibly weak. Experiencing 2-10 straight minutes of adrenaline really takes it out of me. I will be weak and so shaky I can hardly hold a cup or even drink liquid from it for over a half hour.



7. GET MEDICAL INSURANCE FAST! I have been to the doctor/emergency room so many times I cant even estimate, but I never experienced an episode while at the doctors/hospital, so they never found out. I am telling you right now, get TIGHT with your doctor and start the testing. I have lost my career and almost all ability to socialize because of my condition. I now have little to no income, no medical coverage, no diagnosis and I am constantly fighting something potentially lethal almost every day.



8. All I can really advise in stone is DONT SMOKE, GET MEDICAL COVERAGE AND TEST, TRY TO DEVELOP "calm me downs" and dont over do it.



9. Try investigating irregular-irregular heart beats. It is a condition I only recently became aware of. My uncle has it and has been a marijuana smoker for nearly his whole life. They only caught it when he was under heavy sedation for a surgery. Its a possibility that we have a common problem developed from smoking that isn't exactly what doctors believe it to be. I can trigger my skips and even the episodes, so its not an irregular-irregular heartbeat as they described, but could be what they diagnose as such. Hope this helps bud, keep me posted. *****



Kevin.

i am 23 years old and delt with anxiety at a young age around 10-12 years old. i never did any drugs during that time. i started smoking regularly when i turned about 17. at around when i hit 19 or 20, i started getting severe panic attacks every time i smoked. so i just only took a few hits when i smoked and just would get a mild high, and it brought my tolerance way down eventually so that mild high became more like a medium high. since i have had anxiety in the past and treated it with medication, i decided to see a psychiatrist. he prescribed me to zoloft. started at a very low dose and gradually built up to eventually 200mgs the highest for my weight (140lbs). at first their were minor side effects but they went away. it took almost a month for the zoloft to work but it works great. i never get anxiety anymore, even when i smoke. it feels so good to be able to smoke larger amounts again. i consider myself an addict and i NEVER tried to recover and never will. i have the will power to quit when i need to. withdrawls are very minor mostly psychological. i have quit for weeks for drug testing for new jobs without a problem. the only reason i consider myself an addict is because i smoke usually several times a day and i crave when i dont. but i can withstand waiting whenever i want. their is a difference between addiction and dependence.

ok..so,i used to smoke a ton of pot..i just loved the high,i was just young and living it up..getting high was the thing,and..it took your mind off of everything..i recently started getting really bad panic/anxiety attacks when smoking,so..i quit..i started going to a therapist to try to control these anxiety attacks..you wouldnt believe how much it helps,having anxiety attacks are random,but there are things that trigger the attacks.of course you dont know what triggers them,going to a therapist can help figure all of this out..just wanted to let you know,your not crazy,and your not alone.

Hey guys, Im an 18 year old posting to relate to you all about these issues. I myself am experiencing a sort of sensation of waves on my skin whenever i move anything smoothly over my body, anywhere, like the sensation is coming in at a low frame rate. I smoked once a few weeks ago, and it seems i havent come down after my second try, which was 3 days ago, even after resting and drinking a lot of water. Im starting to wonder if this strange sensation is ever going to go away. I also had many panic attacks, feelings of anxiety, and although my head has cleared up a bit now, its still discomforting and immensely scary to feel so strange. My friends all came down fine, and it made me even more worried when the morning after i was fine until i had tremors from a chilly breeze and the sensation started up again. I dont know if you guys know anything about this, but im really looking for some help as to what might be keeping this around, and ways to deal with it. Is it possible that i am super sensitive to the weed, and its going to go away eventually? As far as i know it was straight weed, and my friends have all recovered. It's scary thinking that this feeling wont go away, and i talked to my therapist and everyone says it will. Perhaps this strange sensation is part of my anxiety? My mind is clear, but this feeling just gets me worried, like im not myself, and for the past 3 days ive just been in hell.

i have been smoking for about 13 years steady... nearly half of my life. Recently i smoked about four back to back gravity bongs, and then began watching some UFC. to make a long story short the fight was gruesome and when the guy fell from a roundhouse kick knockout i started feeling lightheaded. After it showed it about 10 times the eleventh time they realized that his foot snapped completely backwards as he fell. when i saw this i was overcome by the same feeling i had where heart rate speeds up and everything goes to dots(i had the feeling twice before after experiencing extreme pain) i started walking around and trying to control my breathing but it didnt completely work. my wife told me to sit on the ground and i did. About that time i passed out cold layed out on the floor... i had the craziest thoughts and dreams while i was out(i was in a car speeding toward a wall and i couldnt use the brakes... i could hear my wife in the background calling the ambulance and it became part of my dream) when i came too about a minute later i jumped up and began walking around the house. I felt very weird and uncomfortable. The meds came and checked me out and i was okay. i was just a little shaken and confused. This was about a month ago and i just brushed it off as a freak occurance. I slowly started smoking again over the next two weeks and had two feelings that felt like i was about to go into the anxiety attack again.(both times where after smoking and during intense movies) i was able to control them with breathing so i forgot about it. This previous weekend( i had cut down to smoking every third day) i smoked smoke kush one hit out of the gravity bong and got really high instantly. i was good for about ten twenty and i was playing pool in the same room where i passed out a month before. and i started feeling like it was about to happen again for no reason. it was like an awful electric pulse shooting through my body about to trigger that crazy feeling where everything goes to dots so i excused myself for my guests and went outside to get some fresh air with my air dog. i sat outside basically in mediation state and felt alright my self. Whenever anybody came near i triggered the feelings all over again. I made it through the night and came to the conclusion that i would never smoke again. the next day i woke up feeling better.. but as i was driving my grand mother around the feelings came back in a more mild form.. i was able to control it with breathing and water but in my mind i was freaking myself out that i was gonna pass out while driving. the rest of the day i was uneasy in public places... just wanted to be out of there. Today i went a couple places like a normal day and felt decent.. but while in the movie store i felt like it was gonna kick on again(more mild) and i had to get out of there) i havent been driving just to be cautious
So to all the smokers out there be careful.. this stuff came out of nowhere

So i will take up more meditation and exercise. I think when the thc leaves my system ill be better... i truly believe in mind over matter and im gonna stay sober and beat this, I am glad that i am not the only with this problem... which i think is fairly common

I had panic attacks long before I started to smoke Marijuana (14 and general anxiety from the age of 5, probably all my life.) but I still get/got them from Marijuana on a very rare occasion. Yes, I do believe it can "trigger" anxiety issues but if Marijuana didn't trigger your's, I believe firmly that something else would have. I'm not a doctor but if you are prone to anxiety I believe it will manifest in one way or another eventually.

Anxiety and Panic Attacks are the closest thing to a hell on earth as there is. In my humble opinion. Yet, it has plagued and tortured me, it has made me who I am and I would never change that for anything.

There is in a sense a cure that works within' 15-20 minutes for Panic Attacks, Xanax. Xanax has stopped panic attacks for me, I don't even know how many times. Now, Xanax unlike Marijuana is addictive and could can kill you if you use too much.

The flip side to all this is, I believe if you have the correct mindset MOST of the time I believe Marijuana can put things in perspective and actually help if you're in the right state of mind. Maybe not for all but for me, yes.

Good luck

Look dude, your right if you abuse the drug then it can have some bad effects on your body, but what doesn't have bad effects if you abuse it, even food can have bad effects on you. So you need to grow some nuts and learn to just smoke some designer dosiure daily >;)

hey guys. im 15 years old and i started to smoke weed back when i was 14... (few months before i turned 15)..

And i smoked all the way up till about june ( i hade alot of weed all the time and it was supplied to me by my step father. so i hade to alot, and smoked every hour on the hour every day.. 7 days a week, and i did it heavily...)

well anyways, in June, it was on a monday morning and it was early. and I was sitting at the computer ( no weed i smoked ) and my heart started racing for no reason. and i started to freak and My hands and feet went numb. Basically my whole body went numb.. .then i felt this locking in my chest. (but it didnt hurt ) But i was really really numb..

and ever since those panic attacks i've hade this weird vision problem.... I wear glasses. So it isnt that bad. but my eyes play alot of tricks on me.. Like if look somewhere for 2 seconds it gets very blury and i have to blink me eyes. And when i take the glasses off i can still see things fine. But its kind of blury. and i can see like theres whiteish static all over the walls. And when i look around i'll feel like im not even here. like im some guy looking through my eyes. But there is time i do feel "real"

and then most of the times i dont. And my eyes will sometimes make me feel dizzy or im spinning when im laying down.

And an object moved in the corner of my eyes. but it didnt.. and i'll feel nausea sometimes in the stomach... Just recenctly i was diagnosed with heart arrythmia from "scarlet fever" when i was a younger kid... I have hade 2 ulcers in my life.. and ever since i started smoking weed and quit after my panic attacks i have now been sober for 6 months and i still have this weird vision problem..

If this vision problem would go away. i would feel healthy.. And i hope i dont have to live with this. cause i dont know if its damage from the weed .... or something else... Or if its just in my head. but its bad... Cause when i walk outside during the day.... The grass is hard to look at cause sometimes it makes me sick..

even the open sky..

please, I dont want to live with this... They even did MRI on my brain and a ultra sound on my heart I also have ringing in my ears when its quiet... not so much when there is sound..

please reply to me.

I am 23, have been smoking heavily for 3-4 years now. I've read a ton of these posts. I think marijuana has negative effects, I'm not denying that. However, I feel like a large number of these problems are issues outside of your marijuana use. In fact, I feel like many of these problems caused your heavy uses of marijuana. Possibly your issues weren't as exasperated as they are now, but of course they would get worse if you found a band-aid solution rather than a real one.
Before I started smoking I was a social and studious kid, but deep down I was always anxious around people but I hid it well. I was also lazy deep down, but working hard got me girls. Now I live in nyc where anyone can get girls no matter how much of a bum they are. One day after I moved here a bunch of my friends pissed me off and I picked up smoking for a weekend rather than going out. I found that I enjoyed myself so much more alone and actually saved money.
This revelation turned into a normal thing and I even got new friends who did similar and were more laid back than my old ones. As time progressed I found myself more anxious in public and socially a little. It wasn't the buds though, but rather that I was out of practice cause I spent wayyy more time being anti-social. I even forgot how to meet girls as well as I had used to.
Then I took a good time off because I wanted to see how my life would be different. To be honest the first couple weeks were filled with nervousness and uncertainty because weed had gotten me used to a more private lifestyle. However, after a few weeks and not letting it get to my head I was 'old gambling man Peter' again. In fact I felt more socially relaxed than I did before I started smoking because getting over the initial anxieties has made me more confident than ever. Now if I ever get nervous I know I'll be fine and immediately calm down. Also I feel like a nicer guy now because all that self reflection while smoking made me realize the penis things I did that I wasn't aware of.
I suppose my point is that you can't start blaming things like marijuana for your personal issues. Everyone has personality snags, drug users and sober people. It's up to you to find healthy solutions to them rather than find excuses and feel bad for yourself.
Just don't lose your confidence whatever you do. Don't smoke all day, just when it makes sense. Smile a lot. Remember people are just like you. Look people in the eye. More than anything don't be ashamed of your drug use. 99% of the world depends on some kind of drug. Yours just happened to be illegal, even though it is less dangerous than most of the legal ones. It doesn't make you weak, it just makes you human.
-Eazy Jr.

I am 23, have been smoking heavily for 3-4 years now. I've read a ton of these posts. I think marijuana has negative effects, I'm not denying that. However, I feel like a large number of these problems are issues outside of your marijuana use. In fact, I feel like many of these problems caused your heavy uses of marijuana. Possibly your issues weren't as exasperated as they are now, but of course they would get worse if you found a band-aid solution rather than a real one.
Before I started smoking I was a social and studious kid, but deep down I was always anxious around people but I hid it well. I was also lazy deep down, but working hard got me girls. Now I live in nyc where anyone can get girls no matter how much of a bum they are. One day after I moved here a bunch of my friends pissed me off and I picked up smoking for a weekend rather than going out. I found that I enjoyed myself so much more alone and actually saved money.
This revelation turned into a normal thing and I even got new friends who did similar and were more laid back than my old ones. As time progressed I found myself more anxious in public and socially a little. It wasn't the buds though, but rather that I was out of practice cause I spent wayyy more time being anti-social. I even forgot how to meet girls as well as I had used to.
Then I took a good time off because I wanted to see how my life would be different. To be honest the first couple weeks were filled with nervousness and uncertainty because weed had gotten me used to a more private lifestyle. However, after a few weeks and not letting it get to my head I was 'old gambling man Peter' again. In fact I felt more socially relaxed than I did before I started smoking because getting over the initial anxieties has made me more confident than ever. Now if I ever get nervous I know I'll be fine and immediately calm down. Also I feel like a nicer guy now because all that self reflection while smoking made me realize the penis things I did that I wasn't aware of.
I suppose my point is that you can't start blaming things like marijuana for your personal issues. Everyone has personality snags, drug users and sober people. It's up to you to find healthy solutions to them rather than find excuses and feel bad for yourself.
Just don't lose your confidence whatever you do. Don't smoke all day, just when it makes sense. If you do quit, ease out of it so you don't get withdrawal if you were a heavy user. Smile a lot. Remember people are just like you. Look people in the eye. More than anything don't be ashamed of your drug use. 99% of the world depends on some kind of drug. Yours just happened to be illegal, even though it is less dangerous than most of the legal ones. It doesn't make you weak, it just makes you human.
-Eazy Jr.

First of all, I want some of whatever hesus38 has been smoking. Exactly what is that "mechanism" that controls brain signal paths? Disseminating some fantasy about how marijuana causes it's effects, and presenting it as fact, isn't helping anyone. I can't believe how much utterly useless drival you've spewed here.

Permanent anxiety? If you are having anxiety/panic attacks or other mental aberrations, you'd probably be having them whether you smoke pot or not. Most likely, you were smoking weed to deal with issues you already had, so don't blame it on the herb. Those who claim to have been "addicted" to marijuana are delusional. You may have experienced compulsive/obsessive behavior, but you were by no stretch of the word, addicted. Quitting would have produced no physical withdrawl symptoms, and any continued desire for the drug is simply a manifestation of your underlying psychosis. Calling it psychologically addictive is a cop-out. Get a life, and it will all get better. Turn off the TV, put down the game controller, step away from the computer and engage in social activities.

iam just like you. lol im 16 and smoke until my eye bleed haha not that much but you get it. and one day i got sum dro and was reay to get high. I was having a great time untill i started to feel funny I was with my best Friend at my house and it felt like i was high and my head felt like there was something wrong with it like it was bleeding or something I think i was having a panic attack because after i was done being high i felt normal. If you get this message plez reply I want to know sum more symptoms.

Finally; people that feel this as well. I have been feeling things like anxiety and paranoia for a while. In my case things have gotten bad. Like an earlier poster said "conspiracy Theory". I have been getting these... But excessively. I will be scared to go out thinking something is going to happen to me, weither it be getting jumped, getting hurt, or what ever. Regardless i had been this wild A.D.H.H child as a kid.

Now at 19, I do still smoke marijuana, and have excessively this whole Christmas break. Smoking about 3 or 4 "Bong Tokes" ever hour or 2. Its getting to be a little much I know, but just completing my first semester of College, I had passed sucessfully by locking my self in my room and Smoking, and homework. I got all my homework completed and ended the semester with 80's, so I was pretty proud of my self.

Anyways I have this strong sence of paranoia and anxiety, but I dont want to quit smoking... I like smoking pot because like most people it keeps us relaxed... Anyways I dont really know what im stating here other than that there is another person feeling what you are feeling.

P/s - Everyone is noticing these anxiety and paranoia feelings at the quitting stages... but i have been smoking for 2 years with a 1 year gap in the midding (1 on/ 1 off/ 1 on). Has anyone found a way to get rid of the paranoia with casually smoking?

Wow, I didn't realize how many people were affected like this. I smoked like three times, totally normal highs, then the fourth time I smoked I freaked out. I've had panic attacks when I was younger, so I realized that what must have been happening, but soon it turned into a full blown trip. I almost passed out, then I didn't remember where or who or what I was, I didn't recognize my friends and thought they were all going to kill me... then I started seeing things, I lost all sense of my individuality and started to accept that I had become part of the universe... all the while I was shaking uncontrollably and occasionally thought I was melting. It lasted about 2 hours until I was "ok," but for months afterwards I had a total new sense of derealization/depersonalization, paranoia, and I plainly thought I was losing it. It's been a little over a year now and I've been on three different anxiety/depression medicines... I feel better, but if I dwell on it I can get myself back into that mindset. I know it sounds crazy, but I'd like to get back to smoking, so I could have a "normal" high... I mean I don't like having this fear keep me from doing something I used to like to do.

I don't know if it was just a bad experience or if it just affects certain people more intensely... and if so, what's the imbalance in our brains that cause it? :?