weed causing heavy heart beat

my friend has smoked for years. all of a sudden it started making his heart rate increase and beat alot heavier. he has been to a specialist and they say there is nothing wrong with him. he has reluctantly stopped weed.

has anyone else had this experience or know anything about it?

Panic/anxiety attack. Smoke more indicas.

we have only been smoking indicas mate. its not anxiety

I started having an experience like that with random palpitations a few months ago when I was still almost exclusively using hash oil, 10 or more "dabs" a day. Also was getting random anxiety attacks out of nowhere, unable to breathe for several seconds...really scary shit, especially for a healthy dude like me. Had to cut back considerably and the problem went away.

Not sure if that helps you but maybe you just happened upon a strong strain that affects your buddy differently than others? Or is this with several different strains? All the pot coming from the same grower or is it commercial?

jd4083 said:

I started having an experience like that with random palpitations a few months ago when I was still almost exclusively using hash oil, 10 or more "dabs" a day. Also was getting random anxiety attacks out of nowhere, unable to breathe for several seconds...really scary shit, especially for a healthy dude like me. Had to cut back considerably and the problem went away.

Not sure if that helps you but maybe you just happened upon a strong strain that affects your buddy differently than others? Or is this with several different strains? All the pot coming from the same grower or is it commercial?

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i think he has irregular beats aswell. he says it happens with any weed now, even just a few puffs, doesnt weather its smoking or vaping. so i dont think its down to a certain strain. he was smoking for about 5 years before this

I'm sorry to say it again my friend, but this keeps sounding like anxiety and/or panic. You know there are people who go to the emergency room thinking they're having a heart attack only to find out they are having a panic attack instead, right? It's very reasonable.

I do wish him the best of luck toward figuring it out.

l orange bud l said:

i think he has irregular beats aswell. he says it happens with any weed now, even just a few puffs, doesnt weather its smoking or vaping. so i dont think its down to a certain strain. he was smoking for about 5 years before this

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Cannabis use is known to bring out latent psychoses and those can take several years to show up in day to day life...I wonder if general anxiety qualifies? Maybe he actually is having panic attacks or anxiety attacks as mentioned above and just doesn't recognize it? I feel for him, hope he gets it worked out or at least figures out what's wrong.

maybe he has new stress or issues in his life that are effecting him mentally

Has he tried chewing a couple black pepper corns prior to smoking....

blastfrompast said:

Has he tried chewing a couple black pepper corns prior to smoking....

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What?

Snook said:

What?

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Must be a ritual of some sort lol

With all seriousness not everyone is cut out for a lifetime filled with smoke . I know many people who had a point of no return so to say . Sometimes it just fucks with peoples minds to much and other people just experience panic attacks and paranoia as a side effect . I have also meet some oddballs that fainted due to smoking weed - that was the most weirdest of them all . Smoke a bowl with someone and 5 minutes later they faint out of the middle of nowhere .

Reasons for these conditions all have underlying factors that are most likely not known . Our own chemistry also comes into play as well and this factor must always be accepted and that it changes .

Just for the note too , too many people generalize Indica and Sativa without leaving leeway for the exceptions to the rule . There are some Indica plants that can be very sat like in effect and there are Sativa's that can knock ones dick in the dirt like Indica /kush ..

Best wishes .....PeacePipe

l orange bud l said:

my friend has smoked for years. all of a sudden it started making his heart rate increase and beat alot heavier. he has been to a specialist and they say there is nothing wrong with him. he has reluctantly stopped weed.

has anyone else had this experience or know anything about it?

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Many people have this reaction. The solution? Quit using it, at least for awhile, as in a few months.

Try tinctures sublingual (under tongue). Pack a jar with material, pour spirit....brandy, rum, highest % pervolume recommended. Put in a dark cupboard, shaking every few days. A month later strain. Good in coffee/tea....or straight. Better than palpatations....if a history of hypertension (high blood pressure), it can have undesirable results.

l orange bud l said:

my friend has smoked for years. all of a sudden it started making his heart rate increase and beat alot heavier. he has been to a specialist and they say there is nothing wrong with him. he has reluctantly stopped weed.

has anyone else had this experience or know anything about it?

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edibles.

Sniffing black pepper can kill the anxiety attack associated with weed. Cheap and easy to try. Google it.

Honestly, I see this coming up again and again. And once your brain associated getting high with an anxiety attack then it's very hard to stop it reoccurring. Seems to always be longer term, daily smokers who suddenly have this start up. Any strain harvested early can trigger it in my experience.

A break from smoking can help. Maybe edibles are worth a shot. Takes time until you can actually enjoy weed again.

xxPeacePipexx said:

With all seriousness not everyone is cut out for a lifetime filled with smoke . I know many people who had a point of no return so to say . Sometimes it just fucks with peoples minds to much and other people just experience panic attacks and paranoia as a side effect . I have also meet some oddballs that fainted due to smoking weed - that was the most weirdest of them all . Smoke a bowl with someone and 5 minutes later they faint out of the middle of nowhere .

Reasons for these conditions all have underlying factors that are most likely not known . Our own chemistry also comes into play as well and this factor must always be accepted and that it changes .

Just for the note too , too many people generalize Indica and Sativa without leaving leeway for the exceptions to the rule . There are some Indica plants that can be very sat like in effect and there are Sativa's that can knock ones dick in the dirt like Indica /kush ..

Best wishes .....PeacePipe

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hey ive been the oddball that fainted after smoking weed. for me anyway it seemed to be blood sugar related. hasn't happened to me in years, because when I feel it coming on (usually several minutes before it happens.) I get something to eat and the faint lightheaded feeling goes away. snickers or something with all three sugar fat and protein seems to work best.

also low blood sugar can make you have severe anxiety as well, even if it doesn't make you faint

Tell your friend to try consuming more potassium. Potassium deficiency causes arrhythmia (palpitations), muscle cramps, etc. I had this same problem for a long time, I even wore a holter monitor for 48 hours to monitor my heartbeat. At the end of it, they told me nothing was wrong with me and that it was pretty common for young, tall, skinny people around my age to have heart palpitations. I wasn't very convinced.
Fast forward to a couple years later, and my research on foliar potassium in agriculture incidentally leads me to some info on potassium deficiency in humans. Turns out that one of the symptoms of a potassium deficiency in the blood is heart arrhythmia. Potassium also helps your muscles contract, helps your nerves function normally, and helps to maintain a normal blood pressure, all of which are contributing factors to your heart beat.

So, I changed my daily diet to include more potassium rich foods like spinach, bananas, oranges, mushrooms, pinto beans, etc. Some days I feel like a monkey because I'll eat a whole bushel of bananas, but I can get as stoned as I want without any heart discomfort. Now my heart palpitations are just a reminder that I'm getting low on potassium, so when I start to feel minor palpitations I just go munch on a big mouthful of spinach like Popeye and it goes away! After ten minutes or so I can smoke as much as I want, even hitting a huge bong with lots of drag with no issues, something that I couldn't handle when I was dealing with a potassium deficiency. Ever since I solved my problem, I've been pretty happy about it; because I was dealing with these issues for so long I had come to accept the palpitations as some sort of genetic predisposition. For a couple years I was drinking galangal root tea on a daily basis to alleviate my heart pains, and I had recommended it to a close friend of mine who was having the same issues as me. He didn't like it for some reason, and was reluctant to try it to see if it would help. Now that I've told him of my success with potassium, he's tried it and reported that it solved his heart issues too.

In addition to that, I've described this whole scenario to two other friends, who I was unaware had similar issues, and both told me they occasionally experienced the same thing and would try to eat more potassium (bananas seem to be everyone's go-to). Sure enough, both of them reported that they could toke as fat as they wanted to on days when they consumed adequate potassium. And for the people who think this could be an anxiety attack or something similar, the only anxiety I experienced due to this deficiency was when the doctors told me it was normal and I thought I just had a "weak heart", and would have to deal with it for the rest of my life. Thinking that I had this inherent physical weakness that I would have to compensate for was a little stressful. However, when you are in the middle of a smoke session with a bunch of buddies and you have to tap out because of palpitations, it's not because of anxiety, it's more like, "Huh, that last rip made my heart hurt a little bit every other beat or so. I guess I should stop smoking for now. Damn I wanted to get higher though, oh well." The pain that it causes is minor enough to where one could keep smoking if they were determined enough to get more baked. However, it is enough pain that most will stop their smoke break due to the discomfort or concern for their health. Now that I fully understand (I think) what causes my heart palpitations, they don't concern me at all when they happen, I just go eat some spinach like Popeye and then it's back to the grind

Hope this helps,
VK

Oh, and I would like to mention that during my time dealing with this deficiency I experienced plenty of palpitations that were unrelated to smoking marijuana. They would happen randomly on days when I hadn't even smoked, although they never happened during times of intense physical activity, thankfully. Consuming adequate potassium on a daily basis has stopped all of my heart palpitations, whether they be smoking induced or random and unrelated to smoking. As a side note, I once broke both of my legs snowboarding. For many years after the incident, I would sometimes be woken up in the middle of the night by intensely painful calf cramps, where my calf would seemingly ball up most of its mass into the upper half of my lower leg, right below the knee, and my foot would be in a weird twisted position. It looked crazy and was so painful I would wake up screaming. I went to a physical therapist for a while and I stretch daily to minimize these occurrences, but properly consuming potassium on a daily basis has been the final nail in the coffin for my leg cramps. I haven't been woken up in the middle of the night to leg cramps in about a half a year now.

I love potassium! It makes my buds, my heart, and my legs feel better

b8man said:

Sniffing black pepper can kill the anxiety attack associated with weed. Cheap and easy to try. Google it.

Honestly, I see this coming up again and again. And once your brain associated getting high with an anxiety attack then it's very hard to stop it reoccurring. Seems to always be longer term, daily smokers who suddenly have this start up. Any strain harvested early can trigger it in my experience.

A break from smoking can help. Maybe edibles are worth a shot. Takes time until you can actually enjoy weed again.

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Just like sea sickness.