Medical Marijuana Almost Killed My Husband

My husband had an anaphylactic response to a new strain of medical marijuana. He had never had an allergic reaction to it before, but it tried to kill him.

"911, what's your emergency?"

Just over 24 hours ago I was making a call I could never have imagined making. I was calling for an ambulance to come get my husband because he was having a severe reaction to his medical marijuana.

Neither of us imagined that using medical marijuana for his social anxiety could be dangerous. We have friends who use it very successfully and my husband had smoked it several times before. But his particular strain proved to be exceedingly dangerous.

He took a single dose and ended up with an allergic reaction similar to anaphylaxis. He got up after taking the dose and headed to the bathroom to shower.

Seconds later he yelled for me. "Cindy, can you help me?"

I thought he needed me to trim his hair or scoop the litter box. I walked back to where he was.

"What do you need?"

"911 help. Feels like I'm having a stroke."

My very articulate husband doesn't speak in half sentences. His speech was slightly slurred and be was moving funny.

My phone was sitting on my desk in the office, so I ran to get it and he followed me to the office, leaning against my desk as I spoke to the operator.

"Please hurry. Can't breathe."

He repeated himself half a dozen times, maybe more, as I gave the operator our address and the nearest cross street. She dispatched the ambulance and I tried to hold back the tears.

My husband is 45. He's smart and funny. He was standing there shaking, barely able to hold himself up, and telling me how much it hurt.

The ambulance took less than 10 minutes to arrive, but it felt like forever. By the time they arrived, he could not walk three steps without assistance. Every major muscle in his back, arms and legs was spasming, cramping tighter and tighter.

As they took him to the ambulance, they assembled a breathing tube, telling him, "Your oxygen stats are dropping. If they keep going down, we're going to have to intubate."

Once the crisis was over, my husband described it like being locked in his own head. He could understand what was being said to him, but taking the words from his mind to his mouth wasn't happening.

The ambulance took him to the hospital and I followed in our car after grabbing his clothes, the vape pen and cartridge he'd been using, and his insurance cards.

Luckily, the hospital was allowing one person to accompany patients, despite the COVID-19 protocols. Unluckily, they refused to take me back to his space in the emergency room for almost an hour.

During that time, they ran blood tests, did a CT scan and an EKG. They asked him dozens of questions and then eventually had to come ask me the same ones as he was having trouble with multi-syllable words.

His throat tried to close and at various times when his muscles were spasming, he would have trouble catching his breath.

By the time I was brought back into the ER to where he was, the doctors were fairly certain he was having an allergic reaction and that there was little to do about it except wait it out.

They started an IV to give him fluids to help flush the toxins from his system and were monitoring him.

When I walked in, it was like someone with advanced Parkinson's had taken over my healthy husband. He spoke in very elongated words, telling me that it was "frust...ust..stra...stra...ting." It was like combination of stammer and holding the vowels for as long as he could.

Worse yet, every muscle in his body seemed to be spasming. The hospital bed was actively bouncing as his legs and arms shook. They had given him a plastic vomit bag after he threw up once and he couldn't hold it still.

The pain looked to be excruciating. One muscle after another would charley horse, locking down. Sometimes it would be several all at the same time.

Two hours after he had a single two second puff of the new strain, the worst of the muscle spasms seemed to subside. He could breathe a little easier, but his mind and mouth connection was still delayed.

He told me, "I can hear you in real time, but it's like there's a time delay before I can speak."

I found myself not asking questions because each delay made me worry that whatever had happened had caused damaged to his brain.

After four hours, he could speak more clearly, but still not at the same pace or with the same vocabulary he was used to. He had to hunt for the word he wanted, but he was more able to move.

Five and a half hours after I first called the paramedics, he could walk on his own enough to come home.

It took nearly 24 hours before his mental function returned to normal.

Today, once the worst of it had passed, he told me how terrifying it was not to be able to breathe. The nurses and doctors in the ER had advised him to try a different strain of medical marijuana, but he thinks he'll be skipping it altogether.

"Just the thought of trying it again is enough to induce a panic attack," he said.

After we were home and he was breathing easier, we both turned to Dr. Google to figure out if this was some weird anomaly.

Turns out, there are increasing incidents of marijuana allergies being reported. Doctors posit that it is because the drug is being legalized for medical and recreational use in more places.

And people who are allergic to cat dander, dust mites, smoke and plants are more likely to have a reaction. My husband is allergic to all of those except for cat dander.

His reaction to the drug was similar to acute THC poisoning or anaphylactic shock. The doctors said if he had taken more than an experimental dose it could have been deadly. As it was, it nearly closed of his breathing passages.

After spending $300 to get his medical marijuana card and another $150 on his first trials of marijuana, the decision to abandon medical marijuana in favor of a different anxiety treatment was painful, at least financially.

But the lesson we learned is that while medical marijuana works for many people, it is not the right decision for him.

We are still advocates for the legalization of medical and recreational marijuana, but like many other medications, it is not without potential side effects. We just wish someone had told us before we found out the painful and terrifying way.