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Dr. Andrew Rynne
MD
Dr. Andrew Rynne

Family Physician

Exp 50 years

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Anxiety And Nervousness After Smoking Marijuana. Blurred Vision. Long Term Eye Problems?

I know someone who smoked marijuana out of a plastic bottle-bong type contraption (one hit, but it was pretty big since the bong was made out of three normal sized bottles stacked on top of each other), and it was high grade weed. Everyone who is a regular weed smoker even says it was really strong their first time smoking that particular weed. This was only her second time smoking marijuana, but this was the first time smoking that particular marijuana, the first time she was told that it was… I guess for lack of a better term, not as strong. Immediately after smoking she felt very anxious, nervous, and scared and developed a kind of sick feeling. Everything looked like it was going so slowly, and through different "panels" or "scenes" like in a movie. It was very unpleasant for her. Even walking was hard for her to do.
After a while the anxious feeling turned into laughter followed by sleep. When she woke up, she said she can't quite remember if the anxiety was there when she woke up, but when she woke up her vision was now distorted. Because she is not very familiar with weed or a regular smoker she wasn't sure if this was a normal thing that just took a day to clear up. So she waited a day, her vision was still messed up and her anxiety was ridiculously high. It felt like constant butterflies in her stomach and almost like a burning in her chest. Some friends told her it was a "weed hangover", and that she just needed to drink lots of caffeine and sweat it out. The caffeine probably is what made the anxiety worse, and brought her to the point where she literally couldn't sleep for the next 4 days. Finally on the fifth day she was able to get some rest, although the anxiety and distorted vision were still there.
About a month later, after thinking this thing would clear up on its own, the anxiety finally disappeared, but the distorted vision/blurred vision remained. She went to see an ophthalmologist and got new glasses. The confusing thing is she noticed that her left eye which already has an astigmatism suddenly had extremely blurred vision when looking in the mirror to do makeup or something of that sort. The left eye was always worse than the right eye, but it was not a noticeable difference and the difference definitely would not affect her seeing when looking so close in a mirror, considering she is near-sighted. At this time, it also felt as though her eyes were crossed when her glasses were on or off (They didn’t look crossed, the FELT crossed).
During the first visit to the Doctor, he used pediatric eye drops (a lot stronger than the normal ones) to dilate her eyes and that caused the vision to become worse, not only that, she began to have muscle/eye spasms in the back of both eyes and depending on where the spasm was concentrated on that day (towards the middle, in only the left eye, corners of both eyes, etc.) the blurred vision would change and move to wherever the pain from the spasm was located. The muscle spasms lasted for about two weeks before they stopped. After changing ophthalmologists, her eyes were once again dilated, pressure taken, cornea measured, vision fields done, and no one saw anything wrong with her eyes. After several visits to the doctor, she was just going to see if waiting another month would work, then her left eye began to look red, and extremely light sensitive and the eye itself started to look smaller than the other eye, so she went back to the doctor immediately and inquired about the possibility of uveitis. The doctor said he was unable to see the usual signs of uveitis when he examined her eye under the microscope, but just prescribed her with some generic Tobradex to stop the inflammation if there possibly was any. One drop, four times a day, were the directions. It seemed as though her vision was going back to normal in one (right) eye, but not the left which was the one with the astigmatism. There was still that blurred vision in the corner of her eye, so the doctor said play around with it and see if putting drops in the other eye helps, especially after the right eye started to mimic the left, in terms of it becoming red, smaller, and light sensitive. Putting drops in both eyes though, seemed to make it worse. So she continued to put the drops in both eyes for the next 2 weeks, with little change for the better happening. It has been approximately 3 months since smoking the marijuana and her eyes are still nowhere near the way they were just minutes before smoking. So I guess the real question is, what are possible long term eye problems that could develop from smoking too much marijuana at once? And are they reversible? I know there is not much concrete fact or evidence on marijuana and its links to certain problems/benefits at this point in time, but I would really appreciate it if someone had some information to help my friend, I really hate seeing her like this. She is a very happy and bubbly person and for something like her vision to be constantly bothering her is a terrible thing, and I can see the change in her personality. There is a slight unhappiness you see in her now. Please please please help if you can!
P.S. She is also in school( in another state), and therefore is more concerned about going back to school with this problem and certain things/problems/issues arising when she cannot easily go to the eye doctor.
Wed, 17 Jul 2013
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Psychiatrist 's  Response
Hi there ~

I understand your concerns. I believe the acute effects of smoking the marijuana that you describe are normal for having smoked that much amount of weed over such a short period of time. It would also explain the hallucinatory type effect that she had from smoking marijuana. I also believe that she has been having these hallucination type effects and this is making her vision worse as well. I also believe that it will resolve over time as the marijuana goes out of her system which may take a while. In the meantime it will help to not do anything out of the ordinary, especially smoke weed, or do any other substances, including coffee. It will help to clear up the marijuana in her system and return her system back to normal. And as such there is no medication that will help reverse the state that she is in. I also believe that she might do well with taking a few days off from both work and school and have normal days with regular schedule in eating, sleeping and working at home to get into the regular mode of day night cycles on a daily basis. I hope she also sees a psychiatrist during this time when she can help clear any doubts that she may have and possibly get symptomatic treatment for the issues that she is facing. I hope she does so as soon as possible.

I hope this helps. Take care of yourself and have a lovely day!
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Anxiety And Nervousness After Smoking Marijuana. Blurred Vision. Long Term Eye Problems?

Hi there ~ I understand your concerns. I believe the acute effects of smoking the marijuana that you describe are normal for having smoked that much amount of weed over such a short period of time. It would also explain the hallucinatory type effect that she had from smoking marijuana. I also believe that she has been having these hallucination type effects and this is making her vision worse as well. I also believe that it will resolve over time as the marijuana goes out of her system which may take a while. In the meantime it will help to not do anything out of the ordinary, especially smoke weed, or do any other substances, including coffee. It will help to clear up the marijuana in her system and return her system back to normal. And as such there is no medication that will help reverse the state that she is in. I also believe that she might do well with taking a few days off from both work and school and have normal days with regular schedule in eating, sleeping and working at home to get into the regular mode of day night cycles on a daily basis. I hope she also sees a psychiatrist during this time when she can help clear any doubts that she may have and possibly get symptomatic treatment for the issues that she is facing. I hope she does so as soon as possible. I hope this helps. Take care of yourself and have a lovely day!