A 20-year-old got a mysterious syndrome that makes marijuana users violently ill and said it was like 'Edward Scissorhands was trying to grab my intestines and pull them out'

• A Colorado man learned he had cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome after 11 ER trips in nine months.
• The man, Bo Gribbon, said he experienced painful vomiting after he used cannabis.
• CHS is rare and affects frequent cannabis users. There is no known cure besides abstaining.

When Bo Gribbon was 17, he experienced the first of many excruciating cannabis-induced episodes that left him vomiting and screaming for hours, the NBC News reporters Laura Strickler and Steve Patterson wrote in a story published Sunday.

"It felt like Edward Scissorhands was trying to grab my intestines and pull them out," Gribbon, who lives in Colorado, told NBC News.

Now 20, Gribbon has since learned he has cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, a rare and mysterious disorder that causes frequent cannabis users to experience nausea, stomach cramps, and vomiting.

In recent years, scientists have increasingly researched cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, or CHS. CHS affects frequent marijuana users who suddenly develop adverse reactions to the substance, usually in their 30s, after using the substance daily or weekly beginning in their teens. The condition was first described in the early 2000s, and experts are still unsure what causes the unrelenting nausea and vomiting, Insider previously reported.

Gribbon stopped smoking weed and his symptoms went away

After his initial CHS episode, Gribbon went to the emergency room 11 times over the next nine months for painful hourslong vomiting episodes, he told NBC News.

During one visit, a physician assistant told Gribbon about CHS, saying it was likely his diagnosis.

He was skeptical, until he stopped using weed.

"The only thing that convinced me was that it stopped when I stopped smoking," Gribbon said.

There's no known cure for CHS besides abstaining from cannabis

People with CHS tend to rely on hot showers, baths, and heating pads to soothe their pain, as there's no existing medical treatment.

According to a 2016 systematic review of CHS patients, 92% of diagnosed patients experience "compulsive" use of these pain-management techniques.

When a person applies heat to their skin, it can open their blood vessels and relieve blood clots that are causing pain in a specific area, which could explain why the soothing method is so popular for people with CHS, according to Temple University researchers.

Abstaining from marijuana use is the only known way to treat CHS, University of Oklahoma internal medicine doctors wrote in a 2011 review of the condition.