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Caffeine and Cannabis Use, Intoxication and Withdrawal

Caffeine

People have the habit of consuming tea, coffee for energizing themselves, some people are aware of the fact that it contains caffeine but many are not aware. So, let’s know what is caffeine. Caffeine is a bitter, white alkaloid compound which is found mostly in tea and coffee plant and is a stimulant of the central nervous system. It is also the world’s most widely psychoactive drug. Caffeine has both advantageous as well as disadvantageous effects. The scientific name for caffeine is 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine.

Caffeine is also found in seeds, leaves or nuts in places like South America, East Asia and Africa. The well-known source of caffeine is a coffee plant.

Uses

Caffeine is used in premature infants for prevention as well as treatment. It may improve to help gain weight during therapy as well as reduce cognitive and language delay. People intake beverages that contain caffeine to treat their asthma. Caffeine helps reduce fatigue and drowsiness. Caffeine has a variable effect on learning and memory, it improves wakefulness, reaction time. Caffeine may help prevent sleep which may improve task performance.

Caffeine is a demonstrated ergogenic help in humans. Caffeine improves athletic execution in high-impact mostly in endurance sports and anaerobic conditions. Moderate dosages of caffeine can improve run performance, cycling and running time preliminary performance, perseverance and cycling power output. Caffeine increments basal metabolic rate in grown-ups.

Nonetheless, day by day caffeine intake for adolescents is close to 2.5 mg/kg body weight. This is on the grounds that the greatest grown-up caffeine portion may not be suitable for light-weight youths or for more youthful teenagers who are as yet developing.

Intoxication

Caffeine intoxication is when a person consumes more than normal or excessive amount of caffeine through food, drink, medicine or some other product. Though there are people who do not get affected even after consuming more amount recommended by the researchers. But this habit of consuming more than recommended can lead to an overdose which can cause major health problems like heart problem, seizures, convulsions, etc.

The people who do not consume caffeine regularly will be more prone to have the negative effect of caffeine. They should take care of the amount they are consuming if they do not intake caffeine regularly. And, those who are a regular consumer of caffeine should stop consuming it gradually.

Caffeine Overdose Symptoms

Caffeine intoxication has many symptoms, and there may be some symptoms that can go unnoticed for long period of time. The mild symptoms of caffeine overdose can be diarrhea, dizziness, increase of thirst, and insomnia can be a obvious symptom of caffeine overdose, irritability, fever, headache, though there are people who says that drinking caffeine products like tea or coffee helps them get rid of headache.

The severe symptoms of caffeine intoxication which can need immediate medical help are having difficulty in breathing, hallucinations, vomiting, confusion, chest pain, irregular heartbeat, convulsions, uncontrollable muscle movements, etc.

Caffeine overdose can happen in babies also when they feed on that breast milk which has excessive amount of caffeine than regular. Symptoms of caffeine intoxication in babies can be nausea, fast breathing, tensing and relaxing of muscles, vomiting and shocks.

Caffeine withdrawal and its symptoms

People who consume beverages containing caffeine can be familiar with few symptoms of withdrawal. For instance, if they might skip their morning, they may start feeling the symptoms few hours later like headache are the most common symptoms, they can also feel irritability or fatigue.

The symptoms can be a headache, and these headaches can be similar to migraine headaches. They may also feel nauseous and feel like vomiting, these both symptoms are the most common symptoms of caffeine withdrawal. Their mood might become negative or very irritated. Mental fogginess is also a symptom, which means they cannot work as efficiently as they used to when consumed. They can feel dizziness or lightheadedness.

Cannabis

Cannabis also most popularly known as marijuana among many other names is also a psychoactive drug from cannabis plant. It is the most used drug all over the world.

Cannabis has different mental and physical impacts, which incorporate happiness, altered states of mind, trouble concentrating, short-term memory and body movement, relaxation, and an increase in appetite. The onset of impacts is felt inside minutes when smoked, and around 30 minutes to an hour when cooked and eaten. The impacts keep going for two hours to six hours, contingent upon the sum utilized.

Cannabis was also known to ancient Assyrians, who found out its psychoactive properties through the Iranians. Using it in some religious ceremonies, they called it qunubu (meaning “way to produce smoke”), a most probable origin of the modern word cannabis.

Uses

Most studies show that smoking cannabis can reasonably reduce nerve pain caused by HIV and different conditions. The relief from discomfort goes on for around 2 hours. Another study shows that using a mouth splash containing cannabis helps stops vomiting in individuals being treated with cancer drugs. Delayed nausea and vomiting begin in any event 24 hours after receiving the drugs. Cannabis doesn’t prevent small nausea and vomiting. This sort begins within 24 hours of being treated with cancer drugs.

Cannabis can increase the effectiveness of other drugs which causes drowsiness, including the effects on antidepressant, pain reliefs, seizure medicine, anxiety medicine, muscle relaxants, etc.

Intoxication

Cannabis overdose or intoxication refers to the state of over-ingesting to the point where the consumer experiences unwanted adverse effects. Cannabis intoxication occurs when the user does not have any idea how much THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) he is ingesting.

Overdose is often occurred with new consumers, like when they are consuming cannabis edibles, and as an effect they continue to consume or eat the edible being under the impression that the effects of it are not potent. These types of overdose do not often happen with the people smoking cannabis, as this form causes instantaneous high, where as THC is directly being absorbed from the lings into the bloodstream, allowing the consumer to know their tolerance.

Symptoms

While the cases of overdose are rare, but it is still possible in some extreme cases. Some might have a mental effect, heart related, overdose can also cause pale skin, they can anxiety and panic attacks. People also loses becomes psychotic and can loose touch with reality and become paranoid, in the form of hallucinations or delusions or loss of personal identification. An individual’s judgement can reduce and also the coordination which can lead to injuries or even death sometimes. Uncontrollable shivering or seizures. The person can become unresponsive, and their blood pressure can rise suddenly and also can cause headache.

Cannabis withdrawal and it’s symptoms

As mentioned above cannabis or marijuana as the most common drug used, it is likely that people might get dependent on it or even addicted on regular consumption. And, the symptoms of cannabis withdrawal start showing within a week or two of its withdrawal. And the discomfort of its withdrawal can be at its peak in the first week of quitting and may last up to two weeks. And the physical discomfort stops once the drug has completely left the person’s body.

People who consume cannabis very often and suddenly stops consuming it, then they definitely are going to face withdrawal problems, the symptoms of cannabis withdrawal can be irritability, a person might have difficulty in sleeping, a person’s appetite can get reduced, they can feel so restless, and their craving for cannabis or marijuana can be very extreme, nausea is also one of the symptoms of it’s withdrawal, a person might also suffer from abdominal pain.