I'm a 45 year old married man, healthy, fairly active, not overweight and prior to May of this year, I smoked weed once or twice a day after work every day for 5 years. I had no medical issues and for the most part felt well and happy. In May I quit cold turkey for a variety of reasons and I had immediate ringing in my ears, anxiety and heart palpitations and high blood pressure and other symptoms as well. They symptoms would taper off and come back every few weeks or so until they pretty much went away Mid July. My doctor told me my blood pressure was normal and all seemed good.
A few times in August a friend came over and I smoked with them a very small amount (comparatively to how I used to smoke) and I didn't have any immediate affects, but a few days later didn't feel right, felt depressed and a little anxious. This happened a few times and then I felt better. At the beginning of September, I had a minor infection that I needed to see the doctor about, and when they checked my blood pressure, it was high again. The next day I went back to the doctor and it was back to normal again. They did all kinds of blood work tests and everything came back negative, so I referred to a cardiologist. I was nervous going to the cardiologist for my first visit and when they took my blood pressure, it was really high, like 180 / 80. I spoke to my cardiologist about my prior cannabis use, and he kind of said that while he wasn't an expert in marijuana or anything like that, he suggested that I may feel better and my blood pressure may return to normal if I started using cannabis again. He put me on some blood pressure meds and had me scheduled to do a ultrasound of my heart and a stress test.
I live in a medical marijuana state so I went to a doctor that can prescribe that and started smoking some lower THC indica weed again. While waiting the 10 days for my ultrasound and stress test, I checked my blood pressure with a home device and noticed my BP trending down to normal. I had readings as good as 115 / 65. I thought, oh good, I feel better, so this is probably working. However, I was so nervous for my cardiology tests coming up and the day before I went I noticed my BP was steadily climbing back higher, into the 130s and 140s. I did my tests and they both came back normal and healthy and that I was in great shape at least as far as my heart was concerned. I was told to keep taking the BP meds and follow up in 6 months.
I became obsessed with my blood pressure and as I noticed it trending up in the next few days, I had a full blown panic attack and my blood pressure was back in the 180s again. Just to see what happened, I took a Xanax I had a prescription for and my blood pressure 2 hours later was in the high 120s, low 130s, so I really felt 100% certain anxiety was causing my blood pressure spikes.
My GP doctor had been wanting me to go on the SSRI Citalopram (Celexa) since my original visit with blood pressure issues, so I finally gave in. Well, as soon as I started taking the Citalapram I felt immediate anxiety and I wasn't sleeping well, so I quit the Citalopram after 3 days on that and at the same time I decided to re-quit using cannabis since it obviously was not helping in the manner I thought it would. I thought that if I smoked it daily and kept smoking it I would eventually go back to the happy person I had been for the past five years.
At that time (which was now 3 to 4 weeks ago) I started seeing a therapist of the anxiety. The therapist suggested that I don't actually have high blood pressure but that because I am really anxious about my blood pressure, I am driving up my blood pressure with my mind while I take the test and that it is most likely normal when I am not worried about testing it.
The first few days after starting with the therapist, I quit both the citalopram and the anxiety, I was having a lot of trouble sleeping. I would fall asleep ok and then wake up having to pee ( like I usually do ) between 2 and 3am and I wasn't falling back asleep or taking an hour to 90 minutes to fall back asleep. Over the next few days that got better and I mostly resumed sleeping normally, but I was having anxiety about other things, mostly that my stomach bounces ever so slightly with my heartbeat (which I first noticed teh day of my cardiac tests) and I have had some minor heart palpitations (very minor compared to when I quit in May). This anxiety has been there but it has been milder and progressively getting better I would say, until this weekend.
This weekend it's been about 3 weeks since I started having trouble sleeping, and all of a sudden, Sunday I woke up at 3 am and it took me 90 minutes to fall back asleep and last night I woke up after 4 hours sleeping around 2am and never really fell back asleep. I have been drug free for almost a month (except for full disclosure, I did have some beer and wine this weekend including 3 beers yesterday during the day for a football game). I can deal with the low grade anxiety, but the lack of sleep really makes everything so much worse. I'd love to get anyone's feedback on if this could be the cannabis or any of their experiences. I never had problems sleeping before and even when I had severe symptoms when I first quit in May, I still slept fairly well at night. Any help or feedback is appreciated. Peace