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Vomiting

What are nausea and vomiting?

Nausea is when you feel sick to your stomach, as if you are going to throw up. Vomiting is when you throw up.

What causes nausea and vomiting?

Nausea and vomiting can be symptoms of many different conditions, including:

  • Morning sickness during pregnancy
  • Gastroenteritis (infection of your intestines) and other infections
  • Migraines
  • Motion sickness
  • Food poisoning
  • Medicines, including those for cancer chemotherapy
  • GERD (reflux) and ulcers
  • Intestinal obstruction
When do I need to see a health care provider for nausea and vomiting?

Nausea and vomiting are common. They are usually not serious. However, you should contact your health care provider immediately if you have:

  • A reason to think that your vomiting is from poisoning
  • Vomited for longer than 24 hours
  • Blood in the vomit
  • Severe abdominal pain
  • Severe headache and stiff neck
  • Signs of dehydration, such as dry mouth, infrequent urination or dark urine
How is the cause of nausea and vomiting diagnosed?

Your health care provider will take your medical history, ask about your symptoms and do a physical exam. The provider will look for signs of dehydration. You may have some tests, including blood and urine tests. Women may also have a pregnancy test.

What are the treatments for nausea and vomiting?

Treatments for nausea and vomiting depend on the cause. You may get treatment for the underlying problem. There are some medicines that can treatment nausea and vomiting. For severe cases of vomiting, you may need extra fluids through an IV (intravenous).

There are things that you can do to feel better:

  • Get enough fluids, to avoid dehydration. If you are having trouble keeping liquids down, drink small amounts of clear liquids often.
  • Eat bland foods; stay away from spicy, fatty, or salty foods
  • Eat smaller meals more often
  • Avoid strong smells, since they can sometimes trigger nausea and vomiting
  • If you are pregnant and have morning sickness, eat crackers before you get out of bed in the morning


WARNING: All medicines, drugs, plants, chemicals or medicial precedures below are for historical reference only. Many of these treatments are now known to be harmful and possibly fatal. Do not consume any plant, chemical, drug or otherwise without first consulting a licensed physician that practices medine in the appropriate field.

Physician's Therapeutics Memoranda on Vomiting

CHOLERA INFANTUM
   Withheld milk, substituting the juice of raw beef. , If irritant un digested food is present, give castor oil (aromatic); if stools are wa tery and colorless, give podophy1lin(1-20 gr. repeated in 2 hours), to change character of stools, then give astringents and carminatives. If vomiting is severe the best remedy is calomel in small repeated doses. Irrigation of the bowels with water at 100° F. is often useful. Apply a mild mustard or spice poultice over the bowels.1

DYSENTERY
   The most useful remedies in acute cases are; magnesium sul phate (drachm doses of a saturated solution, with aromatic sulphuric acid); calomel in full cathartic dose; ipecac in large doses, combimxi with opium to restrain vomiting; ergot for its antihemorrhagic action. Irrigation of the bowel with mercuric chloride (l;5000) or silver nitrate (12500) or zinc sulphocarbolate (l;l000) is useful in chronic cases.1

VOMITING
   If due to fermentation of food. regulate the diet and prescribe gastric antiseptics, or lavage. If from gastric irritability, sedative remedies are most effective; hydrocyanic acid, chloroform. cocaine, creosote, chloretone, bismuth; in extreme cases, aconite; it may be necessary to give the stomach complete rest, feeding the patient per rectum. When due to debility or exhaustion, as after excesses, the best remedies are; ipecac, in small doses (for its local stimulating action); nux vomica, arsenic (Fowler’s solution). Counter irrita tion by mustard leaves over the epigastrium is very serviceable. When the vomiting is centric, acetanilid in grain doses is an eficient remedy; potassium bromide, per rectum, may be given. In the vomiting of pregnancy, cerium oxalate, carbonated water; chloretone, cocaine, creosote, tincture iodine in small doses, potassium bromide and menthol are among the remedies that may give relief.1


References

1) Nelson, Baker & Co., 1904, Physician's Handy Book of Materia Medica and Therapeustics, Detroit, Michigan.