Nausea! Please help :(

[ashmilo 0]

My name’s Holly and I have been dealing with anxiety for 11 years now. Basically the only uncomfortable sensation that I experience is nausea, which has developed into a fear of throwing up/vomiting. This fear is obviously a result of me throwing up during certain panic attacks or at least my specific “version” of a panic attack.  I've found most people have panic attacks where they cannot breathe, think there going to die, have a heart attack ect. I don't get that, I know I won't die or suffocate, I know anxiety too well, its just the intense nausea that overwhelms me and I cannot control. I have only ever experienced extreme nausea which has in some cases resulted in me throwing up. Over the 11 years it has only gotten to that bad of a state on a small number of occasions, probably under 20. It is usualy just bad gagging and dry heaving, which is as bad as vomitting for me. I might aswell always be vomitting! With me personally, it doesn’t need to get to the stage where I physically throw up in order for anxiety to have an effect on me, and for me to therefore fear it in the future. Don’t get me wrong, I have also experienced sensations such as an accelerated heartbeat, sweating, shaking, and tingling, but I do not fear them like I do with throwing up around people. 

When I was first going through anxiety the nausea was especially bad, like two straight weeks of not being able to keep anything down. As a result, I developed a bit of a phobia in relation to food which I still have to this day, but it has now extended to just being around people, which is a lot more concerning. I’m much more anxious around people in comparison to just being alone, because of the social embarrassment that throwing up might cause and therefore fear what people might think of me. I’m becoming more of a recluse/prefer to do things on my own and don’t really enjoy being around people. With me it’s the social embarrassment and the fear of what people might think that is far greater and outweighs the act itself. I don’t fear throwing up specifically, which is why it’s never really an issue when I’m on my own.  If I lose my concentration for just a second or am not in the right mindset, then things can get out of control very quickly.

 

My first anxiety/panic episodes was when I was about 14/15, where when I was eating at a family friends house and my on/off boyfriend at the time turned up to see someone who was in the house at that time. I remember seeing him and having an overwhelming feeling of panic and nausea, I pushed my plate away , started sweating and ran to throw up, like completely out of the blue, i had never felt this or had any issue with food/nausea before this. After that first episode, this happened a few more times with food and him, but I didn't even know what anxiety was back then, so just thought I had food poisoning or something. Cut a long story short, it slowly got worse over the next few years and seemed to developed into mainly involving food/eating. I constantly felt nausea, anxiety, weird about eating, food making me feel sick and then that turnt into social issues, which is what is ruining my life today. I now feel unable to to eat with people, get anxious if I have to, cant always eat, want to run away and eat Alone ect. In the early stages, i got so anxious about food that I stopped eating really, i ate bananas and toast and stopped leaving my house much. Yet I want to eat so badly, I hate losing weight, not eating really gets me down. After the intial first years, I managed to go off to uni still, although it was very tough, but I got through it, managed to hide most of my issues from people and graduated ect.

 

But the eating thing is still major for me, i can only eat around few close people and literally have a small panic attack if I'm ever put in a situation where I have tho eat with anyone else, I just cannot do it, I immediately start gagging and dry heaving. Which also means no cannot eat out at all, restaurants terrify me. Eating is the worst area for me, but is by no means the only area. I now struggle with most social situations, any that involve people really, but specially where I feel I may be trapped in a sense in say a conversation with someone, bump into someone I know and have to conversate, meetings, especially one to one, hospital appointments, travelling, nights/days out, anyany social really. Yet I can go about my day alone, in and out of shops etc as I need to fairly normally, but if I have to go with someone, its causes complete nausea and anxiety. Its so annoying and frustrating, as I am actually a naturally outgoing confident and wild kinda fearless person, until this. Its soo against my real character! It seems any situation where I feel 'trapped' and unable to just leave/hide if I need to, gets me going. It can be as simple as a conversation with someone, to being in a lift/plane ect. But like I said, the sensation is always nausea, where when its bad I'm gagging and dry heaving and in extreme cases I vomit. But the nausea is killing me and making me hide away and I hate it! Its so embarrassing! Although I remember the first times I had this sort of feeling when I was 14/15, I still can't work out why that actually happened or what the trigger really was. I had a pretty bad childhood, was always down and unstable at home, mum, wasn't around like she should have been and my dad was and still is a  bad alcoholic, yet I have a great relationship with him x so I guess the trauma of my childhood could have had an impact? Yet I don't really feel that way, it doesn't bother me in an anxious way, I was still always confident and well balanced thru all of that and dont consider that to have caused such strange issues today, but who knows. 

 

I would just realy like to chat to others about this. I have seen a few psychologists in my time but nothing ever seems to work. Does anyone else go through this? With the intense nausea? Anyone got any tips to help? Id like to try some decent anti nausea tablets for the times when i really need it, any suggestions on some?

Would be great to chat to peope :-)

Many Thanks, Holly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JOYCICLE 654]

Hi Holly, welcome. I'm sorry you're struggling. The fear of vomiting has a name, but I cannot recall it right now. Several of our members have it. 

I have other types of stomach distress when really anxiuos but I have once, vomited , but that was real panic, not a panic attack and it' s never happened again. For me, when I get extra anxious I feel like my bowels will release. So same kind of thing, but not exactly. Either way, it blows.

The fear can be crippling. I'm glad you are able to eat though. That's a plus in your favor !  Hang in there and read up on the forums . You'll find you're nowhere near alone ! 

[Gilly 1086]

Hi Holly welcome to AC Yes, emetophobia, I have it. I started with it in 2000, so 14 years ago. It didn't make sense to me why I was scared of vomiting having had crohns since I was 12 and had vomited probably 1000's of times. But it happened when I started a new job, and a few weeks before had to stop the car to be sick, on the side of the road. Still can't quite figure out exactly why it got so bad, and for so long. It was a major contributory factor in becoming agoraphobic. I think it just snowballed. In the beginning I would be fine at home, only getting nauseous when I had to go to dinner with family, or have to go to an appointment. I had to have surgery in 2002 and was in hospital for a week, I didn't eat the whole time, i used to hide the food and pretend I had eaten it, just so they would think I had recovered ok to let me go home, but I was so nauseous the whole time I just couldn't eat anything. I remember sending my husband to the shop for snacks on the way home because I was starving.

 

My anxiety would come and go after that, but everytime it got bad so did the emetophobia, I was just badly nauseous, which then made me more anxious, and that made me more nauseous. I stopped eating out, just couldn't do it, Christmas at my in laws was a nightmare. Before long the anxiety was constant, the nausea was constant. I sucked mints all the time, and ice pops, anything to try and keep my mind off the thoughts, keep my mouth occupied. I have a terribly sensitive gag reflex and the more anxious I was the more sensitive it was, I would gag like crazy brushing my teeth which would make me panic. It started as being scared of being sick in public, to becoming scared of being sick full stop. Home used to be a safe place but was not anymore.

 

That was until a few years ago, I had therapy which helped my general anxiety levels, which helped the nausea lessen. Then last year I did CBT which helped me even more to challenge my fears, and coincidentally I got the norovirus. I was so sick it was like extreme exposure therapy. I'm not going to say i'm not emetophobic anymore because it is still there, just very mild now. It will flare up if I have a doctors appt or something important to attend, but I'm able to not let it consume me and talk myself through it, that is how I learned in CBT.

 

Like you it's not the act of vomiting that scares me, the panic is just so overwhelming it feels that being sick is the end of the world, especially if you are in a situation you would feel embarrassed or ashamed. But the reality is, vomiting is NOT something to be embarrassed or ashamed of, its a human bodily function that everyone does sometimes, or a lot depending on the individuals circumstances. 

 

Try whatever you feel you need to do holly, to face your fear, rationalise it and manage it. It can be done, you will get better