Nausea/VomitingNausea/Vomiting General InformationNausea/Vomiting is known as separate conditions, nausea being the unpleasant feeling to vomit that may end or not with the act of vomiting, felt in the throat or in the stomach, a message from the brain which informs you that something is wrong with your body. Vomiting represents the expelling through the esophagus and mouth of substances from the intestines or stomach, emptying your stomach. This is processed in waves, caused by peristalses, natural movements that are reversed and by some contractions of the stomach and esophagus walls that are involuntary and push the contents of your stomach out. Sometimes, vomiting may be confused with retching, regurgitation and rumination. Nausea/Vomiting is not exactly a disease; it is better to say they are sings of various other diseases, for example migraines, food poisoning or excess in eating, infections, brain tumors or motion sickness or some more other serious affections like central nervous disorders, heart attacks, a few forms of cancer (even though in the treatment the doctors used anti-vomiting and nausea drugs, called antiemetics) or liver and kidney irregularities. It may also represent a progression of the other diseases or a respond of the organism to the specific therapies for the illness. In this case is better to stop the therapy. But not all patients experience Nausea/Vomiting; this depends on their organism and their immunity system and cancer therapy does not have too many negative aspects on the patient’s life. These two conditions may also be associated with some psychological problems, such as depression, anxiety and fear.Nausea/Vomiting SymptomsThis disease is harmless most of the time, but almost all the time is a sign of a worse problem, such as brain tumors, meningitis, concussions, migraine headaches or encephalitis. Usually, nausea and vomiting have similar causes that differ according to age. For example fear and other emotional stress, some odors and smells, an early pregnancy, indigestion, motion sickness, food poisoning, exposure to toxins, gallbladder disease or some viruses. This disease affects both adults and children, what makes the difference are the causes. For example, people who follow a cancer treatment (chemo or radiations) or pregnant women experience Nausea/Vomiting more often. The women who carry their child in the first trimester have the so called “morning sickness”, but only 20 to 40 percent have an increased risk of vomit, while 60 to 80 have just nausea. In the other cases, these two conditions may provoke pains in the abdomen, in the lower right part or in the middle. It may cause a type of severe headache you have never experienced before, along with the impossibility to drink water or any liquids or to retain them into your body more than one or two hours. This may bring along a dry mouth, dehydration, an excessive thirst, serious dizziness and weakness. The patient can have little or no urination. The small children may suffer of Nausea/Vomiting because of an intestine that is blocked. Children, in comparison with adults may present more often dehydration if the Nausea/Vomiting is accompanied by diarrhea and in their case this symptom is more serious because a child does not know of what he is suffering to tell to the parent or adult.Nausea/Vomiting TreatmentIf you have occasional bouts of Nausea/Vomiting, you should not worry about it too much because they are very common. A person must go to a doctor only if the vomiting lasts between three or six days or may be longer and if causes pain in the abdomen, stiff neck, headache, it contains blood or resembles with dark-brown grounds. In these situations, the conditions become acute. All the treatments depend on the causes of the symptoms. If the causes for Nausea/Vomiting are more than one, also may be more than one treatment will be needed. The drugs used to prevent, control and stop nausea or vomiting are also numerous and may work even better if they are combined. Anti-sickness drugs speed up the empting process of the stomach, moving food more fast through the intestines or work on the brain, on the area that stimulates vomiting in order to prevent this. Nothing is more efficient than to try to treat the causes of the sickness to stop the unpleasant conditions. After the right diagnoses is confirmed, the doctor will prescribe anti-emetic drugs than can be given into a vein by drip, as suppositories, by mouth or into the muscle. Some drugs are more often prescribe for treating, both nausea and vomiting.. These medicines must be taken regularly, no matter of the disease that causes the Nausea/Vomiting because they prevent sickness to come back. But as many other drugs, the anti-emetics ones also cause side-effects that depend on each person’s organism and their reaction to the therapy. If you present any of the following treatments you should immediately announce your nurse or doctor about it. Some adverse effects of these drugs are: headaches, feelings of weakness and tiredness (signs that your body may need some rest, especially if you are on a treatment with radiation or on chemo), constipation (that may be avoided if you take laxatives or with consuming high-fibre food, many liquids, particularly water and natural teas and with physic exercises), insomnia (caused if the last dose of the drug is taken before bed), flushing of the skin or a rare sensation of warmth, muscle twitching (common among young people and kids that affects especially the upper parts of the body-shoulders, neck and face). Nausea/Vomiting is also very easy to prevent. If your stomach is annoying you, drink peppermint teas, eat more often, but small meals or avoid as much as you can foods fried in sun oils, rich in lipids that can be hard for the stomach to digest. Never drink too much water or other liquids before you go eat! Some small snacks along the day should help. |
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