Can a person vomit up stuff that is already in his intestines, or is it only stuff from the stomach? In general, from how far down the digestive tract can the body retrieve stuff and send it back up the other way?
Um, I never thought about this before… Iwonder why…
I once threw up a toenail.
Usually, vomit consists of the contents of the stomach, but there are medical conditions that can result in stuff from further down the digestive system backing up and being expelled; IIRC, it is really nasty stuff (not as if ordinary vomit is nice).
Man, if this isn’t a punk band name…
At what point do intestinal contents actually become feces? Is it just in the colon, or does it occur sooner in the process?
(The dictionary definition of feces focuses on what has been expelled already, but I’m asking `At what point are intestinal contents indistinguishable from what later gets expelled?’)
Yes, contents of the small intestine can be and is sometimes vomited up, from the other side of the pyloric spinctor, and it is usually green, with bile. The farther down the vomit comes from the worse the condition is. The small intestine is 10 feet. Ive never seen a reflux from the large intestine, and dont know why it would since the anus is much closer and no valves in the way.
The length of the average small intestine is more like 20 feet in the average human. Most human vomit comes from above the pyloric sphincter, which separates the stomach from the duodenum, which is the first few inches of the small intestine. The vomit may be mainly food, or a mix of ingested liquids, foods, and nasty acid.
It is less common, but hardly rare, to vomit contents from the duodenum. This will contain bile, and other discharges from the liver and pancreas, so the vomitus is extra-nasty. It may be more neutral or even alkaline in nature. It makes the teeth feel quite gritty. Recurrent dry heaving often will produce duodenal vomitus.
It is rare, and usually the result of anatomic abnormalities or medical disorders, to vomit contents of the more distal small intestine, such as the jejunum and ileum. Thus vomiting material more akin to feces than ingested food or intestinal secretions is fortunately rare.
QtM, MD