well that was a pretty stupid thing for me to’ve said… figures… posting on a friday night after watching two people head for the porch for reasons other than a cig.
Stick with clear liquids until you are no longer heaving. You can go without food but you need to replace the water, salt and sugar. Gatorade is good, as is any kind of soda you have on hand. Popsicles, broth, jello are the staples.
When you feel like you can keep something down start with crackers or pretzels then progress to a BRAT diet, Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast. Nothing greasy, spicy or acidic, or hi protein. Avoid milk at all costs.
If you are not running a fever then I suspect it may be a bit of food poisoning or some other bug. Once you get it all out of your system, you’ll be fine.
:smack:
I’m an idiot. I know all about the BRAT plan, and it never occurred to me. I’ve been sitting here whining about being hungry and nauseated at the same time and I KNOW this stuff!
Thank you, Nursiepoo.
I’ll see your vomiting, vomiting with diarrhea, and dry heaves, and raise you a vomiting with diarrhea turning to dry heaves that cause petechial hemmorhages.
My stomach muscles clenched so hard that my blood pressure spiked and blew out little capillaries across my face. When I was cleaning up, I looked in the mirror and saw my face was covered in tiny, pinpoint red bruises. Thought I had scarlet fever for a minute. Man, that sucked.
Sucking chest wound?
The only thing worse than vomiting is watching your child vomit. You feel so helpless. 
[still channeling Mom]
Well, okay, whatever you can keep down is good, and water’s better than nothing.
But if it keeps up for the rest of this morning–if you continue puking it back up 10 minutes after it goes down–then you need to get some electrolytes in you. Your heart cells, those normally reliable lil critters that squeeze your blood around your body, can’t function without sodium and potassium ions. Sodium and potassium ions are flushed out of your body along with fluids; you can either sweat them out, pee them out, poop them out (diarrhea), or you can puke them out. And if “output” on the sodium and potassium is greater than “intake”–if you’re not ingesting sodium and potassium because it’s all just shooting right back out again–then you got a problem.
Because once your body’s level of sodium and potassium ions goes below “Critical”, your heart cells lay down tools and walk off the job. And your dearest and dearest find you convulsing on the bathroom floor…
So what you do is, you add sodium and potassium ions by administering any of the following: table salt (which is sodium chloride, right?), and baking soda (bicarbonate of soda, yes Arm & Hammer, tons of sodium in there), and Grandpa’s salt substitute from out the kitchen, because it’s pure potassium chloride. Orange juice also is loaded with potassium, but it’s problematic during “oh gawd” gastrointestinal difficulties, as it’s complex and it requires “digestion”, which your digestive tract is not currently in a position to provide, so sorry for the inconvenience.
And you put in some kind of sugar, like table sugar or honey, to keep your blood sugar from also going redline and also causing you to pass out on the bathroom floor.
And the procedure is–this is going to taste weird–for the absolute rock-bottom version making use of common kitchen ingredients, being Salt and Sugar and baking soda…
You put a tiny tiny tiny pinch*, like 1/8 teaspoon, of table salt in one glass of water (if it tastes actually salty, you put too much in there), along with about a teaspoon of sugar, and in a second glass of water you put a correspondingly tiny tiny tiny pinch of baking soda, with a teaspoon of sugar. And you alternate sips from these.
You can’t load up a single glass with the required amount of salt and baking soda because salt water is actually an emetic. You need it just salty enough to get under your body’s “Ewww! [rejected]” radar while still providing those sodium ions.
So it’ll taste like diluted Gatorade. Minus the fruit flavorings. Fancy that.
If it looks like the vomiting is tapering off this morning, and all you have around the house is salt and baking soda, I think you’ll be okay for today with just salt and baking soda. Or even just salt.
But if you’re still puking like mad this afternoon, you need to get some potassium in you.
Send somebody to Kroger to get you some salt substitute.
Or get some Gatorade, or any rehydrating sports drink that says it has potassium in it, and then dilute it by half with water so as to get around the fact that your disgestive tract is still not online yet. “Electrolytes” is the key word here.
Or Pedialyte–look for it in the “Babies” aisle, next to the formula. 
Hey, comes in “Fruit Flavor”, too… Plus you can drink it straight.
*Official recipe is here
Nah-that never bothered me. Now, when they are limp from fever, that bothered me.
Sorry about the lemon-lime pop–didn’t know about the aversion. Any pop’ll do, but the caramel colored ones tend to be heavy.
You need water more than the electrolytes–but not just pure water. Pedialyte is expensive, but does the trick. Gatorade sounds good at half the cost.
Sounds like you’re better!
I’ve read (sorry, no cite, maybe one of the knowledgable folk in this here thread will know) that ice (and snow) is a dehydrator because the body uses more water to melt it than is in it.
As for leaking at both ends, try riding the detox pony. Take off the top of the toilet and straddle the toilet. You can puke in the toilet tank and you have the bonus of being able to lean on your arms so you don’t fall off the damn thing. How good!
No, the only thing worse than vomiting is vomiting because you’re a freaking idiot who forced his body–which is apparently a lot smarter than the guy who’s supposedly in control–to have to vomit.
Hmmm…now I hate vomitting. I HATE it. The heaves, the stomach aches, the taste, the smell, etc.
BUT…in my view, there is nothing worse than explosive, severe diarrhea. At least with vomitting, it only lasts a few minutes, at most. With diarrhea, you can be on the toilet for an hour or more, your stomach feeling like it’s about to explode, your ass feeling like it’s been painted in acid, the smell of shit-I can’t stand shit. I am extremely squeamish about poop, ladies and gentlemen.
And at least when you puke, you tend to feel a whee bit better afterward, at least until it’s time to heave again. At least, that’s been my experience.
Forget the Limon pop, try cream soda, that’s what we usually use.
Vomiting when you have cramps and a severe case of the stomach flu. Teh fun, boys and girls!
Feel better, LifeOnWry snuggles and smooches
Agreed. When I get the urge to vomit these days, I just get it over with. Usually, it’s going to come up anyway and if it doesn’t, you’re still laying painfully in bed for hours. Puking is worth it for the immediate relief it brings.
Oh, man, I feel for ya. There really is nothing worse. I’m terrible phobic of vomiting and I’ll gladly shit out the eye of a needle for a week to avoid puking.
Hope you start feeling better really soon.
In total agreement with the OP here. In October 2003 I had cochlear implant surgery. For the first three days after the surgery I couldn’t even move without throwing up. And when I had nothing to bring up, it would just be endless spasms of dry heaves. I couldn’t even watch TV, since the images of motion on the screen would be enough to induce nausea.
I spent those three days learning how to be as still as possible, not moving from my bed except to go to the bathroom. I still vividly remember crawling on the floor with my eyes closed to minimize the vertigo, and still being nearly paralyzed every few seconds by another wave of dry heaves. Other details of those bathroom trips I will leave to your imagination.
Without question, those days were the worst I ever felt. I had a dislike for vomiting prior to that event, but since then, it’s become a rabid hatred.
Does anyone actually enjoy vomiting? 
Everyone keeps saying they hate it. It’s like saying you hate stubbing your toe or ripping out a fingernail. Isn’t that a given?
I would have to agree that laying there, hoping the nausea will go away, trying to figure out what you ate that made your stomach rebel, is worse.
Once the vomiting is over, then you feel tired and bruised, but at least your tummy is better. (Unless there’s something else going on. I’m talking about one-time-only hurling)
I hope you feel better.
If you vomit try and keep your spine straight as possible. Don’t bend over the toilet, lean over the toilet, resting on your knees to prevent splashback. This way you’ll keep the spew from going back into your nose.
Well, like you said later, it sure beats feeling nauseaous, so in that case it can be said that I enjoy vomiting, it stops the nausea which is far, far worse. Besides, vomiting doesn’t hurt that bad (at least not me). You sweat a little, you turn your insides out, and when you’re done you can get back to a comfortable sleep.
I knew a guy - a janitor at a place I worked - who was the master of the “casual puke.” He used to drive an electric cart around the factory, towing a dumpster. When he came to a trash barrel, he’d stop and empty it into the dumpster and then drive on to the next barrel.
One day I was chatting with him as he stood by the dumpster. He was talking about something, and then - without even changing the expression on his face - said, “'Scuze me a sec,” turned his heat, puked into the dumpster, then turned back to me and continued the conversation as if nothing ever happened.
I guess he didn’t exactly *enjoy * vomiting. But I can’t say it *bothered * him all that much, either.
Two pieces of dry toast, one half cup of applesauce, two cans of gingerale, several naps. I still do not feel right, but I feel better than I did.
I have to send the poor WryGuy to the store in the snow, because I (obviously) didn’t make it yesterday. He is being very sweet and hardly grumbling about this at all.