Diarrhea is a modification of normal function.
Vomiting is a reversal of the way things normally work.
To the exclusion of Ring of Fire style explosive liquid chits, I’d say vomitting is worse.
Of course, vomitting diarrhea is the worst of all…
Considering the fact there’s no taste buds in my butthole, I’ll pick diarrhea over vomit any ol’ day. Plus, it would take one hell of a diarrhea to throw out your back or swell up your eppiglottis, two additional maladies I endured last week after throwing up company cafeteria food at 2, 4 and 6:00 am.
Man, I freakin’ hate to puke, especially if it involves doing so while staring at diarrhea. Ugh!
Haven’t read the thread yet, so really quick: Diarrhea is much much worse. Any hooker worth the ten bucks will puke on you pretty much on cue. Finding one with the squirts is extremely rare, which is why they cost so much.
—reads thread—
Oh.
OK, I’m in the third day of some weird GI thing (thankfully, I seem to be on the mend) and the other night, I was up all night having it coming out both ends, fortunately not simultaneously, and I gotta say, puking is worse.
Puking, the can’t keep anything, even water down kind, is painful and frightening. Diarrhea is incredibly unpleasant, but at least it doesn’t hurt, and I think the preliminary cramps are nowhere near as bad as the nausea that precedes vomiting. And you can’t sit and read Dilbert books while you’re puking.
Also, if you’re taking in fluids, with diarrhea, you at least stand a chance of getting more fluids into your body than are going out the other end, avoiding dehydration. With vomiting, forget it. Water goes in, water comes back out unabsorbed.
I disagree-diarrhea DOES hurt. It burns (I once had it so bad that peeing was excruciatingly painful!), my stomach cramps are hideous, and it lasts so much longer.
I don’t know, but I always feel much much worse after diarrhea. I usually feel a bit better after puking.
Vomiting is much better than the runs. I mostly say this because I have had a nervous stomach my whole life and was nauseated every morning from 7th - 12th grade. You get so you puke just so you quit feeling nauseated. In that sense, the act of vomiting has been a friend to me.
Also, vomiting is (slightly) more socially acceptable than diarrhea. I think of the time I got slipped something in my drink at an out of town bar and ended up violently barfing every ten minutes for the next 4 hours. Of course everything after Round 3 was more painful dry heaves, but I digress.
Looking back, the situation would have been MUCH worse if, instead of compulsive vomiting, I instead was shooting liquid poo out my behind every ten minutes with no control. You can stop a car and puke out the door. You can’t handle a case of diarrhea on the side of the road. Or at least, you shouldn’t try.
Also, the stomach cramps that come with diarrhea are the worst pain in the world. Ever.
I’d much rather have the runs that vomit. It’s like i’m getting a good colon cleansing without pills from GNC.
Before someone takes this the wrong way, i meant to say “. . . the runs than vomit.”
I’d rather throw up any day. Unless you’ve got morning sickness or something, the misery is over about a half hour after you throw up. Diarrhea can last a long time and leave you with pain that lasts for days in the form of a raw behind.
There’s a right way to take this?
Another consideration that paints vomit as being the most insideous is the existance of sympathy puking in which you’ll have to hurl simply because you heard, saw or smelt someone else doing so.
Yet vile as it might have been, never has the proximity to someone else’s diarrhea ever made me have to squirt.
Come to think of it, man, how much would that suck? Several people walk into a public bathroom, see diarrhea in a toilet and all of a sudden they’re all ripping off their trousers and shooting liquid feces all over the place.
No thanks.
I’m torn here, and also a bit prejudiced because I’m having diarrhea TODAY…
so I’ll have to think on this a bit, but I will say that no one expects much of you when you’re heaving your guts, but when you have stomach cramps and killer gas, you can still man the telephones at work, right?
Ugh…gotta go. 
In my opinion I do not like to throw up at anytime of the day. When you throw up what you have eaten is really bad cause what if it is spicy food that you ate and now you are throwing it back up, Not very good position to be in. So I rather go for Diarrhea any day than throwing up.
I usually threw up in the morning before I even went to school and had to stay home some days, not very good to be in this position cause the throw tasted like very sour lemons and oranges which I really hated the taste afterwards.
I know it is too much information, yet it is my opinion?
Zombies are worse than either…
I can’t vote rationally, having personal emetophobia. The very word “vomit” makes me shudder. I haven’t heaved since 1974, and want to keep it that way.
I’ve heard afficionados of the barf discussing “hang time” and “chunkage.”
Tales of the Adelphian Lodge…
As far as digestion is concerned (recreation is another matter entirely), things are supposed to go in the in-hole, and out the out-hole. As long as that cosmic principle is maintained, I’m good, even if it does last for days and leaves me with a literal pain in the ass. Things coming out the in-hole is… just very wrong.
Worst of all is blowing out both ends at once. You’ve not really been to Thailand until this has happened to you.
As for one one the other, I’d pick diarrhea over vomiting any day of the week. If you’re vomiting, you’re nauseous, and I hate that feeling.
No contest. Vomiting is definitely worse than diarrhea. At least with diarrhea, everything is heading in the right direction.
Just to be clear, I meant I’d pick diarrhea to have, not pick it as the worst. Vomiting is definitely the worst.