Nausea and Vomiting
Feeling sick to your stomach and throwing up can happen for various reasons. In some cases, it might be due to stomach or liver problems, bleeding in the upper gut, slow bowel movement after surgery, or serious brain issues. If you experience long-lasting or recurring nausea, vomiting, and tummy pain, it could be linked to digestive issues causing your stomach or small intestine to get partially blocked now and then. When these symptoms continue without tummy pain, it could be because your stomach doesn't empty properly or your small intestine doesn't move as it should. Other causes could include medications, pregnancy, brain problems, heart issues, hormone imbalances, ear issues, mental health problems, or eating disorders like bulimia. Sometimes, unexplained nausea and vomiting can happen due to a condition where specific cells in your stomach aren't working right, similar to what occurs in gastroparesis. If you vomit undigested food hours after eating, it could mean you have a blocked stomach or gastroparesis. If you have a swollen belly or throw up material that looks like poop, it could be a sign of a small intestine blockage.
Nausea is that unpleasant feeling you get when you might throw up soon. Vomiting, on the other hand, is when your body forcefully pushes out stomach contents, involving squeezing muscles in your stomach and chest. The reasons for feeling nauseous and vomiting can be different, but it's helpful to look at how long you've been dealing with these symptoms and whether you have stomach pain.
If you suddenly start vomiting with severe stomach pain, it could be a sign of a severe issue that might need surgery. This could include problems like a blocked gut, blood flow issues in the intestines, inflammation of the pancreas, gallbladder pain, or conditions causing stomach lining inflammation like appendicitis or a torn gut wall. If you're vomiting without stomach pain, it's often linked to medications, motion sickness, or other factors.
Diagnosis:
In most cases where someone is throwing up suddenly without stomach pain, it often gets better on its own and doesn't need special testing. However, it's important to rule out vomiting caused by medications or pregnancy. If the vomiting is severe, the doctor might check your blood for electrolyte levels to make sure they're normal. High blood sugar can lead to a condition called acute gastroparesis, which slows down digestion. If your liver or pancreas isn't working as it should, your blood tests might show that.
Now, if someone has both stomach pain and vomiting, the doctor might do an abdominal X-ray or a CT scan to see if there's a problem in the digestive tract, like a blockage or a tear in the gut, or an issue with the pancreas or liver.
But when someone's been vomiting for a while and it's not clear why, doctors want to figure out if it's due to a problem in the digestive tract, issues with how the digestive system moves things along, or something unrelated to the gut. To do that, they might suggest tests like a scope exam of the esophagus, stomach, and small intestine, special X-rays of the gut, detailed imaging of the abdomen, tests to see how well the gut muscles are working, or even scans of the head to check for brain problems.