Life makes me sick.

November 9, 2005 9:00 PM

I barf constantly. Why?

It's not medical; it's esthetic. Bad smells and sights, generally related to waste and filth, make me violently sick. Changing the litter box makes me barf. Dog shit in the street, a really dirty house (even a picture of a really dirty house!), anything foul at all and I barf. I've had to stop typing this several times because merely contemplating these things brings me to the edge.

I haven't always been this way! I've always strongly disliked foulness, but this level of disgust and delicacy is ridiculous and I don't know what to do about it. Also, a lot of the things that really make people lose it, like blood, don't affect me at all.

Is there actually a medical/psychological reason this could be happening to me? Existential nausea is something I thought only happened to the French.

(I'm a woman in my early thirties, if that makes any difference, with no obvious traumas or head injuries linkable to this. I'm staying anonymous in case I am crazy. And no, I'm not kidding.)

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (19 answers total)

Talk to your doctor. My guess (disclaimer: I was a Theatre Arts major) is that there's something wrong in your gasterointestinal system that has it constantly much closer to the verge of throwing up than it should be. So it only takes a small thing to push it over the edge.
posted by winston at 9:16 PM on November 9, 2005

I was throwing up constantly for a couple of years and it kept getting mistaken for food poisoning. Eventually I learned I had gallstones and needed to have my gallbladder removed. Had the surgery and have not been sick since.

I realize that you are saying that certain ideas, situations, sites and images are whats making you sick, but as the person above me suggested, maybe your body is already so sick for some reason, that these triggers are just setting something off that's ready to go off all the time regardless.

Diseased gallbladder is very common for women in their 30's (myself being one of the statistics). Mine got so bad before being taken care of that just smelling food from a distance would make me puke.
posted by RoseovSharon at 9:27 PM on November 9, 2005

The last year or two when I was drinking coffee saw a much increased tendency to vomit (or at least feel like I was about to vomit). I quit coffee about two years ago and have noticed a significant decrease in my "fussy" stomach ever since. YMMV, but it worked for me.
posted by scody at 9:27 PM on November 9, 2005

Is there any chance you are pregnant?
posted by nicwolff at 9:29 PM on November 9, 2005

Wow, I really don't know. Some days I come closer to this condition than others. Sometimes just seeing someone spit in the street makes me churn, and all my food has to be just right to be appetizing. Most days I'm less discriminating. But it sounds like what you are going through is way worse than my worst day, and constant. I don't have an answer, just some sympathy, albeit from a much lower level.
posted by scarabic at 10:06 PM on November 9, 2005

I second nicwolf -- any chance you are pregnant? I'm a guy, so I wouldn't know personally -- but I've had one girlfriend and two sisters with the same sort of 'enhanced' sensitivity due to being with child.
posted by SpookyFish at 10:17 PM on November 9, 2005

Gallstones or ulcers maybe, I've had both and when I had them I barfed a lot too. Getting stomach pains after eating greasy foods was what finally led me to a gallstone diagnosis and not eating greasy food, ever, seems to have fixed the problem. The ulcers were a direct result of too much coffee and not enough actual food (first year of college), cutting out all soda, salty food and coffee fixed that.
posted by fshgrl at 10:22 PM on November 9, 2005

Second the comment about coffee. However, it's not uncommon (ie. it's "normal") to have an adverse reaction to stuff that you have evolutionarily been programmed into feeling as hazardous/icky.

The "fussy" stomache may be from fight/flight reactions. Caffeine is a general nervous system stimulant (sorta - it decreaes the threshold for action potential) and may enhance general fight/flight signals (which has evolutionarily persisted as shitting onself/barfing).

Are you stressed out, job-wise, money-wise, social-wise?

When I'm severely stressed (chronically) and am put into acute stress situations I get signals to want to vomit. Do you have a negative history with bad smells/waste?
posted by PurplePorpoise at 11:02 PM on November 9, 2005

Rather than actually being pregnant, are you on any kind of hormonal birth control that tricks your body into thinking you're already pregnant, like Depo-Provera?
posted by Asparagirl at 11:12 PM on November 9, 2005

I spent a summer working in a hospital in high school, and I vividly remember a nurse who was totally normal except she would barf constantly. She dealt with all the nasty stuff that nurses have to deal with,(blood, urine, vomit, fecal matter and worse) and was totally calm, never complained about it, but as we would be dealing with something gross-blood, etc, she would pause, apologize, step away, and then vomit. She'd quickly clean up and then return to business, completely unfazed, like nothing even happened and would deal with the mess. To me, it seemed like a coping mechanism for dealing with something gross. This seemed like an easy way for her to get over her disgust at this task, so it became a common thing for her.

I think for some people, barfing is a easy thing, and maybe what Anon is doing is way to deal with stuff that she doesn't like or enjoy doing.
posted by geryon at 11:51 PM on November 9, 2005

It sounds to me to be psychological in origin. This is coming from someone with absolutely no training in the field, but since we're all speculating anyway, my guess is that it's environmental conditioning, i.e. what you're used to.

I have dealt with some funky sh*t in my life (literally and figuratively - we all have) , and it is an issue of mind over matter. It's about controlling the gag reflex. It's not easy, but it can be done.
posted by wsg at 12:31 AM on November 10, 2005

God, me too! I only have to think about some foods or the traditionally less-enjoyable body fluids and I want to vom.

And I'm not pregnant, on the grounds that I'm a man.
posted by Pericles at 3:32 AM on November 10, 2005

IANAD, but recently in the news, there was discussion of Helicobacter pylori infections of the stomach as a cause of continuing low level gastric distress. The attention of the media was fueled when two Australian doctors won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work in developing a simple antibiotic protocol to treat these widespread infections, and there is now a simple diagnostic test to check for the condition, which can also demonstrate when treatment has been successful. A summary from Wikipedia.
posted by paulsc at 3:38 AM on November 10, 2005

I experienced something very similar years ago; not only was I throwing up very frequently, I started losing weight and feeling generally run-down. After an enormous number of tests, including 3 or 4 pregnancy tests, an Upper-GI scan, and more non-fun things, and months of unpleasant vomiting including blood from esophogeal tears, I left law school and slowly started to feel better. It was stress manifesting itself with a nasty sensitive stomach. The fact that thinking about nasty smells and stuff, not just smelling it, makes you vomit implies that you're not experiencing a physiological but a psychological reaction.
posted by miss tea at 4:59 AM on November 10, 2005

I don't mean any disrespect, but I think you know the answer: you're going to have to go see your doctor to get a real diagnosis.
posted by ph00dz at 5:46 AM on November 10, 2005

I get this way a lot. But I have total OCD when it comes to germs. Is it possible that this is OCD-related? If nothing turns up in physical exams, I'd explore possible psychological issues.
posted by necessitas at 8:32 AM on November 10, 2005

I had the same problem a few years ago. I'll spare you the long details, but the end result was an Upper GI and the diagnosis of a hiatal hernia and acid reflux disease. I had none of the "normal" symptoms - only constant vomiting. They put me on Prilosec (now Protonix) and I don't think I've thrown up once since.

Not saying this is your problem, but, yeah, see a doctor.
posted by mike9322 at 9:43 AM on November 10, 2005

The brain is something we know so much - yet so little. I would venture to guess the problem lies in your thoughts and not your stomach. My first thought after reading your question was Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. After being checked out physically, consider the power of the mind and the many connections it makes without our consciously being aware.

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posted by Independent Scholarship at 9:50 AM on November 10, 2005

Are you Jesus?
posted by kirkaracha at 12:56 PM on November 10, 2005