Chronic nausea…please help!

Hi All,

Yes, i have been to other forums for the gut and such, but with a lack of answers. Docs are working on solving this mystery, but i thought someone here may have some ideas.

So, the story goes….
Had surgery in late jan of this year: colostomy, total hysterectomy, and bladder sling. I am 36 F.
Very shortly after getting out of the hospital, I developed nausea every day, multiple times a day. Sometimes would last minutes, sometimes hours. Very random, can't find any triggers or associations to food or events. Nausea has stayed with me this whole time.

Has become somewhat disabling and very frustrating. Also, about 2 weeks ago, I began randomly vomiting in the morning only. I say random because I never know which days it will happen and which i will be fine. Thougt it was meds, but some days I haven't' even taken them yet.

Yesterday, took meds, two hours later a very short walk (around the block), got home and barely made it into the apt before vomiting up stomach acid or whatever it is that's in your stomach when you haven't eaten.

Had endoscopy & colonoscopy last week for a different reason, but doc said pending the biopsies, everything looked good.

Had autonomic function testing done (including tilt table test), with nothing. Meet w/ a specialist in a week, a neurologist, who will supposedly be able to help me. I'm terrified he will say it's just anxiety, I had thought about that, but am certain it's not connected to anxiety. Checked w/ pharmacist and doctor, they don't see anything in my meds that would cause that, and haven't had much change over the 4 months or so that this has gone on.

Anyone out there been thru this or have ideas for me? I don't want to just make the nausea better for the moment, I want a permanent solution! Or at least an explanation!


Please help if you can…..



Sunny.

@CRPS--thanks for the feedback. first, i have to know how you got/keep the nausea under control. i am getting more and more miserable. usually the vomiting is only in the morning, although i feel like it all day. doesn't matter whether i eat, whether i take my meds, nothing. and no, i am not pregnant--had all those parts removed in january of this year.

also, with the neurogenic bowel, i do take linzess and laxatives 2 times a day, as directed by my doc, to keep things moving. without the meds though, i have zero output. i had a gastric emptying test or something like that at Mayo last august. Is that the 7 hour test? never thought i could be still that long. or is that the one where you eat a meal, take radioactive pill and go back for scans every few hours for 3 days or so? had that done too. the 7 hour test showed insane results--things the doc had never seen before. the scan one showed nothing abnormal.

thanks again for your help. Please do let me know about the nausea control if you don't mind!!


Sunny

Hi Sunny...

Zofran (ondansetron) that roccky mentioned is my main med...when I get really bad I back it up with sublingual lorazepam. The loraz isn't an antinausea med in and of itself of course - but it has a synergistic effect with the zofran. Zofran is the only antinausea med I can use...all others I've tried have side effects that are far worse for me than the nausea (for me mainly they make my dystonia worse...esp things like metaclopramide and prochlorperazine and/or they crash my blood pressure, which is low anyway, and tends to be worse if I'm already dehydrated from vomiting).

Ginger helps me a wee bit...fresh root ginger peeled and boiled with a wee bit of lemon, mint and a wee bit of fresh honey is something I love.

I can't remember how long my GES went for...know it was a good few hours. Mine was porridge - just remember feeling so, so sick the whole way through and thinking I had to hang on, rolling out of the scanner at the end and vomiting the whole lot up over the floor :-/ 'Normal' should have meant having 80% of it emptied in whatever the time period was...I still had 80-90% of it in my stomach.

Diet helps me a fair bit too - probably as much as meds have. I've been strict vegetarian for over 20 years by choice, and also known since I was quite little that I'm sensitive to dairy and potatoes...just ignored that while I was well as I've always been a fan of hot chips!

But I also worked out with help from my GI and dietician that I'm sensitive to wheat and a number of fruits - probably more to do with fructose malabsorption than gluten - and I realised I had to be really strict with myself about not eating the foods I know don't go well for me. I'm also very careful with fats as they tend to make my nausea worse as well - presumably in my case because of the way they affect stomach and bowel motility. So I choose carefully...high quality veggie oils, I have to eat mostly soft foods, but do sometimes have nuts, or nut butters. And because my diet and eating well is so important to me I devote a fair bit of my good health & low pain time to food...growing fresh veggies and herbs, preparing soups and other meals that I can fridge or freeze for not so good days, that sort of thing. Has been worth it though...that, meds (and I'm sure a fair bit of good luck too) has seen me go from my drs telling my parents in late 2009 that I probably wouldn't see Christmas to doing relatively well today. The nausea is still there and still bad at times, but I'm so thankful for the improvement I've had. I wish I could share some of my good fortune ... People here like you, and Roccky, and so many others, you're so amazing the way you keep fighting with everything life throws at you. I'd love to have that magic fix for all of us sometimes x

Thanks Alcie--I will look into that stuff if my Neurologist doesn't have some good and quick solutions this coming week--I'm seeing a neurologist because I had all the autonomic function testing to help determine the cause of the nausea.

Appreciate your suggestions!


@CRPS--I also do use Zofran, 8mg, 3x a day. Doc wants me to use it even if i'm feeling pretty good. not many times i feel pretty good anymore, and i don't feel like the zofran does much but I guess i'd probably feel worse without it! Had a nurse ask me if maybe the nausea and vomiting was because i was pregnant (seem to vomit mostly in the morning but nausea lasts all day and night)….i quickly snapped at her that she had just asked me if anything had changed and I told her about my 3 surgeries, one of which was a total hysterectomy!!! (it's a doc i rarely see so they didn't know about the surgeries yet, but i was really annoyed that she could be either that stupid or completely not paying attention!)

As unappealing as it sounds, you can take nausea meds rectally, if you find yourself vomiting them up. I've also used a Scopolamine patch behind the ear.

It is so hard to find the cause of nausea and vomiting. What's extra frustrating is that many Drs will wait until you've lost a lot of weight or blood work shows up as malnourished.

At one point I was diagnosed with Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome. Ended up being a different diagnosis for me, but it is a cause for some people.

Let us know how its goes.

rocckyd--cant' do the meds rectally, that hole is basically closed after colostomy surgery (rectum removed). but i am curious about the patch thing….where do you get it, is it rx? thanks for the support.

nvr--it's definitely more in the am. thinking it could be meds, but not so sure. i will check into the lack of oxygen thing--do you have to have a sleep study or how to they know whether you have that? and does zofran fit into the category of those meds that will help? or just those specific meds? i am surely going to bring up this idea to the neurologist and ask if it's a possibility. did have a sleep study but that was several years ago--i was borderline for sleep apnea. I will also look into the donnatol, can't imagine trying to swallow anything when i'm that nauseous..

Gotta get ready for an appt. will write more later. thanks so much for all the info!!!



Sunny.

Does anyone suffer from severe chronic nausea but its rare that you vomit but you are just always nauseated and nothing has really worked. I have to jump from multible nausea medications daily just to live a daily life. I need help. When the medications is done working I will feel sick again. Ive had all the test done and besides some a couple colitis episodes and IBS-C the GI doctor says I'm normal.