Features of the disorder
Psychogenic vomiting is a disease that is diagnosed in emotionally unstable people. It is manifested by a feeling of nausea and involuntary release of gastrointestinal contents, which occurs during a period of nervous shock or experience, and goes away on its own as the intensity of the emotion decreases. In other words, these reactions from the gastrointestinal tract have a stable acquired reflex character and are a kind of reaction of the patient’s psyche to the external environment.
Modern medicine has come to the conclusion that the described eating disorder can be diagnosed in any adult, but there is a certain group of people who are most at risk of getting sick:
- adults suffering from certain mental and nervous diseases;
- patients with problems in the gastrointestinal tract;
- women under 40 years of age;
- teenage children.
As with other eating disorders, patients do not realize the seriousness of their condition and do not pay attention to alarming symptoms.
Adult patients neglect treatment and get used to periodic vomiting, considering this process a normal part of the body’s functioning. However, such carelessness leads to serious deterioration in health.
Serious psychological trauma
But if in cases with taste preferences the search for the cause of psychogenic vomiting lies on the surface, recognizing what prompts the patient’s body to spontaneously induce vomiting, for example, on the same day every year, is a much more difficult task. Thus, in medical practice, there are indeed examples when such vomiting occurred in women on the anniversary of a miscarriage or abortion, as a consequence of deep emotional trauma associated with the loss of a long-awaited child or a mistaken choice not to become a mother.
Causes
The causes of psychogenic vomiting lie in increased excitability of the brain. Vomiting is a peculiar reaction of the human body to a stressful situation. It is worth noting that nervous vomiting has a paroxysmal nature, its frequency and abundance depend on the specific case. The causes of psychogenic disorders of the gastrointestinal tract in adults are as follows:
- increased anxiety (for example, fear on the eve of some important event or event);
- reaction to a particular memory (this can be not only an event, but also a smell, taste, etc.);
- a peculiar response of the body to a stressful or conflict situation, the manifestation of emotions that the patient is trying to hide;
- uncontrollable psychogenic nausea during psychosis.
A distinctive feature of the disease is the occurrence of vomiting in the morning, before breakfast. As the disease worsens, nausea may become more frequent; for example, if we are talking about self-provoking vomiting in bulimia, the release of gastrointestinal contents will be spontaneous.
Causes of psychogenic vomiting
How often in our speech do we use the expressions “this is sickening” or “you make me sick”? But thoughts are material. And our desires, supported by images, fears and hallucinations, in real life can “give” signals to the brain to “induce vomiting.”
Features of taste preferences
One way or another, nausea and vomiting are due to the fact that our body (and the stomach in particular) for some reason refuses to accept for digestion the food that we decide to swallow. Let's imagine a situation where you are invited to taste something that in your cultural community has always been classified as “Veto” (forbidden)? The attitude “is not this” is actually located in the brain, but the body reacts to this attitude. This is psychogenic vomiting. This happens in children: they are force-fed something they find unpleasant and tasteless. For tourists: when trying to try exotic food (large insects, for example).
Symptoms of psychogenic disorder
When the body encounters one or another emotional stress, the brain generates a signal to prepare the body for fight. If an adult has a nervous disorder, the reaction to the message may be erroneous.
Symptoms in adults during an exacerbation of the disease are as follows:
- increased sweating due to increased work of the sweat glands;
- total weakness, apathetic state, lack of physical strength;
- increased heart rate;
- irritability;
- lowering blood pressure, etc.
At the same time, the nervous system reacts inadequately to seemingly familiar things and ordinary situations, which in a healthy state of the body do not cause irritation.
It is noteworthy that upon completion of the stressful situation, the person completely returns to normal, psychogenic nausea recedes, in some cases being replaced by an increased feeling of hunger.
How to get rid of psychogenic vomiting?
A person suffering from constant psychogenic vomiting may not feel well.
Poor emotional and physical well-being greatly affects life and thoughts about the future. At the Anapa-Okean sanatorium, our specialists will select a course of treatment and rehabilitation that will not only reduce the frequency of psychogenic nausea, but also resolve your psychological problems and normalize your diet. It is difficult for one to deal with his own problems. And in cases where it seems to you that the causes of periodic vomiting and nausea are unknown to you and you don’t know what to do to stop this unpleasant reaction of your body - trust the professionals! In contact with
Treatment options
When talking about the treatment of psychogenic overeating and psychogenic vomiting, it is important to take an integrated approach. The fact is that a long-term disease negatively affects the nature of metabolism in the body of an adult - the extracellular fluid volume is reduced, alkalosis, hypokalemia, nocturia and other life-threatening conditions often develop. Therefore, it is extremely important to approach your treatment program responsibly. To treat psychogenic vomiting, the following is used:
- drug therapy;
- psychotherapy, the purpose of which is to combat obsessive thoughts, reduce anxiety and dull the feeling of nausea;
- diet therapy - the menu is designed in such a way that the patient receives all the necessary nutrients with sufficient calories;
- developing healthy eating habits;
- weight gain under the supervision of a nutritionist and trainer;
- treatment of associated complications.
Nausea during stress
Maria
February 25, 2021
I have had this problem for a very long time; since childhood, I have felt sick whenever I was excited. The older I get, the more cases where I worry. I’m 28, I remember the first incident when I was 5 years old. I was walking along the corridor in the morning in kindergarten, and the smell of milk porridge caused me a terrible disgust and an attack of nausea. Then, at the age of 7, I remember I was going to school on September 1st with my mother, and I felt bad, my mother took me to the corner of the school, where I just tore everything up... These were rare cases. Then I remember at school, probably from grade 7-8, maybe earlier, I stopped eating before important lessons, where I could be called to the blackboard or, for example, I had to read out loud... But this was not before all the lessons where I I felt comfortable, I could even eat lunch! I never had breakfast, I don’t know why... maybe it was due to this, I just didn’t feel like it, in the morning I have an aversion to food, maybe I didn’t get enough sleep..? I attended dance classes. I liked it there. But as soon as we have a concert, I again don’t eat anything and I’m shaking. After the performance, I could eat my fill and I felt so good. I loved to dance. It’s the same at the university - if there are lectures or classes where they don’t ask, then I’m well-fed, if I need to prove myself, then I don’t eat anything in the morning. And I go hungry until the evening (if the important couple is the last). Now I live with my husband, whom I have known since childhood. When we met with him, I also didn’t eat, I only worried when we stayed together for a long time and ate together. When we started living together, everything went away. He is dear to me. How we got married is a different story. I ate almost nothing until the evening and I was shaking, I could not relax and get high, and my husband looked at me and thought that I didn’t want to marry him... Now before some event or just going to visit a hairdresser (there, where attention will be paid to me) I never eat so as not to vomit. But even this doesn't help. If I’m very nervous, I just feel sick, excuse me, with water... When people come to visit me, I worry too, even my parents. They live in another city, we don’t have a close connection with them, and when they come, I feel a little uncomfortable, but when I come to them, I feel calm in their house. I want to live normally, like other people. I had so many ambitions in life - and now, I'm afraid of everything. I want to get a responsible job, but I don't know what to do. I'll just be sick. Nobody knows about my problem. Just me. My parents are far from me in terms of moral support, and my husband most likely will not understand, because he is a very confident person, and this will probably seem just stupid to him. Help me…
Age:
28
The question is closed
panic
nausea
stress
VSD
Nervous symptoms and pain
The most common symptoms and complaints, that is, they can arise from “nerves”:
- insomnia, early and frequent awakenings, difficulty falling asleep, daytime sleepiness,
- lack of air, feeling of incomplete inspiration, increased breathing,
- a wave of heat or cold throughout the body, chills,
- feeling of inner trembling,
- palpitations, arrhythmia,
- headache, pain of any localization,
- feeling of heaviness in the chest or other localization,
- lump in the throat, feeling of a foreign body in the throat,
- anxiety, melancholy, apathy,
- obsessive fears, doubts, movements,
- floods of thoughts,
- obsessive feelings of guilt or resentment,
- increased or decreased body temperature,
- weight gain (obesity), weight loss (cachexia), weight fluctuations,
- increase or decrease in blood pressure, pressure surges,
- skin rashes of any shape and location,
- nausea, vomiting, abdominal discomfort, diarrhea or constipation,
- frequent urge to urinate, feeling of a full bladder, difficulty urinating,
- trembling, feeling of “internal trembling”,
- feeling of numbness in any part of the body,
- loss or increased perception of taste, light, smell, sounds, touch,
- decreased memory or excessive memorization,
- attention disorders,
- increased tearfulness or lack of feelings and emotions,
- aggressiveness, resentment, rancor, vindictiveness, heightened sense of justice, jealousy,
- decrease or increase in volitional activity.
These complaints may be a consequence of a malfunction of the nervous system (that is, arise from nervousness). However, such symptoms can also manifest themselves in ordinary somatic diseases (inflammation, trauma, dystrophy, vascular disorders, infections, etc.).
Therefore, even if you are faced with the presence of several symptoms from this list at once, you cannot draw a conclusion about the presence of “nervous soil”. Such a conclusion can only be made by a doctor who will examine, clarify the condition and determine the diagnosis.
Nervous
In the human body, the nervous system plays a leading role in regulating the functioning of all organs and systems of our body.
In addition, it is the basis of the psyche, that is, it is the soil (or matter) on which mental functions develop: perception, thinking, memory, emotions, will, personal characteristics. The state of the nervous system and psyche directly determines the health of the entire body. A healthy nervous system and psyche ensure the normal functioning of the entire body.
Disorders and diseases of the nervous system provoke diseases of internal organs, determine susceptibility to infectious diseases, allergic reactions, and affect the body’s ability to regenerate and recover.
«Nervous soil
“It is customary to call any painful symptoms or healthy manifestations in the body caused by changes in the mental sphere.
Doctors even identified a whole direction in medicine and a whole group of diseases caused by disturbances in the functioning of the nervous system - psychosomatics. Psychosomatic diseases include a large list of pathological conditions:
- hypertension,
- bronchial asthma,
- irritable bowel syndrome,
- eczema,
- obesity or pathological thinness,
- hyperthermia of central origin (increase in temperature), etc.
That is, all these disorders arise on a “nervous basis”.
Many normal (that is, not painful) physical sensations in the body, familiar to everyone, have a mental origin and develop on a “nervous basis.”
The most common of them: a feeling of heaviness in the chest or in the “solar plexus” area during excitement; feeling of a warm wave when experiencing pleasure; or “cold down the spine” with fear; dry mouth, palpitations, shortness of breath, “internal trembling”, weakness, restlessness, urge to go to the toilet, itching, etc.
