Vomit-phobia

[J-rap]

Ha, I'm sure that sounds funny!  There's not too much that is gross to me...  I think I could handle just about anything nowadays and it wouldn't faze me.  (And this is someone who once fainted in 7th grade biology!)

 

But I have a daughter who has vomit-phobia.  (There's probably a real scientific name for it.)  But, it's not joking, it's very real.  It began when she was in middle school on the swim team, and a girl in the lane next to her threw up and it spread throughout the pool.  My daughter was so horrified and grossed out, that it was very, very difficult for her to return to the swim team again, even though she loved it. 

 

This daughter is very slightly OC -- not enough to be noticed or affect her lifestyle.  Except when it comes to vomit.  When she still lived at home, if one of her siblings was sick with the stomach flu, she would wear a hoodie that covered her mouth and nose the entire time they were sick.  We kind of laughed about it then, but it's actually becoming a problem.

 

She is considering not having children (she's married), because she doesn't feel that she can deal with the vomit.  It's a very, very real phobia for her.  She is so paranoid of vomiting herself, that she somehow is able to control her body into NOT vomiting even when she is very sick and everyone around her is sick and vomiting!  (I have no idea how she does that!)  She hasn't thrown up since the incident in the swimming pool, which was probably 12 year ago.

 

I haven't thought too much about this until recently, when she suggested that children might be out of the picture because of this phobia.

 

Any suggestions on how I can help her?  I think she'd be open to suggestions. 

[rose]

I just ran away from my son who was vomiting yesterday because it made me want to wretch too. I felt like a superstar Mom. I'm 8wks pregnant so it's explainable but still hardly appropriate.

 

I suppose that in your dd's situation this is probably just a phobia like any other phobia and needs to be dealt with as such. Does baby spit-up upset her? Maybe being around some reflux babies could desensitize her a little.

[Eagle]

When it's your own baby you are somehow able to deal with it. I was very lucky though and did not end up with babies with reflux. That was a fear of mine, but it turned out ok and the couple of vomit incidents we've had with ds I was able to deal with better than I expected. She was able to marry her dh without being concerned that he would vomit; this shouldn't be any different. Also, if she homeschools then her child wouldn't be exposed to as many germs. Let her know it will truly be ok.

[ErinE]

If her spouse gets a stomach bug, is she just going to let her sick partner deal with the mess? Or will she clean it up herself?

 

Her views seem extreme to me (not wanting children because vomit). I don't have a problem with people not wanting children. But if the ONLY reason she doesn't want children is vomit risk, I'd recommend she see someone to work through it.

 

I can't handle other people's vomit, but when it's my kid, well, someone's gotta do it and no one else volunteers. Gagging and retching, I get it done.

[SereneHome]

Following.

 

I can't handle puke.  I am so terrified of throwing up that I was afraid to get pregnant.

 

I had a full blown panic attack when one of my kids woke up puking and I was the only parent in the house and my husband was at least 7hrs away.

 

I used to throw up daily as a kid, for 3 yrs, so I don't know if I just PTSD from it or what, but puking is one of my life's greatest fears.

 

And yes, I had to tell my kids that if they think they need to throw up - to get away from me :(

 

 

 

[lmrich]

My dd is the same way! Terrified and will avoid people who say they have a stomach ache. I think she will get over it when forced to. I can't imagine she will let her fear keep her from having children. 

[J-rap]

Ha, thanks for responding everyone!  Yes, it IS extreme, and if her spouse is sick, you bet -- she's out of there FAST!  She'll sleep in a different room and let him deal with it.  I do tell her that it's different if it's her own child...  But I think she has built it up so much in her head all these years, that it's become way overblown!

[Tap]

I guess it depends on how old the person is.  If they are in high school and say "I don't want kids because of vomit", then I would just let it go.   She doesn't want kids right now, she is a teenager, of course it is easy to say that!

 

Once she is married and is ready to actually have kids.... and then is holding back only because of the vomit potential, then I would recommend therapy for her. 

 

Teenagers can be very polarized in their thinking on many topics.  Once that pivotal time actually arrives in their life, priorities shift and many things become possible, that they never thought they could achieve.

 

 

[TranquilMind]

I just tell mine (one of whom sounds pretty vomit-phobic) that no one enjoys vomiting, but 9 times out of 10, you feel much better after you do! 

[TranquilMind]

I guess it depends on how old the person is.  If they are in high school and say "I don't want kids because of vomit", then I would just let it go.   She doesn't want kids right now, she is a teenager, of course it is easy to say that!

 

Once she is married and is ready to actually have kids.... and then is holding back only because of the vomit potential, then I would recommend therapy for her. 

 

Teenagers can be very polarized in their thinking on many topics.  Once that pivotal time actually arrives in their life, priorities shift and many things become possible, that they never thought they could achieve.

No kidding!  I just had one of mine say to me yesterday," Mom you are SO MUCH more reasonable now!" 

 

No, YOU are growing up and don't have drama fits,  able instead to discuss an issue rationally.

 

I haven't changed at all. 

[J-rap]

I guess it depends on how old the person is.  If they are in high school and say "I don't want kids because of vomit", then I would just let it go.   She doesn't want kids right now, she is a teenager, of course it is easy to say that!

 

Once she is married and is ready to actually have kids.... and then is holding back only because of the vomit potential, then I would recommend therapy for her. 

 

Teenagers can be very polarized in their thinking on many topics.  Once that pivotal time actually arrives in their life, priorities shift and many things become possible, that they never thought they could achieve.

 

Well that's the thing... she IS married and WOULD be thinking of having kids soon!

 

[G5052]

I'd just let it pass and tell her that she may find the strength to deal with it when the time comes.

 

I always had trouble with vomit and diapers and never babysat younger kids for that reason.

 

But I learned to deal with it for family members. No one else though.

[zoobie]

Emetophobia

 

I would see a therapist who specializes in anxiety and phobias and look into CBT.

[MrsMommy]

Can her husband handle it?

 

I have a pretty severe vomit-phobia. Not so bad that I considered not having children, but still, pretty bad. If he's home, my husband is the one who deals with it, because I just can't. Unless I have to, and then I somehow manage. I did hit a low point last winter when he was out of town, and one of my children got sick on the carpet. I was scrubbing the floor and sobbing at midnight, and my oldest was in his room, offering to clean it up for me so I wouldn't have to. Of course I didn't take him up on it, but it was a very sweet offer.

[Tap]

Well that's the thing... she IS married and WOULD be thinking of having kids soon!

 

Then I would suggest therapy to over come that being the barrier to children.  She may not be able to completely overcome the fear, but maybe she can come up with a game plan to deal with vomit if it does happen.   

 

ie

1. Husband deals with it.

2. Set up a hazmat kit.  Bucket, gloves, goggles with face shield, apron, etc.

3. Realize that she can just leave the mess and hire someone to come deal with it.  A house cleaner would likely do it for some premium pay.

 

etc.

[J-rap]

Emetophobia

 

I would see a therapist who specializes in anxiety and phobias and look into CBT.

 

I knew there was a name for it!

 

 

[ErinE]

Ha, thanks for responding everyone! Yes, it IS extreme, and if her spouse is sick, you bet -- she's out of there FAST! She'll sleep in a different room and let him deal with it. I do tell her that it's different if it's her own child... But I think she has built it up so much in her head all these years, that it's become way overblown!

For her spouse's sake, I'd recommend therapy. What if he's too weak to clean? Needs chemotherapy? If my spouse is sick, I wouldn't expect him to clean up after himself. I would want him to help me if the situations were reversed.

[kewb]

My dh has a difficult time with vomit. Ot makes him wretch. However, he will take care of it if I am unavailable.

 

I would recommend therapy for your dd. The phobia is affecting life choices.

[Laurel]

I have fairly strong emetaphobia. I hate to vomit, can remember every time I have vomited since I was 3 or 4 years old, and like your dd, can will myself NOT to vomit.

 

One thing that has helped me incredibly is a prescription for Zofran, an anti-nausea med. I can get panicky if I think I might be getting nauseous, and then I convince myself that it's getting worse, even if it isn't. Zofran can offer a placebo effect for me in those instances. But also, having the Zofran always around means that I am less worried about catching a stomach bug from a kiddo, and thus have no problems comforting them, cleaning up, etc. (I take meds incredibly rarely, and am generally the last person to offer meds as a solution, but for me, just the peace of mind of HAVING the meds if I shoild need them, is HUGE.)

 

One upside of the emetaphobia is that bc I hate to vomit, I don't have a very strong gag reflex. And, now that I have less fear of catching stomach bugs myself, I have an incredible amount of empathy for sick kiddos.

 

Does baby spit-up bother your dd? (It never bothered me, as it was normal and not contagious.) As I've worked with kids, I think I was also desensitized by spit-up, and then as they got older and actually got sick, due to the close bonds, I was more concerned for the kids' wellbeing than my own.

 

I don't know how severe your daughter's phobia is. I know for me, it was never a fear of vomit, but of actually vomiting. Once I could take the fear of future vomiting myself out of the equation, I was able to deal with (or at least accept) other people vomiting. (I remember a time growing up when one of my sisters was sick and I was miserable, probably panicky, and trying desperately to block it all out. its this really awful memory for me - and I was the healthy one!)

[J-rap]

I have fairly strong emetaphobia. I hate to vomit, can remember every time I have vomited since I was 3 or 4 years old, and like your dd, can will myself NOT to vomit.

 

One thing that has helped me incredibly is a prescription for Zofran, an anti-nausea med. I can get panicky if I think I might be getting nauseous, and then I convince myself that it's getting worse, even if it isn't. Zofran can offer a placebo effect for me in those instances. But also, having the Zofran always around means that I am less worried about catching a stomach bug from a kiddo, and thus have no problems comforting them, cleaning up, etc. (I take meds incredibly rarely, and am generally the last person to offer meds as a solution, but for me, just the peace of mind of HAVING the meds if I shoild need them, is HUGE.)

 

One upside of the emetaphobia is that bc I hate to vomit, I don't have a very strong gag reflex. And, now that I have less fear of catching stomach bugs myself, I have an incredible amount of empathy for sick kiddos.

 

Does baby spit-up bother your dd? (It never bothered me, as it was normal and not contagious.) As I've worked with kids, I think I was also desensitized by spit-up, and then as they got older and actually got sick, due to the close bonds, I was more concerned for the kids' wellbeing than my own.

 

I don't know how severe your daughter's phobia is. I know for me, it was never a fear of vomit, but of actually vomiting. Once I could take the fear of future vomiting myself out of the equation, I was able to deal with (or at least accept) other people vomiting. (I remember a time growing up when one of my sisters was sick and I was miserable, probably panicky, and trying desperately to block it all out. its this really awful memory for me - and I was the healthy one!)

This is all very helpful to read!  I'm going to look into that medication.  I can see that having that initial peace of mind can have a snowball effect (in a good way).  I don't know if baby spit-up bothers her.  My guess is that it would, but I don't know.  She was the oldest of 4 sisters, but I guess she doesn't remember their spit-up!  She has a dog that sometimes vomits, but that doesn't bother her at all.  It's just people vomit.  What a subject! 

 

[Zydruna]

No real advice here but some empathy.  My dd has a phobia of vomit.  She actually can't even stand to hear any of the words typically used for vomit (barf, puke, upchuck).  She just uses the word "up" to refer to it.  She has issues with anxiety in general and I think she attached a lot of those general fears to "upping."  She often fears she is going to "up" for no logical reason other than that she fears she will.  She once got herself so worked up about worrying that she would vomit that she actually did. 

 

One thing that has worked somewhat is to try to engage her "logic" brain, as opposed to her "worry" brain, when these fears come up.  If she tells me that she is afraid she is going to "up" (I can usually tell when this is just anxiety related rather than her actually being sick) then I will ask her "if I bet you $100 on whether or not you are actually going to "up" before morning (it usually happens at night) would you want to bet for or against?"  She usually says she would want to bet against because she probably isn't going to, but she still feels like she is.  Then I can say that if there is no logical reason to worry, then it is probably just an overactive "worry" brain and it is ok to ignore.  Then we try to distract the "worry" brain by thinking of other things, like things that we are grateful for.

 

Does she have an issue with seeing it in movies or tv shows as well? 

 

Perhaps she could try desensitizing herself in small increments.  For example first try to watch someone pretending to vomit (with no liquid, just the gagging noise).  Then add some liquid.  Maybe knowing that it is pretend and not really sickness-related will help her be less anxious about it.

 

[Mimm]

One time I sent my sick toddler to go stay with my mom for a few days because I couldn't handle the vomit. My husband has cleaned up almost all the vomit around here. It really really bothers me, and when I do have to deal with it, I have to hold my breath. My little one was up all night puking a few months ago. I was able to get her to throw up in a bowl and I was able to handle that fine. I hate throwing up and wish I had your daughter's non-puking skills. :)

[BarbecueMom]

I'm emetophobic also, partly because I deal with unexplained, chronic nausea. If someone says, "I don't feel well," even if they mean a cold or headache, my last meal starts to come back up involuntarily. Unless it's after 5:00 pm, then my last meal is already threatening to reappear. I don't sleep well at night, and if I hear a child in another room roll over and cough, I jump up with a racing heart and urge to run for the puke bucket.

 

I also get far sicker than everyone else. A year ago, I got a bacterial stomach bug, along with one of my kids. Kid was mildly annoyed by diarrhea. I was hospitalized for several days.

 

Most of the time, I think to myself, "I can't handle puking ever again." A couple times a year though, I start to think, "Gee, it's not so bad, is it?" And within 48 hours, someone is sick. It's like a defense mechanism that overrides the anxiety when I need it to.

[J-rap]

No real advice here but some empathy.  My dd has a phobia of vomit.  She actually can't even stand to hear any of the words typically used for vomit (barf, puke, upchuck).  She just uses the word "up" to refer to it.  She has issues with anxiety in general and I think she attached a lot of those general fears to "upping."  She often fears she is going to "up" for no logical reason other than that she fears she will.  She once got herself so worked up about worrying that she would vomit that she actually did. 

 

One thing that has worked somewhat is to try to engage her "logic" brain, as opposed to her "worry" brain, when these fears come up.  If she tells me that she is afraid she is going to "up" (I can usually tell when this is just anxiety related rather than her actually being sick) then I will ask her "if I bet you $100 on whether or not you are actually going to "up" before morning (it usually happens at night) would you want to bet for or against?"  She usually says she would want to bet against because she probably isn't going to, but she still feels like she is.  Then I can say that if there is no logical reason to worry, then it is probably just an overactive "worry" brain and it is ok to ignore.  Then we try to distract the "worry" brain by thinking of other things, like things that we are grateful for.

 

Does she have an issue with seeing it in movies or tv shows as well? 

 

Perhaps she could try desensitizing herself in small increments.  For example first try to watch someone pretending to vomit (with no liquid, just the gagging noise).  Then add some liquid.  Maybe knowing that it is pretend and not really sickness-related will help her be less anxious about it.

 

Interesting!  I don't know if she has an issue seeing it in movies or not. 

 

Once we were all traveling together, all nine of us, and seven of us got food poisoning.  She did too.  She was the only one who didn't throw up (willed herself not to), and it was really all up to her to help us because we were traveling in Central America and she speaks Spanish fluently.  She had to ride in the taxi to take two of her siblings to the ER.  She made sure to sit in front with the taxi driver and just stared straight ahead, while her siblings were in back throwing up into bags. I know it was horrible for her, but at least she was able to kind of help them and didn't run away into the jungle!

[J-rap]

Well, at least perhaps my daughter would be encouraged to hear that other women have this problem too, but still manage to have children!

 

 

[City Mouse]

My DD20 has a the same problem to the point that if the cat or dog start coughing she has to get up and leave the room, and you can actually see her cringe when riding in the car and someone starts coughing. I will admit that part of that is my DS used to vomit pretty much any time he rode in the car. It tools me a long time to figure out that it was a combination on motion sickness and lactose intolerance that would cause him to vomit.

[J-rap]

My DD20 has a the same problem to the point that if the cat or dog start coughing she has to get up and leave the room, and you can actually see her cringe when riding in the car and someone starts coughing. I will admit that part of that is my DS used to vomit pretty much any time he rode in the car. It tools me a long time to figure out that it was a combination on motion sickness and lactose intolerance that would cause him to vomit.

 

This is what it's like for my daughter when a person is coughing/gagging, but for some reason dog barf doesn't really bother her!  At least not her own dog's...

[mom2samlibby]

When it's your own baby you are somehow able to deal with it. I was very lucky though and did not end up with babies with reflux. That was a fear of mine, but it turned out ok and the couple of vomit incidents we've had with ds I was able to deal with better than I expected. She was able to marry her dh without being concerned that he would vomit; this shouldn't be any different. Also, if she homeschools then her child wouldn't be exposed to as many germs. Let her know it will truly be ok.

Not necessarily. I can't deal with. DH has to clean up vomit in our house. I can't stand the sound, smell, or mess. Any of that would set me off to.

 

I feel for your daughter. For me, having children outweighed the vomiting. I lucked out too. Mine don't get sick very often. Whew!

[Luanne]

I can't handle this with adults either, but I've worked in day care centers and had a daughter myself and for some reason when it involves a child, it doesn't bother me nearly as much.  Hopefully your daughter can get past this and able to find out if maybe she's the same way.

[Guest]

Then I would suggest therapy to over come that being the barrier to children. She may not be able to completely overcome the fear, but maybe she can come up with a game plan to deal with vomit if it does happen.

 

ie

1. Husband deals with it.

2. Set up a hazmat kit. Bucket, gloves, goggles with face shield, apron, etc.

3. Realize that she can just leave the mess and hire someone to come deal with it. A house cleaner would likely do it for some premium pay.

 

etc.

Yes to the hazmat suit. I cannot clean up vomit if I have to touch it, but with rubber gloves and no physical contact with the area I can deal.

[kwickimom]

I have it also. It gives me major anxiety. I freak out about stomach bugs and I have willed myself not to vomit for over 15 years. I carry barf bags and zofran everywhere I go. My husband deals with all the puke and my kids know to make it in a bucket or to the toilet because I freak out. They each have a bucket on their bed 24/7 just in case. 

 

I would suggest counseling, but I haven't gotten any myself  :blush:  One of the factors in deciding to be done with kids was the puke. Seriously. 

[Guest]

We have airsickness bags all over the car :o

[J-rap]

Even though it's an unpleasant subject, I enjoyed reading everyone's responses.   :)  thank you!

 

 

[SparklyUnicorn]

Well, I'm afraid of doctors and I still managed to have 2 kids.  So anything is possible. 

 

 

[mom2samlibby]

Hopefully, your daughter's isn't this bad. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/womans-morning-sickness-phobia-leaves-6004061

 

This story popped up on facebook tonight and it made me think of this thread.

[abba12]

Get hyperemesis gravidium in pregnancy (very severe morning sickness)  that will fix it right up!

 

No, really, DON'T tell her what that is or your chances of having grandbabies will be gone, the idea of vomiting 10+ times a day wont appeal to her.... But it did cure me of my own vomit-phobia. My body gave me no choice. Mine wasn't as bad as hers though.

 

Reassure her that cleaning up child vomit isn't as bad as adult vomit, and even my 4 year old knows how to make it to the bucket/toilet. Also, throwing a damp towel on it and going outside until DH comes home is a completely valid option lol (toddler stomach bug while pregnant, that was a fun week....)

 

Depending on the temperament of the child, would exposure help? I know exposure to a fear/trigger is the only thing which helps me get over it. Have her watch you clean up during the next stomach bug? Let her try to burp a baby if you have a friend with a one? It's not a popular thing these days but it's how I tend to deal with things, forcing myself to face them. 

 

Yeah, I've got nothing sorry... 

[LMD]

Dh can't deal with vomit. If I'm out and he is required to, he just shoves kid in the shower til I get there!