Talking about the Unpopular

One thing which gets all of us sooner or later is nausea, vomiting and/or diarrhea. It is hard enough to bring up with your doctor, let alone anyone else. Let’s face it: worshiping the porcelain goddess, with either vomiting or diarrhea, loses any appeal quickly and can become very scary.

The biggest problems with either malady are the potential for dehydration and what is known as an “electrolyte imbalance.”

When everything seems to be going through you without stopping or [is] coming up like a trampoline, certain minerals which were designed to stay, as well as water, also leave the body. This exodus of the essential increases the chance for deadly changes in heart rhythm and brain functions. For this reason, should vomiting or diarrhea continue, your doctor or healthcare provider should be called to solve the situation.

There are some things with food that can be done to help. For nausea/vomiting, most of us know to stay away from spicy foods which can upset the stomach on good days. Coffee and milk can also be upsetting at this time. Sometimes old fashioned cures do work. Root beer was discovered to help with nausea and vomiting before Columbus found the new world. Ginger ale was also helps with nausea and sea sickness. Coke© and 7UP© can be used too.

One of two important things to remember with any of these sodas is that the colder they are, the faster they will come up.

The second is that the carbonation or bubbles will have the same trampoline effect-first down, then up again. Don’t like soda? Try tea. The ingredients that help are chamomile, mint and fennel or anise seeds. These can be found in various teas found at store, such as Sleepy Time or Sweet Dreams. Just make sure that the resulting tea is light in color, not dark. A little bit will do just fine.

In addition to the soda or tea, the other “magic” food is saltine crackers or white bread. The “cure” is to take one sip of soda or tea and two bites of crackers. Wait. If it stays down, repeat. If it comes up, wait and try again when things settle down. Always wait for the stomach to “settle” before trying again.

In between the soda/tea, you can always try Gatorade© and Pedialyte©, with crackers, to replace some of the good stuff which you lost.

For diarrhea, we know that certain foods can slow it down. These include cheeses like cheddar, hard boiled eggs, bananas and cooked applesauce, which is what you normally buy at the store.

Certain foods like milk, coffee and chocolate might make the diarrhea worse. One temptation is to drink less water because you think it might also make the diarrhea worse. It won’t. It is important to replace what you fluid you have lost.

Again, this isn’t a conversation for polite company, but I have found it to be an important discussion regardless.