Intense fear of vomit and vomiting

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Ever since I was little, I have always been afraid of throwing up. I hate everything to do with it. I will never drink, have kids, or go to an amusement park because I don't like throw up. When I was 8, it turned into germophobia. I had to wash my hands all day and carry germ-x and rubber gloves and cover my face with a homemade mask at the doctor's office, and I used to have a celebration and mark milestones on my calendar of certain amounts of time gone without throwing up, as well as remember the exact dates of incidents and I often have nightmares about it. I have to drink grade juice or swallow mouth wash every time I'm near someone with the flu and I think they should make epicac illegal, etc. anyone else have this?

I also started becoming very afraid of germs, food poisoning, and vomit/vomiting. I had food poisoning when I was five so that might be part of it. I do such a good job at avoiding the flu that I have never gotten it, even when my whole family did. I dread flu season. I have only thrown up once in the past 8 years, but I do get mildly nauseous a lot due to anxiety and food sensitivities.

Let us all hope for another year without getting the flu, vomiting, or being around vomiting for any other reason.

I'm fine with vomit, but a woman I work with who is NT has a real phobia of being sick, or seeing someone else being sick. It is called emetophobia. I don't know how common it is, but you are certainly not alone.

Fear of vomiting is in the list of top 10 most common phobias, but some people have the phobia more than others. I do have a real phobia of it. I only have to hear an odd sounding cough and I go all shaky and frightened. The other day I was getting on a bus, and a woman behind me coughed loud then made a gagging noise and when I quickly turned round to look in fear, I saw her bending down. But she was only bending to get something out of her bag, and she wasn't gagging, it was just the sound of her cough (probably very croaky).

But a few weeks ago I was in a small shop, and an old man started coughing. I didn't think anything, but he couldn't stop coughing, then suddenly the tone of his coughing changed, and he started gagging and was sick just outside the door. He was all right after that though. But it did make me feel very shaky for the rest of the afternoon.

Here's a video where all you vomit-phobics can feel a LOT of empathy for this poor lad! :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dox5i0HJ7I

I actually have the opposite problem to this...

Really disgusting smells would make me vomit...or just seeing something disgusting would do so.

I don't like it, but I don't fear it either.

I do not throw up.

My fiance, Spazzdog, just absolutely refuses to vomit! He can't handle it, either. You're not alone.

I have a related phobia. It is along similar lines. My phobia is feeling dizzy. Not the anticipation of feeling dizzy at some point in the future. I have no anxiety when I think, "I am about to do something that will make me dizzy". The anxiety only hits once I am actually dizzy. And part of that is indeed a fear of vomiting. But also losing my equilibrium, fear that I will lose consciousness and fall, hit my head, get a concussion, become paralysed, an invalid, lose my independence, lose control of my life.... et cetera. Alcohol can get very scary for me if I drink too much.

Anyway, I brought this up with my CBT therapist last week. She suggested we do exposure therapy via hyperventilation. She and I will apparently hyperventilate for two minutes, I will feel dizzy, she will help me deal with the accompanying anxiety. It sounds frightening but I said I would try. So i will try it with her next time.

I fear vomiting because I find it so hard to vomit. From what I can remember from my last horrific vomiting experience, I start off by feeling incredibly sick, and the feeling gets worse until my stomach begins to feel heavy. It feels heavier and heavier, and I feel sicker and sicker, and then my mouth starts filling up with tasteless saliva. Then my heart begins to beat faster and faster, and suddenly my stomach involuntarily sucks in and I bend right over (so that my nose almost hits my knees!) and I start gagging horribly. It still doesn't come, but I'm still involuntarily gagging. I try to close my eyes so that I don't see the sick coming out, but my eyes won't stay shut, so there I am watching the horrible stuff coming out, not to mention the nasty taste! It comes all through my nose aswell. I just never want to be in that situation ever again in my life.

It is horrible. Some people just cough a few times then suddenly gag a little bit and the sick is out. For me it's an ordeal to bring the vomit up. I think it depends on how small your (whatever it's called) is. I can burp, but I always feel it coming up, and sometimes it hurts to come up, and then if I want it to come out quiet I have to kind of swallow hard first and then I can control it better. If not, then it just comes out loud.

Nausea and vomiting were major fears when I was a kid and probably into my teens. I haven't vomited for a long time though so I don't know how I'd feel about it now. But yeah, when I was younger being nauseous or vomiting was like the world coming to an end. But man the relief afterwards was always awesome!

I am absolutely terrified of vomiting. Anything to do with it. Even other people in my family I feel scared. If I had to be sick, I would rather have something that doesn't involve vomiting.

It is indeed called emetephobia. I had it and still do to a lesser extent. It is often caused by childhood trauma involving either yourself or seeing someone else vomit. In my case my Mum suffered from severe Menieres disease and every time she got a dizzy spell she would be violently sick. Just like Joe90 I feel as if the process leading up to throwing up is long and causes so much distress. I have got better to some extent as I no longer spend my entire life worrying about whether I might catch a bug or not. When I did it was horrible. Another factor for my fear was that I didn't throw up between the age of 12 and 19. When it finally happened I mistakenly proclaimed 'I'm free!' but I wasn't. It's taken another 5 years to get control of my phobia. I definitely am better now though because a sicky bug has been going round our house, I caught it and just let it get on it's merry way!

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I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

last time that happened to me was June of 2003. That was also the last time I ate carrots or ranch dip (dip was expired). I have had a couple close calls since, but have not vomited.

A word of advice. If you have eaten something questionable, chasing it with a shot or two of hard liquor can sometimes stop or lessen the severity of foodborne illness. This does not work if an allergy, intolerance, or toxin is involved. Ethanol is a germ killer, even in Biblical days, the benefit of a small amount of alcohol was recognized, since modern water treatment was non-existent.