Please help me ASAP

[onelittlerose]

Okay I need some major advice from as many people as possible. I'm a highly anxious person, and i suffer from extreme emetophobia ( fear of vomiting or nausea ) and it causes me to severely limit myself from traveling, eating, drinking, meeting people- to even leave my house and eat somewhere else is a marvel. I'm attending the March for Our Lives tomorrow, in which there will be thousands of people, probably many of them sick and I'm terrified of becoming sick there, terrified of going out where I may be exposed to food poisoning or sickness, and being so anxious that I make myself sick. But I have to go, the cause is so strong. Please, especially for fellow emets, help me figure this out.

[mrmonk]

Fellow emetophobe here. Sometimes, we just have to employ the coping skills we have to offset the anxiety and not let the phobia stop us from doing what we really want to do. Remember, you have control of a lot of variables here: you can decide what you want to eat to mitigate the risk of food poisoning; you can do things like breathing exercises to control your anxiety; you can pick up a cheap face mask to keep out others' germs (if you're self-conscious about wearing one, you can just say you're coming down with a cold and don't want to infect others); you can do self-talk to give yourself encouragement. Do you have an object, like a good luck charm, something that makes you feel safe, that you can bring with you? I know you can do this. Take care and be well. And thank you for participating in such a worthy cause.

[mrmonk in reply to mrmonk]

Also, I forgot to ask if you have any anti-emetic medications you can take with you? I use Tigan, a prescription medication, but there are plenty of decent over-the-counter ones, as well.

[onelittlerose in reply to mrmonk]

I haven't even heard of anti-emetic medication, what does it do?

[mrmonk in reply to onelittlerose]

The over-the-counter variety can tamp down nausea, stuff like Emetrol and Pepto-Bismol. There are also antihistamines, like Dramamine, that work to prevent motion sickness. Then, there are prescription medications, like Tigan, Compazine, and Zofran, that actually can prevent nausea and vomiting. I don't know exactly how they work in the brain, but some of these stronger medicines are even used to help with the nausea experienced by cancer patients during chemotherapy; they are quite potent.

So, did you attend the march? If so, how did it go, managing your anxiety?

[Aesclepius]

May I ask what part of vomiting you find fearful? What specifically frightens you?

[onelittlerose in reply to Aesclepius]

All of it. Feeling nauseous, actually throwing up, absolutely everything. I think the underlying issue is a loss of control- I must always have control in all parts of life.

[Aesclepius]

If your gastro eval was normal, then it seems like you are somatizing which means that you express your personal issues through bodily symptoms.

You might find CBT, yoga and meditation helpful.

[onelittlerose]

I throw up.