Recurrent vomiting?

[noodleoo]

DD1 has had a few episodes of recurrent vomiting and I have no idea what’s going on. She woke up this morning and threw up. No food in her stomach, so it’s just bile. She has been throwing up every 15-20 mins or so for an hour. Poor kiddo. This is the 3rd time this has happened in the last 3 months. In the past, it goes on for a few hours and then she’s totally fine. Last 2 times were school days so we had to have her covid tested to return, both negative. No other symptoms. Anyone had anything like this happen before? When we’ve seen the dr in the past they don’t really have any advice for us. 

[topcat]

Research cyclical vomiting syndrome. My son had this but has since grown out of it. Started when he around three years old.

[noodleoo]

topcat, thank you, that sounds like it. ☹️ Were you able to identify the triggers? What age was your son when he outgrew it?

[timorousbeastie]

It sounds like cyclic vomiting syndrome to me, too. I had it when I was a child. I don’t know how old I was when it started; I must have been young, as I just remember always having it. It unfortunately lasted until I was in 6th or 7th grade. I’d have an episode every month or two, and I had to be hospitalized almost every time for dehydration and to get the vomiting to stop. I don’t think most cases are that severe, and I think most kids grow out of it much sooner than that.

Sorry you’re going through this!

[lilac05]

Both of my boys had cyclic vomiting syndrome, too. We never figured out their triggers, despite my absolute best efforts. My 10 year old has grown out of it. My 7 year old’s last cycle was about 6 months ago, I think. I’m crossing my fingers that he’s growing out of it, too (come cases last into adulthood).

For us, it was really bizarre because 95% of the time, it happened between 3 and 4AM. My oldest followed a pretty consistent pattern...every 2-3 nights for 2-3 weeks, and then he’d have a break. My oldest would throw up once and go back to bed like nothing happened. My youngest was always hit at the same time, but he’d throw up every 5 minutes for an hour or two (absolutely miserable), but then wake up a few hours later perfectly fine. He wasn’t as good about making it to the bathroom, so to this day, he sleeps with a bowl next to his bed every night.

We were able to get a note from their doctors that the kids weren’t sick, so they could go to school the next day.

It’s really gross, but I could easily tell by the smell if it was a cycle or if it was a stomach bug.

[noodleoo]

Oh boy. timorousbeastie, that sounds awful! I feel so bad for her because I had HG during pregnancy so I know how much recurrent vomiting sucks. Luckily she seems to get past it after a few hours.

Any tips for making her more comfortable? We let her watch TV until it passes (that helped me while pg).

lilac05, I’ll have to talk to her pedi about this. It would be nice to have a dr note on file so she doesn’t have to get covid tested and miss school for 2-3 days waiting for test results every time.

[joy]

....yes.

My daughter was diagnosed with abdominal migraines.

[timorousbeastie]

Dec 12, 2020 10:10:22 GMT -5 noodleoo said:

Oh boy. timorousbeastie, that sounds awful! I feel so bad for her because I had HG during pregnancy so I know how much recurrent vomiting sucks. Luckily she seems to get past it after a few hours.

Any tips for making her more comfortable? We let her watch TV until it passes (that helped me while pg).

lilac05, I’ll have to talk to her pedi about this. It would be nice to have a dr note on file so she doesn’t have to get covid tested and miss school for 2-3 days waiting for test results every time.

I definitely watched a lot of TV whenever I had an episode- of course, it was the 80s, so I watched a lot of TV pretty much any time 😋 I remember sucking on a cold, wet washcloth or eating crushed ice helped me feel better, plus kept me at least a little bit hydrated. Once my stomach started to settle, I would have lots of popsicles, but only once I was definitely done throwing up. And never a red popsicle - I distinctly remember learning that one the hard way when a nurse at the hospital gave me a red one; she then freaked out at the color when I threw it back up! It’s funny now, but it was not a good visual at the time!

[joy]

noodleoo, our pediatrician prescribed zofran. For my daughter, it always happened around 3-4am in the morning. She’d throw up every 15-20min for about two hours.

Zofran stopped the vomiting after one or two vomiting episodes (instead of five or six). We all could get back to sleep within 45 min, which was very helpful.

[lilac05]

Since it was always in the middle of the night for us, we’d bring some blankets into our room and he laid on the floor. I kept the bowl right by their heads so they didn’t even have to get up.Sometimes I’d lay on the floor with them.

Also make sure that you tell the teachers...otherwise they’ll be horrified when she inevitably says, “I threw up last night!” I assured the teachers that I could tell the difference between sick vomit and CVS. What a mom badge to have! LOL

joy, that’s strange that the timing of yours was the same as for my kids!

My kids have always been incredible troopers about it. They never complain. They know the drill...it doesn’t last long and then they’ll be back to feeling 100%. They’re usually kind of mopey sick kids with other things, but this is always more of a “let’s get this over with” kids of thing. I feel awful for them, but they assure me, “it’s OK, Mom. I just want it to be done so I can go back to sleep.”

[topcat]

My son is 13 now. The episodes stopped around 8 or 9. We never found a trigger either. He was on periactin daily and zofran as needed. Every 6-8 weeks it would happen and always around 6 at night. He would complain of belly aches first that’s how I knew to expect the vomiting. Unfortunately a few months ago he experienced his first aura headache. It often transforms to typical migraines in older kids

[noodleoo]

Dec 12, 2020 11:56:10 GMT -5 topcat said:

My son is 13 now. The episodes stopped around 8 or 9. We never found a trigger either. He was on periactin daily and zofran as needed. Every 6-8 weeks it would happen and always around 6 at night. He would complain of belly aches first that’s how I knew to expect the vomiting. Unfortunately a few months ago he experienced his first aura headache. It often transforms to typical migraines in older kids

I’m sorry. 😔

[preppy]

DD1 also has cyclic vomiting syndrome. Her episodes are always early in the AM with no specific triggers but she will wake early and complain of thirst and stomach pain so we have started to give her zofran which helps some. Her school knows about it so they aren’t alarmed when she mentions she’s puked that morning etc and because we have a diagnosis from her pedi we can bring her to school on days she vomits.

[joy]

What we could identify as a trigger was constipation. That wasn’t the reason for the vomiting, but it seems to trigger something in her. She’s on nightly Miralax so she doesn’t become even mildly constipated and it has helped reduce the vomiting a lot.

I have migraine so they fully expect she will grow up to have headaches, too.


There is some speculation that cyclic vomiting syndrome and abdominal migraine are related/the same. Nothing is definitive, though.