Nausea: how to treat it?

[IreneF]

Personally I would avoid anything sugary. It may provide a quick fix, but in my experience it just messes up the gut microbiome and makes future nausea more likely. A more long-term solution may require stabilising blood sugar, for which I have found a low-sugar, low-grain diet extremely helpful.

Because of the sugar I tried replacing the crystalized ginger with ginger capsules, but the capsules irritated my stomach and made everything much worse. You don't need to eat a lot, just nibble. And it has to be actual pieces of ginger, not ginger candy.

I tried eating gari (pickled ginger) but it didn't work, maybe because it has vinegar.

 

[MeSci]

There have been times when I've been too nauseated to keep any food down, and obviously suffering from hypoglycemia, i.e. the "food shakes." This is the same situation as someone who has taken too much insulin and their blood sugar is too low. A low blood sugar can turn into a medical emergency if not treated quickly with sugar via mouth or IV.

It is a quick fix, and the best thing to do is for the person to look for ways to NOT feel nauseated in the first place, so they can eat the right kind of food. The Cola drink, with sugar included, is necessary at that moment, to bring blood sugar levels up to the point where the person can function without feeling shaky, sweaty or close to passing out. Maybe you've never felt that way before. If you have, please tell us all what you did to correct it, while avoiding sugary substances.

I have felt like that. In the distant past I did have sugar to try to correct it (and it seemed to help), but suspect that my particular problem was in fact low blood salt rather than low sugar, as that was eventually discovered relatively recently.

I don't know why the sugar fix seemed to help, but maybe it was because sugar can purportedly help sodium to get to where it's needed. Not sure about this without checking.

I don't deny that some people may need a quick sugar fix, but don't know of many conditions/situations that lead to low blood sugar apart from diabetic-related issues and ingestion of some substances such as d-ribose. There are perhaps more that can lead to low blood salt/sodium, and maybe the symptoms are broadly similar.

 

[IreneF]

One can have "idiopathic hypoglycemia", which means they don't know why you have it.