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Understanding Nausea
Reviewed: December 2006
 Nausea and vomiting are very unpleasant. Either or both may be barely noticeable or may be severe and cause you to be unable to do things that are important to you. In addition, if you vomit a lot you can get dehydrated and have other problems from losing body salts. If you are vomiting and cannot drink fluids, you may have even worse side effects of chemotherapy or radiation treatment to your kidneys or bladder.
You should call you doctor or nurse if:
- You have nausea that lasts for more than a few days; of if nausea keeps you from doing things that are important to you.
- You vomit more than once or twice a day for 2 days.
- You cannot keep any liquids (such as water, juices, soda) or food down.
- You are vomiting and you lose more than 2 pounds in a day (this is from losing water). You will usually feel thirsty and your mouth will seem dry when you are losing a lot of water.
- You are vomiting many times and your urine is dark yellow and you are not going to the bathroom as often as you normally do.
- You are vomiting and feel lightheaded or dizzy or confused (mixed up). The stuff you throw up looks like coffee grounds (this could be blood).
Like pain, only you know how nauseated you feel. Please be sure to be clear about how you are feeling with your care team.
Prevention
If your chemotherapy is likely to cause nausea, your oncologist will order anti-nauseant medication to prevent or minimize the nausea after your chemo, and your care team will tell you when to take your medication.
Some people also feel nauseated with the beginning or with increasing doses of opioid medication. This usually lasts only a couple of days, but it is important to let your care team know if this effects you, so that you can have medications designed to relieve this type of nausea.
Sometimes, not often, people with cancer just feel nauseated all the time, related to the effect that the cancer wastes have on their body.
Whatever the cause, we have many medicines to control nausea and vomiting (antiemetics) and your doctor will prescribe one or more of them for you. Some things to remember are:
- Make sure you obtain the antiemetics prescribed for you. Let your doctor or nurse know if your drugstore does not have them or if you cannot afford to pay for them.
- If you are not sure how to take your antiemetics, call your doctor or nurse.
- Take the antiemetic(s) as your doctor has ordered. If you have vomiting and cannot take them, call your doctor or nurse.
If your antiemetics help lessen your nausea and vomiting but not as much as you would like, call your doctor or nurse. The dose of the antiemetic may have to be changed, or the doctor may change you to a different antiemetic.
The BC Cancer Agency maintains a database on commonly used unconventional therapies available to cancer patients.
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