What helped in nausea week, and what didn’t

Dear You,

Week three, for me, was the rough one. I’m not going to dress it up. There were about nine days where food was a theoretical concept and the smell of my own coffee maker made me leave the kitchen.

Before anything else: nausea, and every other side effect, is a conversation for your care team. I called my prescriber’s office on day two. They talked me through what they wanted to know, told me what would make them want to see me sooner, and booked me in. What follows is not advice. It’s what I did in the eight days between that phone call and that appointment, labeled honestly as one person’s experience.

What helped

Cold things. Hot food smells. Cold food mostly doesn’t. Cold grapes, frozen blueberries eaten one at a time, a yogurt from the back of the fridge where it’s coldest. For a few days, cold watermelon was the best thing I ate.

Small sips, constantly. Not a big glass of water, which sat in my stomach like a stone. A small cup, refilled all day. Room temperature at first, then cold when I could handle it. I put one on my desk, one by the bed, one by the sofa so I never had to decide.

Bland, dry, and salty. Plain crackers at 7 am before I got vertical. Toast. Rice. A boiled potato with salt, which sounds like a punishment and tasted like relief. Pretzels in the car.

Eating something before the hunger arrived. Hunger on a nauseated stomach made everything worse. A few bites every two or three hours, on a schedule, whether I felt like it or not. Set an alarm. I’m serious.

Ginger. Candied ginger in my coat pocket, ginger tea at night. I can’t tell you whether it worked chemically or whether it just gave my hands something to do, and I’m not sure it matters.

Lying on my left side. A nurse told me that one and I will never un-learn it.

Fresh air and slow walks. Ten minutes around the block after eating, not before. Movement helped. Movement after a big sip of anything did not.

What made it worse

Fat and grease. A friend brought over takeout on day four as a kindness and I had to leave the room. Anything fried, anything creamy, anything that arrived in a paper bag with a translucent spot.

Big meals, or anything that looked like one. Even looking at a full plate did something to me. I ate off saucers for a week.

Lying flat right after eating. See above about the left side. Also see above about the sofa, where I learned this the hard way.

Strong smells of any kind. Scented candles, my partner’s cologne, the trash can. I became a person who takes the trash out hourly.

Pushing through. There were two evenings where I thought “I should eat a real dinner” and tried. Both were mistakes. A real dinner was not available to me that week, and pretending otherwise cost me the whole next morning.

Skipping fluids because drinking felt bad. This one is dangerous, and it’s a big part of why I called the office when I did. If you can’t keep water down, that is not a wait-and-see situation. Call.

What the appointment changed

My prescriber had a plan I would never have come up with on my own, because I’m not a prescriber. The specifics are between me and them and are irrelevant to your body. What I’ll say is that going in with notes helped. I’d kept a list on my phone: what I ate, when, how I felt an hour later. She read it faster than I could have described it.

The week ended. It did, genuinely, end. Food came back slowly and the coffee maker and I reconciled. If you’re in it right now, the honest thing I can tell you is that it was hard, that I called, and that calling was the best decision of the week.

Want to tell me something? Reply to any Low Volume email, or write to me here. I read everything.

Getting Quiet shares lived experience, general education, and practical tools. For medical decisions and individual treatment questions, talk with your qualified care team.