Vomit phobia help!

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ok it is the middle of the night and i am typing this post because i was just awakened by one of my recurring vomit nightmares where people just randomly vomit in my dreams and i wake up all eeew and my stomach's all turned and stuff. is this phobia going to go away with experience?? i am just worried that everytime i come across someone vomiting i'm not going to be able to handle it professionally. advice-Thanks!

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I just posted a similar thread.. I am with you on the vomit phobia! I hope we get better seriously. I am wondering if I can even be a nurse simply because of vomit!!!!!!

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I have the same vomit fear too. It feels good knowing I'm not the only one out there!

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Everyone has something that makes their stomach turn. Event the most seasoned nurses will tell you they can't stand sputum or stool.

The only thing that bothers me (don't laugh): is when pts use tissues to put their sputum in and then throw them on the floor even if I have the trash can close to their bed. It's nasty because the sputum sticks to the floor. Even typing this is making my stomach roll.

There's no reason you can't be a nurse just because you don't like vomit. Heck, no one does. If sputum or stool doesn't bother you and you have a pt who is vomiting, offer to trade jobs with another nurse - not the pt assisgnment, just the particular job.

I work med surg and I see vomit rarely. Well, there was this one time that a pt had a SBO and was vomiting his own feces. NOW that made me want to vomit. But that's rare.

Also, smiling supresses the gag reflex.

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ok it is the middle of the night and i am typing this post because i was just awakened by one of my recurring vomit nightmares where people just randomly vomit in my dreams and i wake up all eeew and my stomach's all turned and stuff. is this phobia going to go away with experience?? i am just worried that everytime i come across someone vomiting i'm not going to be able to handle it professionally. advice-Thanks!

I posted this on another vomit thread. Hope it helps. The sound gets me sometimes, but it's the smell of vomit that gets me for sure. It comes from being in my first trimester when I was a new nurse and got a woman on the liver-transplant floor (I was a float nurse and it was the best thing that I ever did), and when I lifted the sheet covering her I got the biggest whiff of a MASSIVE lactulose stool and started retching right there. The NA took one look at my face and pushed me gently out saying "I'll handle it, honey." (God bless her forever more!) After I finished retching and heaving I told the charge nurse I didn't think I could take this patient. Being the new float nurse, they wanted to give me the easiest patient on the floor, and this woman was it. They told me to put on a mask and that cut out the smells enough that I could finish the shift. I've also learned since then the best thing to use under your nose is something with wintergreen/peppermint/spearmint/menthol - I.E Vicks or some similar rub (seen Silence of the Lambs and the autopsy scene, anyone?). Put that on and a mask and you can't really smell it. That might even help with hearing things, I don't know, but just knowing you won't smell what they are loudly retching up might help. EVERYBODY has their 'thing' that they don't handle. If you have a problem, remember the patient is probably going to be even more embarrassed than you are, and just be gentle with them and yourself.

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Hey I've just registered on here as I'm starting a Nursing diploma in Sept but like you guys i have this phobia of vomiting. I had a dream last night that some kid was vomiting and he was my patient but my stomach felt all funny and i woke up feeling sick. Other than this one thing I am really looking forward to nursing and all other apsects of it but because this is such a big issue for me I am feeling a bit aprehensive about it! I haven't witnesses someone being sick for a long long time but I get a bit wobbly and freaked out when I have been somewhere and I know someone is being sick nearby. What advice has anyone got?Do you think i will get used to it?

Thanks!

chloe

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Specializes in oncology, med/surg, ortho.

I'm a nursing student and my mother is an RN. She has a big vomit phobia too and I asked her "how did you handle it then when you came across it?" She told me that most nurses have their own thing that grosses them out a lot. So if she doesn't like vomit and the other nurse doesn't like stool, then they would switch off with each other to clean it up. In other words, "if you clean up my patient's vomit, I'll clean up your patient's stool." :cool:

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