Custom Search

Ipecac causes much vomiting, but no cure

This is the story of Kelly, a 24-year-old emetophobe who had been suffering from the condition for 13 years and who hadn't vomited in nine years. She took ipecac in February 2003 in an effort to cure herself of emetophobia.

I had been doing graduated exposure therapy (looking at pictures, watching movies) for quite a while, when I finally decided I wasn't getting anywhere. As I fear myself vomiting far more than others vomiting, the pictures and movies weren't helping all that much. So I decided to try ipecac. I've tried almost every other therapy available, except for EMDR and hypnosis, and I finally decided the only way to quit being afraid was just to do it.

I took 1 mg of Lorazepam (a tranquilizer) before taking the ipecac. I let the Lorazepam work while eating a food I didn't like (so that I wouldn't have to further limit my already limited diet), and then I took 15 mL (1 tablespoon) of ipecac. The recommended dose for adults in 30 mL (2 tablespoons, or 1 ounce), but I figured half that would work. Then I sat in the bathroom with my teddy bear and waited for the fun to begin. I had a friend out in the living room watching TV, in case anything happened and I needed help and/or support.

About 10 minutes after taking the ipecac, I started to feel sick. It wasn't panic nausea, or real nausea, even, it was just a "something is very wrong here" feeling in my stomach. The feeling got progressively worse, and I started to hypersalivate. Then I started to dry heave, and seconds later I vomited. First time in nine years!!! I was very very nervous and afraid, but I wasn't panicking. I remember just before I started vomiting, I was just looking at the floor and thinking about how crappy I felt.

Ten to fifteen minutes later it happened again. I brought up vomit three different times during this bout. But at this point, I still wasn't panicking too much. Round three happened about twenty minutes later, when I vomited again. I had really hoped that the second round would be the last, but no such luck. I remember thinking that the worst things about vomiting were actually feeling the vomit come over your tongue, and the smell. During each time that I vomited, I was flushing the toilet the entire time, because I couldn't stand the smell.

After the third time, I felt better. I still had a couple waves of the strange ipecac-induced nausea, but those feelings didn't lead to vomiting. I was sipping water most of this time, because my throat was getting very sore. As you know, ipecac can irritate your chest and throat. About 1 1/2 hours after the third round, I began feeling sick again. At this point I started to panic....a lot. I went to the bathroom, and I remember holding my teddy bear (how sad! I'm 24 and I still have a teddy bear), crying and chanting "please God don't let me puke" over and over again. But I did. The last time was by far the worst for me, I think because I had already been through enough that day. I immediately took Compazine and Pepto, and I waited for another three hours to see if I would be sick again, then went to sleep.

The next morning I still didn't feel very well. I had to attend an event at school, and I remember at one point having to go to the bathroom because I felt that ipecac nausea. Nothing happened though, thankfully. For about 3 days after the ipecac experience, I was utterly terrified and incredibly weepy, I think because of the trauma I just put myself through. The terror felt a little different than the usual emet fear though. It was as if the feeling of just desperately not wanting to vomit because it's incredibly disgusting kind of supplanted the fear. It's rather difficult to explain. Then I had a couple days where I wasn't afraid at all. The obsessive thoughts still popped into my head, but I was able to shut them up without feeling anxious. Now, about a month later, I'm back to my "old" level of emet.