<p>A friend, when he gets very depressed, pukes. I don’t know anyone else who does this, but today he began puking and then confessed to me that he was puking up grey bile for a while, and then “something red started coming up” and he didn’t know what it was. He didn’t mention it being blood but it almost sounded like it wasn’t. I encouraged him to go to the hospital but I am very very worried. Has anyone ever heard of this happening? What is it?</p>
<p>He needs a doctor as soon as possible. Please do all you can to convince him to call his family doctor, go to the hospital, get medical attention. If he is resistant or afraid, remind him that illness tends to get worse if not treated, and if he goes now rather than continuing to wait, doctors can likely offer more effective treatment now than later if this gets worse. </p>
<p>As to what it is, I’m not a doctor, but I do not think any doctor is qualified to diagnose medical events over the internet.</p>
<p>I know internet diagnoses aren’t possible, but perhaps people had heard of what was going on with him?</p>
<p>He went to the hospital and they couldn’t tell him what exactly was going on (he didn’t have samples of anything and the vomiting had stopped) but apparently he could have cyclic vomiting syndrome, which I didn’t even know existed.</p>
<p>At this point, it would be a good idea for your friend to make an appointment with his regular doctor in order to start figuring out what the heck the problem is and how best to deal with it.</p>
<p>He wasn’t wrong to go to the hospital, but if this is an ongoing problem, it will help if he is seen regularly by the same doctor.</p>
<p>What is probably going to happen is that the doctor will either order a whole bunch of expensive tests (this is why people need health insurance) or refer your friend to a specialist, who will order a whole bunch of expensive tests. Then, if it turns out to be cyclic vomiting syndrome, all those tests will show absolutely nothing – since this is a disorder that involves the way the body functions, rather than something you can see on a scan or detect in a blood test. But the tests are necessary anyway to rule out other diseases that have to be treated in different ways.</p>
<p>After that, your friend will probably be working with the doctor on ways to manage the problem when it occurs and perhaps also to decrease the frequency of it. All of this is going to take time, unfortunately. As a doctor told my son (who has a different chronic digestive tract problem), “You young people think that medical problems can be solved in one office visit. That’s because you mostly only go to the doctor for strep throat. But there are very few other problems that are like strep throat. Most things take time.”</p>
<p>I have read that some researchers think that cyclic vomiting syndrome is migraine without the headache. If this turns out to be true, it may be a good thing because some of the drugs used for migraine might turn out to be useful in cyclic vomiting syndrome as well.</p>
<p>Thank you very much. I really hope he gets better.</p>