Causes of Nausea

Nausea, with or without vomiting, is a miserable feeling. Often, treating nausea means fixing the cause of the nausea. However, there are some things you can try regardless of cause.

If you have your own tips for curing nausea that you'd like to share, scroll to the bottom of the page. There you'll be able to read how others are settling their own stomachs.

• How to Treat Nausea
• Anti Nausea Medications

Most of the time, nausea is not life-threatening. However, prolonged nausea that causes repeated vomiting may lead to dehydration or even shock.

Causes of Nausea

There are several common causes of nausea and vomiting. Most causes of nausea either involve the gastrointestinal tract or are triggered by feelings of dizziness (vertigo). It's important to identify what is causing nausea in order to relieve it.

Some common causes of nausea:

• pregnancy
• infections
• food poisoning (foodborne illness)
• anxiety or stress
• alcohol intoxication
• fatigue
• brain injury
• vertigo
• motion sickness
• carbon monoxide poisoning
• reactions to medication

Infections that cause nausea usually affect the gastrointestinal system, but infections that lead to shortness of breath can cause nausea by depriving the brain of oxygen. Whenever the brain is affected by an illness or injury, there is always the possibility of it causing nausea. Vertigo, anxiety, stress, and fatigue all cause nausea by affecting the brain.

Other Symptoms

Nausea and vomiting are often associated with other signs and symptoms. Prolonged cases of vomiting can lead to symptoms of dehydration. Some other symptoms associated with nausea can be from the physiological reaction of the body to vomiting. Vomiting stimulates the vagus nerve, which leads to a decrease in pulse rate and blood pressure. That sudden drop in blood pressure sometimes causes a reciprocal adrenaline rush.

Adrenaline does several things to the body - such as increasing blood pressure and pulse - which includes pulling blood from the skin and triggering sweat. For that reason, victims of nausea and vomiting will often look pale with cool, clammy skin.