Everybody experiences vomiting or nausea (the unpleasant feeling you may experience before vomiting). Vomiting is actually a natural defensive mechanism to protect and remove harmful elements from our bodies. However, sometimes nausea comes without any further occurrence and the feeling of throwing up stays and annoys you. That’s when self-induced vomiting needs to be involved in order to get rid of the unpleasant feeling as well as things you need to remove from your stomach.
Often, you will find tons of advice and information on the internet on how to help yourself throw up. And salt water is among those favourite techniques that people recommend you do. Does salt water make you throw up? Is it safe to do so? The answer lies below.
Why do you throw up
Before we go deeply into the question, “Does salt water make you throw up,” let’s first take a look at why and how this protective mechanism occurs.
When you first experience nausea, they will be several questions pop up in your head, such as, was the food I ate yesterday terrible? Am I sick? You desperately find a solution by asking yourself more questions, such as, does lying down make me feel better? Or even does salt water help in this case? Worrying won’t help the feeling go away, but a good source of knowledge does.
So, what makes you throw up?
Throwing up is just the consequence of hidden conditions. Those conditions include:
Food poisoning
Food poisoning is one of the top causes of vomiting. Nausea and vomiting often happen 1 to 8 hours after eating. Most of the time, ready-to-eat food is to blame for food poisoning since they are easy to be contaminated by viruses, bacteria, and parasites at any stage, including preparation, packaging, and storing.
Also Read: Why Companies Add Salt to Bottled Water
Fresh food contains risk as well. Raw eggs, milk, juice, cheese, raw or undercooked meat, and raw seafood are likely to cause food poisoning when consumed. Especially in summer, when the rate of spoiled food is increasing, you may get poisoned more easily.
Motion sickness
Motion sickness is another cause of vomiting. The inner ear, often known as the vestibular system, is in charge of the movement of the body. When your body is in continuous motion, it senses and requires your eyes to confirm the motion. This causes nausea and vomiting since your eyes are fixed. Still, your body is moving, which makes the vestibular system confused, thus leading to the feeling of dizziness, unpleasantness in the stomach and throwing up.
Ear infection
The vestibular system is susceptible. Any changes or differences in your ears can disturb this system. Ear infections build up fluid inside your ears. Once the fluid touches the vestibular system, this system sends out alarming signals to your brain and triggers the feeling of nausea and, finally, vomiting.
Pregnancy
Morning sickness is a familiar term for pregnant women. For the first 3 months of pregnancy, most women experience nausea as a daily event.
When you are pregnant, the body produces more progesterone hormones – a type of hormone that is involved directly in the process of nurturing the baby. Because of this abnormal level of progesterone, your sense of smell becomes more and more sensitive, leading to the nausea feeling.
Acid Reflux
Acid Reflux is the side effect of overeating food constantly. When food travels down to your stomach, the stomach produces acid to help digest the food. The more food comes, the more acid is manufactured. When the number of acid excesses the average level, your stomach has to discharge part of the acid by throwing it up. This process is called gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) or acid reflux.
Alcohol
Nausea and vomiting are two side effects of consuming too much alcohol. Alcoholic beverages contain mainly ethanol (or ethyl alcohol). A significant amount of ethyl alcohol within a short time will be likely to poison the consumers. Unlike food, our bodies absorb alcohol very quickly, but it takes several hours to remove the alcohol. It’s expected that you will get alcohol poisoning if the ethyl alcohol level is too high in your body.
The symptoms of alcohol poisoning are confusion, vomiting and passing out. Vomiting after drinking actually brings more good than harm since the not-yet-absorbed alcohol will be discharged. However, if your stomach is empty during the time you absorb alcohol, there is nothing but bile, and alcohol will be thrown up. Furthermore, when bile is mixed with stomach acid, throwing up foam is likely to occur.
Stress
Stress is also a cause of vomiting. When you are about to have a very important exam or when you are in a stressful situation, you may feel stomach uneasiness and the feeling of throwing up comes. It happens due to the fact that your body wants to remove any involved elements that directly or indirectly cause your stress. And by throwing up, your tension will lessen.
Other causes
Stomach flu can cause nausea and vomiting. Concussions, brain injury, brain tumours, and some forms of cancer also contribute to the feeling of throwing up.
What happens to your body when you throw up?
Throwing up is only a defensive act of our bodies. When you consume something unusual, the body will react and try to discharge it as soon as possible. The area of postrema in our brains is devoted to scanning the bloodstream and finding out any toxins. If any potentially harmful substances are found, the area postrema will immediately send a signal to the brain and stomach and ask them to get rid of the elements.
Is it possible to make yourself throw up?
The idea of inducing yourself to throw up started to get popular among young people based on a belief that throwing up would help you lose weight. This view remains controversial in the medical world since there are many contradicting opinions.
Whether or not inducing yourself to throw up helps us lose weight, throwing up is no longer a stranger to many of us. We have all experienced moments when nausea comes, and all we want to do is to force all the food in our stomach out, but we can’t. Therefore, it’s possible and necessary to make yourself throw up.
There are countless ways to make yourself throw up. One of the most common ways is to use salt water. Others include mustard mixture, greasy substance, and pharyngeal reflex. Among these methods, salt water is under serious debate. Does it have any side effects? The answer is right below.
Does salt water make you throw up?
So, does salt water make you throw up? How does salt water make you throw up? Is it safe to use salt water to make you throw up?
Yes, salt water does stimulate your feeling of nausea and vomiting. Saltwater is actually an ancient method to induce vomiting. However, its safety is still under consideration.
It’s quite easy to use salt water to make you throw up. You only need to dissolve three tablespoons of table salt (or sodium chloride) in 250 ml of warm water, then drink the mixture and wait at least 30 minutes for the water to work. It seems that drinking salt water this way does not produce any harmful results, but the truth is the opposite.
One reason why using salt water is a dangerous method to make you throw up lies behind the mechanism of vomiting. Since our body can only accept a fair amount of salt, the excess salt is considered a potential threat. Your stomach will notice the threat and send a signal to the vomiting centre of your brain and ask for an immediate response.
However, before you throw up, much of the salt has been absorbed by your stomach. The process of vomiting also causes water and electrolytes to deplete, which makes the loss of water double.
According to the American Heart Association, it is recommended to take 1,500 to 2,400 milligrams of sodium (salt) a day, which is roughly one or two tablespoons. In case you have eaten food that contains salt before drinking salt water, this could lead to severe health damage called hypernatremia.
Hypernatremia refers to the condition that the sodium concentration in our body exceeds 145 mmol/L, in which the water level in our body decreases. Hypernatremia is the first symptom of several further critical conditions, such as neuronal cell shrinkage, brain injury, tachycardia, hypotension, and cerebral edema.
Using salt water does pose a real risk to your health; however, it is still can be used as an immediate method in case you accidentally consume toxic elements. It’s better to consult doctors before using salt water to make you throw up.
Other methods for self-induced vomiting
While you need to reconsider using salt water and other home remedies for self-punking, many methods are safe and easy to do.
Index Finger Method
The index finger method does not sound very appealing to put your finger down your throat, but the index finger method is the fastest and most efficient way in case of emergency. Please follow the steps below for the best effect.
- Wash your hands and cut your nails to avoid scratching your throat.
- Tie your hair up.
- Choose a comfortable place to sit and vomit.
- Put your index finger down your throat. Press it gently in the back of your throat and move it back and forth.
- When you feel the need to throw up, remove your finger immediately.
- Do it again if you still don’t puke.
- Wash your hands again and drink water to clean your mouth.
Picture Method
If your index finger does not work, instead of using salt water to make you throw up, you can switch to the picture method. Watching someone else vomit is a practical yet not-so-appealing method to help you vomit. When your eyes receive the image of puking, it sends the information back to the vomiting centre of your brain and triggers the same feeling in your stomach.
When you have nausea, finding a picture of people vomiting or watching videos from YouTube will help stimulate your brain. This method does not work right away, and it may appear a bit disturbing; however, it has proven its effectiveness and should make you feel better afterwards.
What to do after throwing up
Together with the remaining substances in your stomach, a fair amount of acid will be given off, too. Therefore, it’s important to rinse your mouth after vomiting to clear the acid and protect your mouth and teeth from eroding. Keep in mind not to brush your teeth right away since it’ll negatively affect your enamel.
After vomiting, your body faces dehydration. You should drink water to help rebuild the water level of your body. It’s vital to drink slowly and in a small amount at a time to avoid nausea feeling again.
You can also feel hungry after vomiting. Please remember that your stomach is now unable to handle solid food, so don’t eat anything that you have to chew. Instead of fruit juice or simple soup will help clear the hunger away. A banana can be helpful, too, since it provides potassium and energy to your body.
Bottom line
Does salt water make you throw up? The answer is yes, but it contains many undesired results. It’s up to you to choose suitable methods to help yourself throw up, but you should always check and make sure it is not harmful to your body.
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REFERENCES
https://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/digestive-diseases-nausea-vomiting
