Any Ideas of What This Might Be/how to Prevent?

Have you looked at it being anxiety related? Some children (and adults) manifest stress/anxiety into physical illness. Just something to look into. Good luck.

My son was diagnosed 4 years ago with Cyclic Vomitting Syndrome. This sounds like a possibility. If there's a family history of migraines, the possibility is more likely. There are no other symptoms during the episodes of vomitting except lethargy and pallor, sometimes sensitivity to light and noise. Mention this to your doctor and look it up online; see if it makes sense.

It could be food allergies. Have you heard of Celiac's Disease? It's an allergy to gluten, which is in everything we eat. Maybe that's a possibility. I would definitely seek guidance from your pediatrician.

As strange as it may sound your son may be having migraines. Does any one else in the family have them?
The reason that I say this is because when my eldest son was little (about 2) he would vomit (no fever, no pain, no headache, etc.) periodically just like your son. He'd throw up a couple of times and then be fine the rest of the day. The doctors had be put him on the BRAT diet when it happened just to give his stomach a rest. They never mentioned the possibility of it being migraines. Later on, when his sister started having a completely different type of migraine, I discovered through my research that what I had thought was his episodic vomiting was actually probably migraines. As he got older, he started to have the more classic headache type of migraine.
I am just throwing this out as a possibility, to be sure you would have to have it properly diagnosed by a specialist. My daughter sees a neurologist for her migraines, which started a couple of months before she turned 11.

I have no idea what to say about the illness or cause but you must must must be very careful with someone throwing up that much and causing dehydration. I don't want to shout "wolf" but kids dehydrate much faster than adults and if the body dehydrates, organs start to go into failure and if it goes on long enough, he could actually die. I know this sounds extreme, but it's true. I know you don't want to take him to the emergency room again since you don't think they'll find anything but if he is not keeping any fluids down (a teaspoon and he threw up again??) then you just may need to go to the hospital for hydration purposes.

I used to work in the medical field and I've seen kids who strated with just thowing up end up in serious conditions simply due to dehydration.

If in doubt, call his pediatrician and ask her/his opinion. If the doc isn't available, then ask a nurse in the office.

I wish you luck, just please don't ignore this potential problem.

Julie

We had the same problem, and it was rotavirus and they can pick it up anywhere. My daughter caught this often as a young child, she had no immunity built for it. No fever, no bad stools, just vomiting all the time. I would also get ill, but not as severe. Bleach everything from top to bottom, blankets, pillows, floors, ect. Eat yogurt with the active yogurt cultures. (kid's yogurts do not always have them). Try that before you get too worried, but I see that they now have a vaccine for it too.

Good news is that they eventually grow out of it, but I still have everyone in the family eat 1 yogurt a day with their lunch (crazy lady with 30 yogurts in her cart a week!). We buy the Yoplait lite and treat it as a dessert. Graham cracker sticks and Teddy Grams make it fun to eat, and makes the yogurt taste like pie.

My son did that starting at age 4. It wasn't until he was 8 that he was able to tell us his head was hurting. At age 9, we saw a specialist who determined he was having migraines. I didn't put it all together until the diagnosis, so didn't see the patterns until he had some more verbal skills. If it's at a set time each day, could be sinus-related, stress-related, low-sugar levels, dehydration--none of which our doctors could determine. The one thing that was recommended that helped was for us to do a journal to see if there was a distinct pattern to rule out the triggers. We started seeing electronic games/TV, overstimulation, fatigue, stress (preschool stress-yeah), and dehydration as vomit triggers. Our son always had trouble falling off to sleep, so even though we'd put him to bed by 7:30 or 8, he still wouldn't go to sleep until very late, even at age 5. The dr. told us restrict visual stimulation 2 hours before bedtime. Yeah, right. Try telling a 7-yr. old to be quiet at 5 pm. We have a routine, and incorporated some art activities so that he feels like he's busy, but he's actually doing something calming. Soft music also helped a little, but we still have episodes of the vomitting and our son is now 11! Ugh! Hope this helps.

Hi J.,
You didn't say exactly what your son had eaten for breakfast. Yet you mentioned he doesn't do this at other meals. If he is eating eggs, or other dairy products for breakfast, that could be the reason for his vomiting. For some people dairy products cause nausea.

Water is not a good liquid to give when your stomach is upset. Ginger ale and sometimes a Coke will help settle the stomach.

I would do like another poster suggested and document what he ate this morning. If he is not complaining about pain anywhere, it could be the food that he is eating for breakfast.

Be blessed!

When I was a child (1985) I threw up after meals for weeks, but didn't feel sick otherwise. When I started to lose weight, my Mom (an RN who was told I was an 8 year old anorexic or bulimic...thank goodness she knew better....) finally got me to be admitted to the hosp. Then they did a standard chest x-ray and found I had terrible pnuemonia, and pleural effusions and a swollen diaphragm- which was pushing on my stomach and causing me to vomit when food entered my stomach. I was in the hosp about a week on IV antibiotics, did fine, was released and no more vomiting. Not sure if that is what is goig on with your son, but a chest xray couldn't hurt.

Hi J.,

Please check out "Dr. Bob Demaria," I found his site and books to be amazing. I have a sensitive, allergic, asthma child who has had a similar problem.. Food allergies... and different sensitivities (mind/body and stress too)

go to www.druglessdoctor.com click on the videos, and just start watching.. do searches on the site for things you want to look up.

I would start writing down everything he puts in his mouth, and start troubleshooting. Today, processed foods, partially hydrogenated oils, fast food, hormones and herbicides/pesticides in meats, dairy and produce cause a lot of problems and break down the immune system.

Hope this helps you..
L.

find me on twitter.com/mllnsgrl

Whatever the cause, if he threw up six times in less than three hours and isn't urinating and isn't keeping even water down, you need to call your doctor's office and talk to an advice nurse to ask: At what point do you take him to be treated for dehydration? They should give you a formula -- like, if he goes X hours without urinating and with vomiting, get him to a doctor, etc. Check your doctor's advice on that. Then, get very aggressive with your doctors to nail down what's going on, because it sounds like more than a mere virus is at work -- why is he getting it this often? Food allergies, celiac disease, gluten intolerance, etc? If "it's just a bug" doesn't satisfy you as a response, find another doctor. Good luck and watch his hydration. Kids can cross the line into dehydration fast.

It could be a virus, but if this keeps happening, I would take him to a specialist....a lot of pediatricians don't know about certain specialties and aren't equipped to diagnose things - it is hard, but you have to be your own and your child's advocate when it comes to treatment (I just had to do the same thing when my ob/gyn did not recommend a chiropractor for me and wanted me to go to physical therapy in November and I couldn't even get off the couch to walk - so I set myself up with a chiropractor and he fixed me same day!). He may need to see an allergy specialist or a gastroenterologist....and keep looking until you discover what he has. I watch all those medical shows like Mystery Diagnosis, etc and the people always have to go to like 10 doctors before they find out the problem..it's a pain, but hopefully someone can help. I would probably get him on IV again in case of dehydration, then let this episode pass and see if it happens again....also - keep a food journal for him, etc because that could come in handy for a doctor in the future. Good luck - keep us posted!

Hi J.,

The only advice I have for you is to keep pursuing answers to this problem. It certainly sounds like something significant is going on with your son - a metabolic disorder? An autoimmune problem? A congenital defect in his digestive system? Get to your pediatrician and ask direct questions about these issues. If he/she blows you off or plays it down, start hitting the specialists - a GI doc for starters.
Good luck!!

I'm sorry it's Friday night when you're getting this, and don't have a good answer for what's causing it, but when my son got a virus last year and was VERY dehydrated, the ER doc gave him anti-nausea medicine used to treat cancer patients and he was able to drink about 8 oz of water in a minute or so and keep it down! First liquid he kept down in 15 hours. So instead of an IV, see if your Pediatrician will write you a prescription! It was $85 for 10 pills, but WAY less than the ER visit which also took 5 hours and now is probably full of flu patients. I was wondering if you painted his room or he got a new lovey he sleeps with that might be irritating his system? Good luck to you! Dehydration is really scary. D.

I agree with everything from previous posters on things to check. I noticed you mentioned his vitamin. Do you give this to him first, before the meal? If so, that could very well be the problem. Many vitamins can make one feel very icky (myself included) and should be taken on a full stomach. That is why it's recommended that pregnant women take their prenatals on a full stomach because of the propensity for morning sickness, it's like a cocktail for vomit ;) Also, it could be a blood sugar issue. I know that if I am very hungry or have not eaten for awhile (like all night and it's breakfast time) I get very nauseated and will sometimes vomit no matter what I eat because I simply waited too long to eat. I get the same result if I am starving and I drink milk first before having something like bread with a protein to stabilize my blood sugar. Good luck!

Is he nervous or stressed about anything? Sometimes what seems uneventful to us can be very stressful for kids. Does your daughter get sick when your son does too? Good luck with your little guy and hope he feels better soon.

I agree with many of the replies that I see. One thing that I saw you mentioned was that you cleaned a few days before each episode. People of all ages can build up sensitivities to the toxic products that are found in almost every home. To help with mine and my children's medical problems, one of the things that I did was to change the store where I shop for some of our everyday products. I have replaced all of my toxic cleaners with less expensive, natural cleaners, I swithced our vitamins to ones with documented absorption, and I even went so far as to change to non toxic cosmetics. We definitely have to have the vitamins after eating, but many of the issues that my family had have been eliminated or at the very least better controlled. I don't even have to go out of my house to go shopping, they deliver it to me at a reasonable rate. E-mail me and I will show where you can find the store, they are FANTASTIC!!

1. get a specialist.

2. check how much he is moving his bowels. very constipated children will vomit.

3. give the vitamin at night. that's when i take mine because they make me nauseous.

4. chin up!