Symptoms
In children vomiting is far from rare, as most parents can testify. However, CVS is very different from the normal vomiting we are all familiar with in children who are ill, eat too much or suffer motion sickness. The most obvious thing is that the vomiting doesn’t stop and can continue for hours, days or even weeks. In adults, vomiting in otherwise apparently healthy individuals is rare.
These are the symptoms:
- Severe and constant, unremitting nausea
- Onset of vomiting is most commonly during the night or early morning
- Repeated vomiting, peaking at up to 5-6 times per hour
- Retching, often violently
- Pallor, often extreme paleness of the skin
- Headache
- Abdominal pain
- Low grade fever
- Diarrhoea
- Vomiting episodes may repeat with regular spacing of days or weeks
- Lethargy or unresponsiveness
- Dizziness
- Excessive salivation, and/or spitting
- “Perplexing” or unusual behaviours
Sufferers may suffer from some but not all of these symptoms. The formal diagnostic criteria can be found here.