Nausea queries

Dry heaves and Nausea Information

Nausea is the name given to the strong urge to vomit. If you are feeling nauseous, it is not necessary that this feeling will be followed up with vomiting. Nausea can be the result of various things.


It could be caused due to morning sickness during pregnancy, or it could be a result of extreme motion sickness. People who cannot tolerate sudden, jerky or continuous movement are generally prone to nausea. However, once the motion is stopped or arrested, the nauseous feeling also ceases.


Nausea can also be caused due to having eaten spoilt or rotten food that has caused indigestion. In this case, it could also be accompanied by other symptoms such as dry heaves.

Dry heaves are also known as retching and are a symptom of nausea. If nausea is not taken care of in a timely manner, the person suffering from it will vomit. Vomiting is usually preceded by heaving. The reason for these is the reversal of normal movements of the inner body, which are accustomed to taking things in, rather than throwing them out. The stomach and esophagus work together to throw out the food that is causing nausea. This will be forced out, and this process is generally accompanied by dry heaving. After heaving a few times, the food or whatever contents need to go will be expelled.

Nausea queries 

When you say that you feel nauseous, what you mean is that you feel sick. This means that you experience some sort of an upheaval in the stomach. Nausea is by itself not an illness. Rather it is the symptom for several different illnesses. Interestingly most of these are not related to the stomach. You feel nauseous when you travel. You may also feel nauseous when you have eaten a lot of sugary food.  Some medication also causes you to experience nausea. Usually when you experience nausea, the next step is vomiting. The queasy uneasy feeling in your stomach is eased to some extent when your stomach forcefully expels its contents.  Vomiting can leave you feeling drained but also better.

Dry heaves, on the other hand, are attempts to vomit. You feel as if you were vomiting. However nothing emerges from your mouth. Dry heaves are as tiring and wrenching as a proper vomit. However, you don't get the satisfaction of actually having vomited everything. Most people who experience dry heaves, wish that they could vomit so that they would then feel better. Dry heaves come in waves, much as vomit does. You will find yourself retching but only spitting out some saliva or in some cases even a small amount of bile.