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Mumsnet hasn't checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you have medical concerns, please seek medical attention.

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Mumsnet hasn't checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you have medical concerns, please seek medical attention.

Mental health

fellow emetophobes - I need your advice

30 replies

imaginaryfriend · 03/09/2006 20:53

Hello to everyone who's posted on some of the other emetophobic threads.

If anyone remembers my story, I had a stomach bug earlier this year, caught from A&E with dd, it was the first time I'd been sick for 32 years. Well today, because of this I've been in A&E again all day today and am freaking out I'll have caught another bloody bug. I washed my hands like someone with OCD and nagged dd to tears to not touch things and keep washing her hands.

Does anybody know how long it would take before a bug showed itself? At what point next week can I aim to feel 'free' from risk? Last time it was about 48 hours before the bug hit me. Could it be much longer than that?

I'm dreading this week totally.

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DumbledoresGirl · 03/09/2006 21:03

Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place imaginaryfriend - that is what I keep telling myself. I have no idea how long a bug will take to materialise. My ds3 was sick on Friday/Saturday night and I am still analysing it wondering if it could really have been the egg he ate 7 hours previously - wouldn't sickness have occurred quicker than that? I keep asking myself, but I think the truth is different bugs can take different lengths of time to materialise.

But I really really do think that you are very unlikely to get ill from the same place twice, especially after all your precautions. Think positively.

And I really hope your dd is better soon. If you are anything like as bad as me, you will be worrying about any illness, not just one with vomiting symptoms.

imaginaryfriend · 03/09/2006 21:10

DG, I'm worrying myself silly about every aspect of it. And it was a bloody awful, pathetic, position to find myself in, being worried to take her to hospital because of what we might catch there. I should've taken her sooner. Having a phobia makes you such a crap mum.

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DumbledoresGirl · 03/09/2006 21:32

I have to agree with you there, while at the same time telling you you are not a crap mum. But I feel a crap mum too right now, in fact most of the time.

Don't be hard on yourself though. If you can't overcome the phobia (and I can't) then you have to just live within its confines. You are still doing the best you can for your dd, even if you think it is not what other mums without the phobia would be doing.

imaginaryfriend · 03/09/2006 21:47

But how long, roughly, before a bug would show? Sorry to bang on. Do you think that if there's no sign of anything by Wednesday we're high and dry? I'm going to be starving myself until then so I'd be really glad to have an end in sight ...

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trinityrhino · 03/09/2006 21:51

oh darling, I feel for you sooo much, I know exactly what your going through, All I can say is fro you, it's really hard having this phobis.
I would think it's lees tan 48 hours for a bug to show if you have caught it but you probaly haven't at all
And to all emetophobes please beg for help, psychologists are available on the nhs, I went to one, it helped sooooo much

DumbledoresGirl · 03/09/2006 21:52

48 hours is the usual time given isn't it?

I only hesitate because I have known it be longer when a bug has gone round my children.

morningpaper · 03/09/2006 21:52

really trinity? How did it help?

DumbledoresGirl · 03/09/2006 21:53

Oh my, I shouldn't have said that really should I?

Honestly, 48 hours is the usual given time and for all I know, when my children were ill, they didn't get it from each other but from someone else at school/playgroup with the bug.

imaginaryfriend · 03/09/2006 22:05

Roll on Wednesday then ...

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DumbledoresGirl · 03/09/2006 22:09

Big hugs Imaginaryfriend. You don't literally starve yourself do you? I mean eat nothing? You will feel ill from lack of food if you do. Can you manage some soup and bread at least?

imaginaryfriend · 03/09/2006 22:22

Nah, just drinks for the next few days. I get too stressed out otherwise. I feel the food in my stomach too vividly.

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naswm · 03/09/2006 22:33

oh imaginery friend. poor you . I know how you must be feeling. But as DG has said, you will prob be fine. Try not to focus on the time span thing. And please try to eat something. Even if it is just toast. Hang in there >

imaginaryfriend · 04/09/2006 11:08

Thanks naswm. I can't help but think of the time scale. And although it might seem horrible to 'starve' myself, I really am so used to it. I've been doing it since I was 6!!

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trinityrhino · 04/09/2006 11:15

i went ot a psychologist for about 8 months every 2 weeks and he changed the way I think about things to do with vomiting, i can't explain, it's really difficult to explain. I once felt there was nothing I could ever do and that this phobia and panic disorder would run my life for ever ut it doesn't have to.
The last straw for me came when I was on my own in the house with dd1 about 4 at the time and she was throwing up on the hall floor and I COULD NOT GO ANYWHERE NEAR HER. I was crying and shaking down the phone to nhs direct begging them to help me. eventually my frined came round, who dd knows well and she looked after dd, cleaned up and let me go to bed and obsessively watch friends dvs and pray and panic that we wouldn't all get ill. I didn't eat a single thing for a week and felt like shit, i had massive panic attacks constantly and dh had to do evrything. then one day i woke up and thought. this is wrong, there has GOT to be something I can do. I don't think I will EVER forgive myself for not being able to help my daughter when she needed me the most but I'm sure as hell not going to let it happen again. I saw my psychologist a couple of times recently to refresh all the work he had done befroe because I had started to have panic attacks again because of having morning sickness.
Honestly there is a way to improve or even cure your phobia, I beg everyone to fight and shout and stamp till they get all the help they need. You won't beleive hpw mcuh better you can feel.

imaginaryfriend · 04/09/2006 12:13

what kind of psychologist, tr?

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DumbledoresGirl · 04/09/2006 14:01

TR how do you get the psychologist in the first place? I went to my GP with this phobia and it was so hard telling her about it - I cried without speaking for the first 5 minutes of the consultation. When I finally manged to get the words out, I could tell that she did not understand what it was all about but she arranged for me to have an assessment with a mental health department (she says vaguely as I am not sure who I was to see). Meanwhile, we moved areas. I got a transfer of my referral and met with a CPN and went through the agony of telling her all about it all over again. She asked me loads of questions which I knew were just not relevant (about family relationships etc) and then announced at the end of the session that she could not help me as I was not depressed (I knew that already!) She gave me some details of self help groups but I do not have any confidence in that approach so I did not follow them up depsite contacting one over the phone.

Last time I went to the GP about something else, I did happen to see my medical notes on the computer screen and saw it was written plainly that I was an emetophobe - nothing more than that, like those warnings you get on pregnancy notes "Allergic to penicillin". Yet I have never spoken to my current GP about this so I don't know if the note was written by him or by my old doctor.

Anyway, I am back at square one. Not as bad as you were, I feel, as I would not be incapable of dealing with my child if I absolutely had to, but still very much disabled on a day to day basis by my phobia and wishing it could be improved. What do I do? Go to my new GP and say the person you referred me to did nothing? Ask specifically to see a pyschologist? What is the way forward?

BTW, I hope you are still feeling OK imaginaryfriend. Only another day to go!

imaginaryfriend · 04/09/2006 14:47

DG, I'm astonished that the CBT wouldn't help you because you're not depressed!! I thought they were the main first port of call for people with phobias, not all of whom are depressed. Apart from about the phobia of course.

I've done lots of therapy but so far nothing's worked. That's why I was interested to find out if tr's psychiatrist was a new breed!

I'm doing ok by the way, lots of stomach pangs and I feel very tired. Roll on Wednesday morning. Although likely I won't relax until Thursday at the earliest.

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footprint · 04/09/2006 15:14

Imaginary friend, I really really feel for you. It is very unlikely that you will catch something again, but I know I would be the same in your situation.

I tried seeing a psych earlier this year, but he totally did NOT understand how serious I was. Only saw him twice, and he did things like answer the phone during our sesh and have a long conversation.

Would like to try again but to be honest, I find that talking about this phobia makes it worse.

I really hope you are ok IF, Monday is nearly over and just one more day to get through.

trinityrhino · 04/09/2006 15:21

I think he is a psychotherapist but I'm not sure. I went to my gp and told him that my life was being ruled by a phobia to sickness and I need help.

it was a few month waity but he was obviously more understanding than the ones other people have posted about.
please don't give up, go to other gp's, go to social services, shout to get heard, don't let it continue to run your life.

imaginaryfriend · 04/09/2006 16:05

Did he do just talking with you, trinity?

Hello footprint, I remember you going through a trauma when your dd/ds had a bug a few months ago.

Horrible isn't it, can't get it out of your head.

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crazydazy · 04/09/2006 16:18

Another emetophobe, mine is not as bad as everyone else's but I just put my situation down to the fact that I am on AD's now and I feel they make me very calm. I no longer go to bed at night wondering if this is 'the night' when one of my children will be ill.

DS was sick in the bed at the side of me a couple of weeks ago and I did shout for DP to come and help and DP then slept with DS all through the night. I know I am lucky in that respect but luckily my children don't get ill very often (due to the multivits I stuff down their throats) and so I deal with everything else that happens to them and leave DP to deal with the vomit.

Hope you feel better Imaginaryfriend, no doubt you are feeling so tired because you haven't eaten. That is the frustrating thing for us emetophobes we just can't tell the difference between real nausea and symptoms of other things.

imaginaryfriend · 04/09/2006 16:54

It's true, crazydazy, I probably feel rotton now because I haven't eaten rather than because I have. Plus I'm wound tight as a drum with stress.

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crazydazy · 04/09/2006 20:35

When my phobia was at its peak when I was around 11 to about 13 I often starved myself, especially at night as I believed this was the only time I got ill and as a result I felt sick every single night!! I thought there was something wrong with me when really my body was just starving!

imaginaryfriend · 04/09/2006 21:18

cd, I did that too! Basically I didn't eat in the day during school, then ate when I got home between 4-6pm thinking that by bedtime all my food would be digested so I couldn't be sick in the night. Because my parents saw me eat quite a lot after school they never worried that I was so thin. But they didn't know the awful burning hunger pangs I'd have all day at school. I remember being depressed about it, feeling out of control and desperately wanting to be like my friends.

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crazydazy · 05/09/2006 09:56

I was under the school doctor, they tried to say I had anorexia, not bulimia because obviously they knew I didn't like being sick. I think when I was a teenager people were much more ignorant regarding this type of phobia whereas now people seem much more aware of it and able to help.

I was also obsessed with mints and went through loads. I really believed they were magic and could stop me feeling ill. Whereas now if I feel really sick I cannot eat them as they make me feel worse!!

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