TL;DR I was nauseas for 7(ish) months, started vaping, not nauseas. please stop ruining vaping for the rest of us.

In light of recent events, mainly regarding the regulation of vaping, i figured now would be a good time to write this.

Part 1 — The problem

1 year ago this month, I went to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I was very nauseated, and came very close to vomiting, which is by far one of my least favorite feelings in the world.

I had eaten a lot of sugar the night before so I figured it would pass once I ate something better (like a banana or something, that helps right?) but the nausea didn’t go away that day. The next day I woke up. still nauseas. I was confused, but again, I figured it would go away in a few hours, maybe a day.

This continued for 6 1/2 months.

And I don’t mean minor nausea, I mean every few days almost vomiting until I calmed down and forced myself not to.

around the 12 day mark of nausea, I went to the urgent care, because honestly I was freaking out. They took some blood, and tested me for hypothyroidism, among other things. and sent me home with some Zofran, which… kind of helped. but all my tests came back negative. I then set up an appointment with a doctor in my area, he took me through a slew of blood tests, testing me for tumors on my adrenal glands (primarily because I had a quick heart rate and high blood pressure when they tested me) took a comprehensive metabolic panel, a urine test, CBC, TSH, and many other things. They all came back perfectly fine, Despite my constant nausea, I had a clean bill of health. Then the doctor had an idea, he tested my heart rate again, in the middle of the appointment, and I didn’t have high blood pressure or heart rate. He diagnosed me with gastritis, and sent me home with some prescription grade Zantac. He essentially chalked it up to anxiety. Which I naturally didn’t listen to because that didn’t make sense to me. I took the Zantac for a week, and it only made things a little worse, I then started having the idea that maybe, I didn’t have too much stomach acid, I must not have enough stomach acid! Finally! I have figured it out. So i started taking holistic medication from the local whole foods to fix this little problem! and… it got worse.

After some trial and error I figured out low stomach acid wasn’t a thing (I promise, it really isn’t) and started holistically medicating the Gastritis that I had most likely made worse over the last week.

My daily regiment looked like this:

30 minutes before every meal, I took 2 DGL Licorice (to coat stomach lining) Between meals I would take Slippery Elm (also, to coat stomach lining) I took Pepzin GI every day as well, which made things worse so i discontinued. Alkaline water (TERRIBLE IDEA, DON’T RECOMMEND)

After a few weeks of that not working, I finally decided to talk to a professional. A nutritionist. (Disclaimer: I am not bashing them, their methods might work for some people, but for me, it made everything worse)

So after my 5th blood draw (TERRIBLE IDEA, DON’T RECOMMEND) I was told that I was allergic to the following foods, in varying degrees of intensity.

The worst allergies, the ones I absolutely could not eat, were:

Garlic. Sh**. Spelt Mango Hazelnut

In the medium category was, Basil, Oats, Blueberries, Capsaicin, Cherry, Crab, Dill, Blue #1, FD&C #3, FD&C #4, Green pea, Orange, Parsley, Potassium Nitrite, Sodium Sulfite, Sole, Tea, Tomato, Vanilla.

So, I couldn’t eat anything because Garlic is in everything. Trust me. It. Is. In. Everything.

So to try and summarize this, I ate this diet for 3 1/2 months, and I never got better, but now I had something to blame when I was nauseas.

“Oh! Some sneaky chef must have put garlic in my dinner… stupid chefs”

(if you ever want to experience how crappy this is, go to any restaurant, and ask for no garlic. It is really hard to find something to eat, multiple times the only garlic free option was a plate of beans)