Nausea and Loss of Appetite
When we are feeling nauseous, the idea of food may be repulsive to us. When we aren’t eating enough, it is common to feel nauseous. This vicious cycle has confounded gastrointestinal health professionals as there is no clear cut diagnosis to trace simple nausea back to. Nausea can come for a variety of reasons, can stay for days or months, and can vary in severity. Nausea and loss of appetite can happen as a result of anything from the common cold/flu, constipation, digestive issues, allergies, food intolerances, inflammation, and even stress! With such a wide range of causes, it can be difficult to pinpoint the underlying root cause of these symptoms. Unfortunately this can lead to larger symptoms being misdiagnosed, mistreated, or completely missed all together. We suggest following these symptoms to find proper loss of appetite treatment.
Loss of appetite can mean more than simply not feeling hungry for one or a handful of days. Severe cases can lead to eating much less than you normally would or to eating nothing at all for prolonged periods of time. Generally, these symptoms are short-lived and in this case will have little to no lasting effects. However, prolonged or chronic loss of appetite and nausea can lead to more serious issues like weight loss, fatigue, micronutrient deficiencies, and dehydration. When nausea or loss of appetite persist they may also be a sign of a more serious even life threatening underlying condition.
What Can You Do?
There are a number of home remedies you can take for relief from short-term nausea and loss of appetite. If you are feeling a wave of nausea or a lack of desire to eat, try these loss of appetite treatment:
- Eating or drinking root ginger or ginger tea
- Consuming small sips of caloric fluids such as smoothies or protein shakes throughout the day
- Swapping 3 larger meals to more frequent and more manageable smaller meals
- Taking a break to lie down in a dark room or meditate
- Eating with good company
When These Symptoms Become Chronic
While these are suggestions for short term relief, if you are finding your symptoms last longer than one to two days with no apparent cause, it may be time to approach your symptoms more seriously. This could be an indicator of an underlying illness that may be jeopardising your overall health.
Our services are structured to provide an individualized program of care aimed at understanding and addressing the root causes of your illness. This often involves functional medicine testing to pinpoint underlying biochemical factors indicating breakdowns of healthy physiological function. Dr. Sharp’s in-depth exploration of your health history, experience, and goals adds a great deal of understanding and insight to the lab results. As a team, we begin to have a working picture of how the dots are connected, and what will be most helpful to create the conditions for healing. You will have the have the opportunity to work with our nutritionist, our resilience coach, and Dr. Sharp to weave together a holistic and coherent path to restoring healthy physiological function and recovering well-being of body and mind.
In the absence of a Functional medicine ‘big picture’ understanding, nutritional wisdom, and stress resilience, development of chronic symptoms such as nausea and loss of appetite is almost inevitable. With experience, expertise, and compassion our team focuses on healing the underlying causes of your symptoms. Beyond that, we support you in learning the mindset and habits of healthy lifestyle that reduces or eliminates the triggers of chronic symptoms like nausea and loss of appetite. From here, the future looks bright.