Vomiting is when muscles in your belly, chest, neck and head work together to push whatever’s in your stomach out. This forceful expulsion of your stomach’s contents can be a symptom of many conditions. But when you’re vomiting, what you really want is a way to make it stop.

Understanding the Context

The feeling that one is about to vomit is called nausea; it often precedes, but does not always lead to vomiting. Impairment due to alcohol, anesthesia, or other sedatives can cause inhalation of vomit. Learn more about what can cause you to vomit, along with treatment and prevention options, and when to see a doctor. Nausea is the feeling you get in your stomach before you vomit.

Key Insights

Vomiting is when you throw up your stomach contents through your mouth. You can have nausea and vomiting together or separately. Definition Nausea is feeling an urge to vomit. It is often called "being sick to your stomach." Vomiting or throwing-up forces the contents of the stomach up through the food pipe (esophagus) and out of the mouth. Vomiting is the forceful expulsion of gastric contents caused by involuntary contraction of the abdominal musculature when the gastric fundus and lower esophageal sphincter are relaxed.

Final Thoughts

Vomiting should be distinguished from regurgitation, the spitting up of gastric contents without associated nausea or forceful abdominal muscular contractions.