Sunday, April 18, 2010 ogabo asks

Q: What would cause my 16 year old daughter to have blue vomit?

My daughter, C, has always had a very sensitive stomach. She has thrown up regularly, most commonly in school.

Over the last several years, C, now 16, has missed a lot of school. When she is home, she suffers from headache & vomiting, and usually sleeps most of the day.

She was recently home on April 15 & 16, 2010. Thursday her head was terrible, and couldn't keep anything down. Even water came up quickly. Friday, her head was a bit better, but her stomach was not better. She was feeling hungry, would try to eat a little, and would vomit within the hour. I tried to encourage her to choose her own foods, as she would know what she could handle. About an hour after she emptied her stomach, she tried some Ramen (beef) & Sprite (regular). Again, she vomited; but this time, it was a deep turquoise blue. She has vomited again since then, but the blue vomit has not reoccurred. When questioned, she swears that she didn't eat anything besides the Sprite and Ramen. The only medication she had had that day is called "metoclopramide", not even vitamins had been consumed.

April 17, by noon, she is feeling better, and even had supper with us tonight. What could have caused blue vomit to occur?

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Answers (3)

Stephanie, Health Guide

4/18/10 9:26pm

I was intrigued by this and did a search. It seems that this has happened to other people and generally the answer is not found. There was one question raised in a journal but the answer was not there:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1944839/?page=1

I put this up because you can see that the docs were quite curious as well.

Then I found another link that spoke of blue vomit from copper poisoning.

www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/.../2004_food_table_non.pdf

Most importantly though, I am very concerned that your daughter is having such a hard time of things and not getting relief. If she isn't already seeing a GI specialist now might be the time to get one but while you are waiting I would take this new symptom to her doctor. This might just be a very important piece of her puzzle. I hope you were able to take a picture of it to take to the doctor. Gross, yes, but pictures can really help.

Best of Luck - Stephanie

Mel

3/30/12 5:28pm

She had some food poisoning from either water, milk, sliced luncheon meats, salads, sandwiches and undercooked clams or oysters.

TrixiPixi

4/25/12 1:05am

This is, unfortunately may not be an answer to your question, but the same thing happened to me yesterday.

After vomiting the whole contents of my stomach, and having having eaten nothing afterwards, I vomitted again. I was extremely puzzled to see that it was a deep blue colour, which slowly turned to dark green (but not the colour of bile) as the vomitting began to stop.

I, like your daughter had eaten nothing blue nor drank anything blue. I am still unsure what caused it - I can certainly say I had eaten nothing blue in the past few days, even weeks and months, as far as I can remember.

I did some research on the internet, as i was worried and intrigued, and found your question. After further research, the only answer I could find was that it could have been due to Boric Acid food poisoning. Apparently this is most often found in chemical products such as cleaning agents, anticeptics but also Pesticides. I always wash fruit and veg properly, and this is the first time i've had an experience with food-poisoning, but perhaps this provides a little more light on the situation. (Even if it did occur two years ago now!)

Here is the bit about blue vomit: http://www.livestrong.com/article/239221-boric-acid-poisoning-symptoms/

Clearly we did not experience all of these symptoms, which is a very good thing, but we did experience the main symptom (the mysterious coloured vomit).

I also noticed one more thing which could be the deciding factor in your daughter's mysterious illness. Clearly she has a sensitive stomach, but you also mentioned that she ate ramen before she vomitted.

The following article may suggest why she was ill after eating this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1890547

Again, clearly your daughter did not have all of these symptoms, but the boric acid could have come from the additive used in the ramen. I don't know anything about noodle / ramen making, but it is possible that the preservative that was used in china to make the noodles, was also udes in the ramen your daughter ate.

Q: What would cause my 16 year old daughter to have blue vomit?

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