My mother collapsed on February 14, 2018 at work suffering from a subarachnoid hemorrhage. She spent 37 days in the ICU of a local hospital before transferring to a long term acute care rehabilitation facility. Although she is showing small improvements, the one thing we can not pin point is the constant vomiting that is occurring. We have been told by her care team that this is common with patients that suffer a subarachnoid hemorrhage especially during transferring and movement during therapies. There has not been a particular time in which she is vomiting. Does anyone else have experience with this? What have your doctors tried? Any and all advice would be helpful. At this point her trac has been removed however her PEG tube is still inserted but will be removed soon. She has been on pureed and nectar diet for a couple of weeks now.
Hey Lindsay,
Brain injury and nausea have a common link. For me if I have nausea I think what have I eaten? If it progresses to vomiting and I can’t think of anything untoward that I’ve eaten, then usually there’s an issue. The process of retching brings on a headache from hell, at one particular visit to a local hospital the medicos were fairly dismissive and sent me home. My symptoms did not settle, in fact got worse and my wife took me to the state hospital where they did a scan and found a aqueduct / csf blockage. They also placed me on a liquid diet. It was explained to me that if vomiting occurs it is easier to throw up a liquid than a solid, not that either is desirable. The subarachnoid space is right in the very centre of our brains and any fluctuations/changes in the middle of our brains is going to have a response. It can take quite sometime for the changes to be accepted by the body and this maybe why any movement of your mother is causing her to vomit.
So, that’s my experience. I hope it helps
Merl from the Moderator Support Team
Hi Roxy828,
I suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage as well. On 9/11/17 it ruptured and thank God I did not lose consciousness and my husband brought me to the ER. I was rushed into emergency surgery where the coiled the annie through my femeral artery. I experienced frequent nausea and vomiting for the first week n half after surgery then it seemed to calm down. I still get “episodes” sometimes where I break into a sweat even though I feel freezing, get a bad headache (not as bad as when it ruptured) and vomit violently but usually these pass in a few hours. Still wake up daily with headaches, some days worse than others and that also makes me nauseous too.
Hope this was hopeful in some way!! Best of luck to you and your mom 
hope she continues to improve!!