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Vomiting is the undesirable instance when the contents of the stomach and small intestine forcefully pushed of the body through the mouth. Any trigger could cause it; it could be the internal working of the body, an external element, or some psychological provocation can cause it. However, you will not just vomit instantly. It will start with a feeling of nausea, then retching, and then, the vomit.
Nausea is the feeling that you get when your brain tells you that something is unsettling taking place in your body, which may lead you to expel something out, mostly through the mouth. It is the brain alerting the person that they are about to vomit. It is where you start looking for a dustbin.
The worst part about the feeling of nausea is that sometimes the vomit will follow and sometimes your brain will torture you with the sense of being appalled for a long time without getting you to vomit. Then comes the retching in which you feel you will undoubtedly vomit, but then you don’t.
It is when you feel your stomach, lungs, and other respiratory system organs contracting in sudden jerk movements as if spasming and the glottis closes. It is again similar to nausea, you might feel like you are about to barf, but then it is your mind playing tricks on you or your body is not able to make up its mind about whether to let the feeling die down to eject whatever food is present out.
Finally, you vomit! It is when the food actually comes out, and your body is now relieved of the unwanted invaders. In this situation, the small intestine emptied of the elements are not able and ready to be absorbed by the body. Sometimes you get all three, and sometimes you get one or two of these stages.
What happens when we vomit?
The scientists have been able to figure out what happens inside the body when it expels food through the mouth. First, the teeth get coated with saliva to protect itself from the harmful and destructive stomach acid that will come along with the food. You will lose colour as the blood supply of the body will get redirected to the internal organs. Along with that, as the internal organs of your body will spasm your heart rate would increase, this is the entire retching scenario. The respiratory muscles of the body will force the digestive system to reverse their tract so that the food will go out the way it came.
Why do we vomit?
Though the scientists have been able to identify how we vomit, there are different theories as to why we vomit. The reason is that there are various factors of the body all involved at once in making you lurch out the food that you ate.
One reason is that the body is trying to get rid of the poisonous toxins that bad food might bring with it. It is what we call food poisoning. It happens when you eat expired food or food made in unhygienic conditions. What happens is that the body has an area postrema, which acts as a safeguard to the body. It area postrema is responsible for the circulation of nutrients of the body which located at the end of the bloodstream.
When we eat food, nutrients of the food are absorbed into the bloodstream and distributed to our body where it is needed. The area postrema is quick at detecting what nutrients are useful and necessary for the body and what is harmful to it. As soon as it meets the toxins, it sets off an alarm in the body that they have to get rid of the poisonous compounds. It later sets the entire vomiting process in motion. Vomiting, even though torturous, it might just be the thing that saves your life.
Another reason is when you eat far too much than your body can take. It reduces the capacity that your stomach may have at the time, and thus you are forced to remove the unneeded food items through vomiting. The nervous system of the body that is in connection with the stomach is known to be one of the biggest triggers of vomiting. It is the region responsible for telling the body that it consumed far more nutrients than the body can uphold. It also alerts the body when it has plagued with stomach flu.
A notorious virus called the norovirus is one of the most common stomach cases of flu out there. If you ever get a funny feeling in your stomach and have the urge to vomit, it is not always gas, but it could also be a stomach flu. The flu tends to irritate the gut which forces the body to vomit, and this is also why sometimes when you vomit there is nothing that comes out.
However, it is not just the physical reason as to why you would vomit. The mental aspect of a person plays a much more significant part in nausea and vomiting than one is aware. The nervous system of a person is responsible for alerting, a body of sensations within it or outside of it. It means that it will be the nervous system that will alert the body and the person when they are experiencing a moment of high stress. When a person faced with the levels of stress that they cannot handle, then their body responds with vomiting at the time. It is not typical for all the situations, but it still happens to a lot of people. When faced with stress, the body and the mind are at times unable to coordinate towards one thing. The body is, at times, not able to understand that the stress felt is emotional or physical. It is why it chooses to react in a way a person would when they faced with high levels of physical stress.
But sometimes it is not the person’s physical or mental functionality. Sometimes the external factors might trigger the person to vomit. Car sickness or motion sickness is one of the biggest causes of people vomiting. Motion sickness is a disturbance in the inner ear. It often caused by the motion of the vehicle or any other movements that might irritate the inner part of the ear. People are usually known to experience nausea or vomiting when in a car, on the aeroplane, on a ship, or an amusement park ride.
The brain senses motion through different tracks of the nervous system, which consist of the inner ear, eyes, and the tissues of the body. The intentional movement of the body, such as walking, is coordinated by the brain, which receives messages from different pathways. The reason motion sickness comes on is when the nervous system starts receiving mixed and conflicting messages from its tracks. For example, if you are sitting in a car, and it is moving, you are not looking out, but your muscles and skin receptors know that the body is experiencing a lot of movement. The conflicting message that they eyes send and the muscles and skin send will confuse the nervous system and induce vomiting.
People of all ages, sizes, and genders tend to experience motion sickness. However, pregnant women and children are fat and susceptible to this condition than any other person. Also, someone who may suffer from anxiety, or anxiety of travelling, may experience the motion sickness a lot more intensely than any other person.
Taking out the smell of vomit
Now that you or someone has vomited in your car, what do you do? It is challenging to get the vomit smell out because it has pretty much called on the seats and the carpet and taking it out would take a lot of time. It would also mean that the smell would linger for days which will not only make it difficult for you to sit in the car but also for anybody who is a passenger to sit with you. However, all hope shall not be lost, because there are specific immediate steps that you can take that will help take out the smell from the car.
Step 1: Clean up the vomit from the surface.
What you will need:
- Dust mask
- Garbage bag
- Paper towels
- Putty knife
- Protective eyewear
- Rubber dishwashing gloves
Part 1: Before opening the car, wear the gloves, the eyewear, and the dust mask. It is a necessary precaution to take since there is a lot of bacteria involved in the vomit that you can become the victim of, and you would certainly want to keep yourself away from it.
Par 2: Pick and scrape off as much vomit out of the carpet and seat as possible. It is better to use a putty knife, but you can also use a plastic utensil. Take the vomit and put it in a garbage bag.
Part 3: Once all of the on the top vomit removed, take a paper towel and then blot it on the surface. You can also use absorbance towels if you have in spare and won’t be needing them anymore.
Step 2: Clean up the remaining vomit
What you will need:
- Paper towels
- Baking soda
- Bucket
- Dish soap – 1 tsp
- Distilled vinegar – 1 cup
- Hot water – 1 gallon
- Sponge or scrub brush
- Vacuum
Part 1: in a bucket mix vinegar, dish soap and hot water, make sure to put on your eyewear, gloves, and dust mask before you perform the next step.
Part 2: in the bucket, mixture dip your sponge or brush and start scrubbing where the vomit stain is. Keep dipping the sponge or brush into the mix and scrubbing until you do not see the remnants of the colour anymore. With a paper or absorbent towel soak up the solution, keep blotting with paper towels till the stained area is completely dry.
Part 3: pile on the baking soda, add heaps of it, on the stain and let it sit there for a while. It can be hours, overnight, or a day, the longer the soda stays, the better it absorbs the stain and the smell.
Part 4: with a vacuum suck up the baking soda. You can get a vacuum explicitly made for cars, or you can use the household vacuum. However, before using the household vacuum, make sure to clean out the bag so that it can absorb the baking soda better and more efficiently.
Part 5: if you live in a safe neighbourhood, then roll the windows down of all sides a little and park. It will help let out the smell from the car quickly.
Step 3: Removing the remaining smell
Often the vomit smell can linger, it is stubborn like that. When that happens, do the following :
What you need:
- Baking soda
- Essential oil diffuser
- Carpet odour remover
Part 1: spray the entire car’s interior with the odour remover
Part 2: if you have any essential oils, then add them to the diffuser and spray inside the vehicle. Not only do the essential oils smell nice, but they also help kill bacteria, viruses, and fungus.
Part 3: it is often a highly suggested idea to keep bowls filled with baking soda to absorb the smell and bacteria of it. Similarly pour baking soda in small bowls and keep it in different interior areas of your car.
You can leave it for a couple of hours or the entire. You will come back to a better smelling car.
Vomit stains and smells in the car are undoubtedly unpleasant, but they are not impossible to get rid. A little bit of hard work and patience will help remove the stains and smell in no time.