Types of vomiting

Doctors classify vomiting in practical ways - by what comes out, by the underlying pattern, and by whether it is acute or persistent - because each points to different causes.

By content (the most useful at home):

• Food/undigested: recent meals - typical of infections, gastritis, overeating.
• Clear or frothy: often on an empty stomach, with nausea from many causes.
• Yellow-green (bile): suggests vomiting on an empty stomach or, importantly, obstruction below the stomach - green vomit always deserves prompt medical review, and in infants it is an emergency.
• Blood-streaked or coffee-ground (haematemesis): bleeding in the food pipe or stomach - always an emergency (112/108).
• Faecal-smelling: a late sign of intestinal obstruction - emergency.

By pattern:

• Acute (hours to a couple of days): food poisoning, gastroenteritis, gastritis, motion sickness, alcohol - the large majority.
• Persistent or recurrent (days to weeks): pregnancy, migraine, ulcers, gallbladder disease, medicines, metabolic problems - needs evaluation.
• Cyclic vomiting syndrome: stereotyped bouts of intense vomiting separated by well periods, seen in children and adults, often migraine-linked.
• Projectile vomiting: forceful ejection - in young infants suggests pyloric stenosis (a surgical fix); in adults with headache raises concern for raised brain pressure.
• Psychogenic and eating-disorder-related vomiting: self-induced or anxiety-linked patterns that need sensitive, specific care.

By traveller's companion: vomiting with diarrhoea points to infection or food poisoning; vomiting with vertigo points to the ear; vomiting with headache to migraine or worse; vomiting alone early morning in pregnancy is morning sickness.

Ayurvedic view (interpretive): classical texts divide chardi by dosha type and the character of the vomitus - an interpretive framework of limited evidence. The content-based classification above is what actually sorts emergencies from self-limited illness.

Remember: green, bloody or coffee-ground vomit and faecal smell are emergencies; projectile vomiting in an infant is surgical; persistent patterns beyond a day or two need a doctor. Everything else is usually the stomach's short-lived protest.