I use the modern approach — low doses of many medicines.

Before surgery, you get a prescription for
• a scopolamine patch to put on your skin the morning of surgery and keep on for 3 days.

During surgery, the anesthesiologist gives you:
o Zofran intravenously
o Decadron (dexamethasone) intravenously, www.nlm.nih.gov –
this steroid helps but…can have serious hormone side-effects

After surgery, you take
• Zofran, generic name Ondansetron
It is a serotonin receptor antagonist
See www.nlm.nih.gov for more information.

We can add —
aprepitant (Brand name Emend), www.emend.com, developed for cancer patients, it is a ‘substance P antagonist’. There is no generic, it can be expensive.

What you eat, helps too. There are two approaches:
1. Tea, toast, crackers, ginger ale at first
2. Or a high fat meal, e.g. a hamburger and fries or pizza right away. A navy medic taught me this. It works for a lot of people.

Even so, about 10% of people still get nauseated. We aren’t sure why. There may be a genetic tendency. White women who don’t smoke are nausea-prone. So are people who get sea-sick and car-sick.

With the right medicines, there is a 90% chance or higher that we can get your stomach settled.
Those are very good odds!

Copyright May 2012 E Morgan MD