Medication to combat anxiety-induced vomiting before/during race?

Smoke some weed. Seriously.

Yeah, that would definitely help. lol. Unfortunately not the path I'm going to go down with my daughter. Anybody else have ideas? Any of the runner docs on here?

Dr. Feelgood wrote:

Smoke some weed. Seriously.

Here's a novel idea, maybe that kind of competition is not who she is?

Let her choose what she wants to do. Don't you dare paint this as 'a failure' either.

I'd be very interested to know the parent's role in promoting competition at an early age.

10/10!!

Rare and good work, sir!

Seriously - if you are serious and she is that messed up, she shouldn't be racing.

Otherwise, try another sports psychologist.

And you, dad, do not go to her meets. Stay away.

agip wrote:

10/10!!

Rare and good work, sir!

Seriously - if you are serious and she is that messed up, she shouldn't be racing.

Otherwise, try another sports psychologist.

And you, dad, do not go to her meets. Stay away.

Totally my opinion, it's not being at the meet, it's the parent focusing on 'the win' that is bad. Stage parents can and do really screw kids up this way.

Here's a novel idea: Suggest that she hold off on racing if it's making her miserable and sick.

This girl should not be racing. Are you seriously considering medicating her just so she can run a high school track race?

I hope this is a troll.

If not, she needs to take some time away from the sport. If she misses it greatly and wants to come back to it, the anxiety should probably dissipate on its own.

She is not enjoying the sport. I hope you are not pressuring her to run.

Maybe have her take a season off and do some road races for fun.

Everyone is assuming that the parents are forcing her into it, but I always got like that before races and my parents were super supportive and never pushed me into anything. I cared more about running than anything else in the world, and I wanted to do well so badly, I would be a wreck before races. I never took medication, but here's how I dealt with it:

1.) I realized that I only got that nervous because I cared a lot. I started to see it as a good thing, because it meant that I was excited. Instead of being upset about it, I embraced it in the same way that distance runners embrace blisters, chafing, losing toenails, and all the other crappy parts of our sport.

2.) I was REALLY careful about what I ate on meet days. Even though it's not caused by food, different foods made it worse. I pretty much lived on saltine crackers because it's all I could eat. Absolutely no meat, peanut butter, apples, or dairy for the WHOLE DAY and the bananas and oranges that everyone else ate were also out.

3.) I knew I was going to have diarrhea and other problems so I planned it into my warm-up. I scouted out all the bathrooms ahead of time, and went before warming up. Then, I started my warm-up earlier than everyone else so I had time to disappear again before the race started.

4.) I didn't see him as a patient, but I met a sports psychologist in college. When I talked about my anxiety, he said, "What's the worst that could happen?" I said, "I could drop out." He replied, "So what?" I don't know why, but it was completely freeing. Not only to tell someone objective about how much I feared failure, but just to have someone give a fairly unsympathetic reality check. Teenagers are in a developmental stage where they are supposed to be self-centered and think their world is the whole world. I needed that reminder that no one really cares if I run poorly except me, and I'm only doing the sport for me anyway. I think if he had gone into some long "the world will keep turning" argument, it wouldn't have been effective, but that 2 word "so what" made me think about his answer and come up with my own realization that my fears were actually kind of stupid.

Hopefully, those suggestions will help your daughter, but one final thought: Could it be that she actually doesn't want to race, but she wants to continue with track because she likes being part of the team and likes the other girls?

Counseling. How do you get so nervous at a track meet that you throw up?

I would second the idea that you want to avoid medication for HS race anxiety.

Try another (sports) psychologist--especially if this comes up with other stressful activities regularly (exams, meeting new people, etc.).

Have the coach talk to her and compare notes. Maybe she is feeling pressure from her parents, maybe she is feeling pressure from the coach.

Some people enjoy running but don't enjoy competition. Maybe she can stay on the team and practice but be a manager at the meets and not get a letter/award for not competing (up to the coach), or find a community running club, or try another activity entirely.

Stressed out runner wrote:

Everyone is assuming that the parents are forcing her into it, but I always got like that before races and my parents were super supportive and never pushed me into anything. warming up. Then, I started my warm-up earlier than everyone else so I had time to disappear again before the race started.

First, everyone is not assuming the parents are forcing her into it. Second, this girl is vomiting DURING her races.

Try reading before posting next time.

I recommend 250 mg of CHILL THE F&^* OUT!

Seriously this is not a problem to medicate. This girl clearly has a bad relationship with competition and that needs to be worked out.

I think that addressing the vomit through anti-nausea meds won't help at all and it just masks a symptom (if it even works at all)

There are a lot of anti-anxiety meds out there that might work. I'd take her to see a psych dr. first.