My 16 year old son is getting nauseous and vomiting during his workouts at school. He says that he will vomit until he begins to dry-heave. He has been working out at the school with the football team for a year and a half now. He is very active, he plays football, basketball and soccer. These workouts are not a lot of running, it is lots of dumbbell/barbell/machine work in the weight room. There are several factors that I think could be attributing to this. The first being that the football coach likes to turn the heat way up in the weight room (my son claims 90+ degrees). This is what I suspect is the prime issue. My son is unwilling to discuss this practice with the coach and has asked that I refrain from talking with him as well. The second factor is that he received creatine for Christmas and started taking it as he moved back into the weight room after the break. While he has had this “exercise-induced nausea” before, it seems to have intensified these past two weeks. We have mentioned it to his primary care doctor in the past (before the creatine) and he said that some people are more prone to this than others. The advice being, if it becomes intolerable, he should probably stop working out. I feel like the vomiting is very counterproductive to his goals of gaining mass and becoming stronger, but I’m not really sure what to do to advise him. Is there anything that can be done to help him?
“Stop working out” is not advice I would give any otherwise-healthy adolescent.
If you suspect he may be experiencing GI effects from the creatine supplementation, taking a break from that would be wise.
If he can work out in other contexts (for example on his own, at a different gym, at different levels of intensity, etc.), but this happens in the context of the environmental conditions with the football coach, then that simply needs to be modified regardless of his objections, as it is an unsafe practice.
Outside of this, if he continues experiencing these symptoms, pressing the primary care physician for more detailed evaluation would be wise.
Thanks! We stopped the creatine as of yesterday. He hasn’t been back to school due to the holiday (and snow today). He’s aggravated about stopping the creatine and concerned that he isn’t going to be able to gain the weight/strength he needs to play next season. He is a smart kid and reasonable most of the time, so he understands the vomiting is counter-productive as well. We’ll see how it goes the rest of the week.
One other question about the creatine, if I may. Are you aware of any mental side effects of taking it? I realize at the moment I have lots of other variables especially in dealing with a 16-year-old boy, but is there any data on mental effects?
Thank you again.
I am sure it is tough to reason with a 16 year old on this matter, if his expectations of creatine are that it is effectively a steroid (it is obviously not). He can get a lot stronger without creatine, and creatine has essentially no impact on weight gain compared with his food intake.
Cognitive effects tend to primarily be beneficial, although to be clear, ALL of the benefits of creatine are relatively modest.