Several effective options exist for nausea and vomiting, ranging from things already in your kitchen to over-the-counter medications and prescription drugs. What works best depends on the cause, whether it’s a stomach bug, motion sickness, pregnancy, or something else entirely.
Over-the-Counter Medications
The most accessible pharmacy options fall into a few categories, each suited to different situations.
Bismuth subsalicylate (the active ingredient in Pepto-Bismol and Kaopectate) works well for nausea tied to an upset stomach, food poisoning, or mild gastroenteritis. It coats the stomach lining and reduces inflammation in the digestive tract. One important safety note: it should not be given to children under 12, and it should never be used in children or teenagers who have or are recovering from the flu or chickenpox, because it contains a compound related to aspirin that can trigger a rare but serious condition called Reye’s syndrome.
Dimenhydrinate (Dramamine) and meclizine (Bonine, Antivert) are antihistamines that work best when nausea comes from motion sickness, vertigo, or inner-ear problems. They block signals between your inner ear and your brain’s vomiting center. Both cause drowsiness, with meclizine slightly more sedating in user reports (about 21% of users versus 13% for dimenhydrinate). Meclizine lasts longer, so you take it less often, which makes it a better choice for long trips. For either one, take it 30 to 60 minutes before travel for the best effect.
Ginger: The Best-Studied Natural Remedy
Ginger has more clinical evidence behind it than any other natural remedy for nausea. In a review of six randomized controlled trials involving 675 participants, four studies found ginger superior to placebo for pregnancy-related nausea, and two found it comparable to vitamin B6 (itself a proven treatment). A separate meta-analysis of five trials with 363 patients showed ginger also beat placebo for nausea after surgery.
Most clinical studies used 250 mg of powdered ginger root in capsule form, taken one to four times daily, for a total of 250 mg to 1 g per day. You can also use fresh ginger sliced into hot water as tea, or chew on crystallized ginger. Capsules offer more consistent dosing if you want to match what the research actually tested.
What to Eat and Drink
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. It’s fine for a day or two when your stomach is at its worst, but there’s no research showing it’s better than simply eating bland, easy-to-digest foods more broadly. Harvard Health notes that brothy soups, oatmeal, boiled potatoes, crackers, and unsweetened dry cereals are equally gentle options. Once you can keep food down, adding cooked carrots, sweet potatoes, avocado, skinless chicken, fish, and eggs will give you the protein and nutrients your body needs to actually recover. Restricting yourself to just four foods for too long can slow that process.
Staying hydrated matters more than eating. Small, frequent sips of water, clear broth, or an oral rehydration solution work better than drinking large amounts at once, which can trigger more vomiting. If plain water makes you queasy, try it cold or with a small amount of lemon.
A Surprisingly Effective Trick: Rubbing Alcohol Pads
Sniffing an isopropyl alcohol prep pad (the kind used before injections) can provide quick, short-term nausea relief. A 2016 randomized controlled trial found that inhaling isopropyl alcohol provided better nausea relief than placebo within 10 minutes. A 2018 trial went further, showing that inhaled isopropyl alcohol with or without a prescription anti-nausea drug provided greater relief than the prescription drug alone. The technique is simple: hold an alcohol pad about an inch from your nose and take slow, deep breaths through your nose. This is worth trying when nausea hits suddenly and you don’t have medication on hand.
Prescription Options
When over-the-counter remedies aren’t enough, doctors typically turn to one of two main classes of prescription medications.
Serotonin blockers like ondansetron (often known by the brand name Zofran) are considered first-line treatment for preventing and treating post-surgical nausea. They’re also used for severe gastroenteritis, especially in children where they’ve been shown to reduce hospital admissions. Ondansetron works by blocking a specific chemical messenger that triggers the vomiting reflex. It’s available as a tablet, a liquid, and a dissolving tablet you place on your tongue, which is helpful when you can’t keep pills down.
Dopamine blockers such as prochlorperazine and metoclopramide are commonly used for nausea from gastroenteritis and migraines. Medical guidelines from multiple specialty organizations support these medications as standalone treatments for acute migraine with nausea. They tend to cause more drowsiness than ondansetron, which can be either a drawback or a benefit depending on the situation.
Nausea During Pregnancy
Pregnancy nausea has its own treatment ladder because safety for the developing baby is the primary concern. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends starting with vitamin B6, combined with doxylamine if B6 alone isn’t sufficient. Doxylamine is the active ingredient in some over-the-counter sleep aids. A half tablet of a scored 25 mg doxylamine tablet (providing a 12.5 mg dose) is the typical starting point. Ginger at 250 mg four times daily is another well-studied option for pregnancy nausea, with multiple trials confirming its safety and effectiveness. If these approaches fail and symptoms become severe, with dehydration, weight loss, or abnormal blood chemistry, doctors may prescribe ondansetron or promethazine, both of which have been studied in hospitalized pregnant patients.
Signs That Need Medical Attention
Most nausea and vomiting resolves on its own or with the remedies above. But certain symptoms alongside vomiting signal something more serious. Get emergency care if your vomit contains blood, looks like coffee grounds, or is green. The same applies if vomiting comes with chest pain lasting more than a few minutes, severe abdominal cramping, confusion, blurred vision, a high fever with a stiff neck, or a sudden severe headache unlike anything you’ve experienced before.
Call your doctor if you can’t keep any liquids down for 24 hours, if vomiting persists beyond two days, if you notice you’re urinating much less than usual, or if nausea and vomiting have been recurring for more than a month. Unexplained weight loss paired with ongoing nausea also warrants a medical evaluation, as does nausea that started after beginning a new medication.