Kamloops mother remembers late son on Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome Awareness Day

“He never woke up.”

CVS is more common in children but possible in adults. It is characterized by episodes of extreme vomiting (multiple times an hour) for two to four days.

The episodes can be followed by periods of wellness lasting four to six weeks.

Ferguson said this pattern makes the syndrome easy to ignore.

“You go back to normal life for several weeks, and you think, ‘whatever I had, a flu-bug, is gone’, but the key is that there’s a pattern of this extreme vomiting,” she said.

Researchers have found that the syndrome be can sometimes be life-long, though most children with the syndrome no longer have vomiting episodes by the time they reach adulthood.

Those suffering an episode can visit the hospital, where medical professionals can make sure the vomiting doesn’t cause other symptoms, like the dehydration that killed Bradley.

“Doctors are becoming much more aware of it, and certainly emergency doctors are aware of it at RIH,” said Ferguson.

Ferguson recommends finding support groups to deal with CVS, such as Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome Association on Facebook. She said it can help deal with what she calls an “elusive” disorder.

“It can just come on suddenly and last for a few years and then it can just disappear.”

by Stephanie Swensrude

Kamloops mother remembers late son on Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome Awareness Day

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