I had my first real dose of aya the ofher week. The previous night and 4 hours before i drank i ate a lot of pizza and during the session experienced severe nausea that left me unable to move for ten+ hours. I know i should have fasted for twelve hours before the time of dosage but i was put off by my previous failed attempts. I was wondering if i fast properly and dont eat anything heavy a few daya before my next experience how much will this reduce my nausea from what i described? I know there's some inherently present with the intoxication but it was my understanding that the majority was limited to the first 90 minutes leading upto the purge. I was vomiting and physically extremely uncomfortable for hours but I definitely didnt throw up as much as i wanted to or even as much as i feel like i couldve on the dose i took. So once again can eating before a dream reduce the amount you can purge while extending the nausea and adding body discomfort?

Eating pizza and drinking is NOT recommended before ayahuasca. Some people go through very extreme diets for a few days before and after aya session, but personally I feel that if you generally eat light and have some good sense (as in, NOT eating pizza and heavy foods), the problems will be diminished. So fruits, vegetables, quinoa, stuff like this, and dont eat anything for at least a couple of hours before drinking aya.

This doesn't mean it will completely quit the nausea, but it can reduce it. Often nausea can be ayahuasca telling you to take care of your body. Or it can be a way to 'get rid' of other things accumulated in your body and mind. Or when I find no other explanation, I just take it as a reminder of my own mortality, and take the suffering experience as a possibility of growth.

Appart from eating light, you can also try chewing ginger before and after drinking ayahuasca, it could reduce some of the nausea too. Dont drink ginger tea, you need the whole ginger pieces in your stomach since galanolactone, the active nausea-reducing principle, is not water soluble.

Good luck and dont forget to let us know how it goes for you next time

I thought that was very well said.

Ginger tea is effective against nausea in my experience. There is also some evidence that it works better for preventing morning sickness than the root.

The precise mechanism of action responsible for the antiemetic effects of ginger is not yet understood. But galanolactone is not the only active constituent, gingerol and shogaol also play a significant role. For example, gingerol has been to shown to prevent vomiting in response to chemotherapy drugs in animal studies.

Why do you say the mechanism is not understood? AFAIK it is the 5-HT3 antagonism that mediates the nausea-reducing effects.

5-HT3 antagonists are antiemetics, it's been published everywhere, and galanolactone, as well as other mentioned ginger compounds are 5-HT3 antagonists. Or is there something I'm missing?

Alan Shoemaker swears by eating a small bowl of oatmeal 30 minutes before a ceremony. Claims the tea is more powerful I think from your digestion working.

Thanks for the responses. That's kinda what I figured. I'm gonna try eating ginger next time but I've heard you should wait till after the purge so as to not reduce it. What do you guys think? Like I said/indicated I had been eating lightly and properly during my first few unsuccessful attempts and somehow thought I'd be fine this time even though I knew the Caapi would be much better than what I'd previously dealt with.

I agree that it probably is 5-HT3 antagonism. After all, that's how most pharmaceutical antiemetics work. It's just not been clearly demonstrated. It could be due to 5-HT3 antagonism in either the gastric system or the central nervous system, or both or neither.

Gastric System

For: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18403946

Against: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8317647

Central Nervous System

For: http://www.sciencedirect...le/pii/S014067368292205X

Against: http://informahealthcare...0.3109/00016488909125515

Thanks for the links

Funny how contradictory the results can be... Maybe it has to do with the very reduced sample size (16 participants? That's hardly enough to make any statistical claims).

The contradictory results are hard to explain but the small sample sizes could certainly be a factor.