Treating nausea and vomiting with magnets.

N and vomiting, especially during the early stages of pregnancy, is a common problem among patients of family physicians. Good treatments are available, but sometimes they do not work, and all require medications. Because they fear teratogenicity, some patients want to avoid traditional antiemetics. Complementary or alternative therapies can off er options to ease unpleasant and potentially dangerous nausea and vomiting. After hearing about magnets being used successfully for motion sickness and seeing the results on a family member, I tried using magnets for a pregnant patient. Th is patient had presented at 13 weeks’ gestation with uncontrolled nausea and vomiting despite having taken full doses of doxylamine succinate–pyridoxine hydrochloride (Diclectin®) since 9 weeks’ gestation. She estimated she was retaining only 500 mL/d of fl uid (she has some paramedical training). I off ered her intravenous treatment in hospital or multipolar magnets on the insides of both wrists with close follow up. She chose the latter, and I contacted her three times a day for the following 2 days. She had no more vomiting on the day of application and “mild vomiting the next morning” (her words). She did not vomit again until the seventh morning when she returned to “violent vomiting” (her words). She had not put the magnets on following her shower the night before. She completed the pregnancy using the magnets with no further concerns. Few patients have nausea and vomiting this severe during pregnancy, but I did have another patient whom I treated successfully with the same method.