To most, CVS is just a pharmacy and March 5th is just a day, but, according to the National Institute of Health, to me and an unknown amount of people ranging from 4 to 2,000 per 100,000 children, CVS means cyclic vomiting syndrome and March 5th is a day of visibility for this often invisible disease.

Cyclic vomiting syndrome is caused by a mitochondrial mutation causing abnormal energy metabolism and your body being overactive in response to stress. This is often passed down from mothers with migraines, which means only females can pass on the disease because the genetic instructions for the mitochondria are passed down from the mother.

Symptoms of the chronic illness listed by the National Organization for Rare Diseases are nausea, vomiting, lethargy, pallor, abdominal pain, headache, dizziness, and sensitivity to sound and light, and these episodes can last from hours to days. Some people with the condition will get only a few episodes a year, whereas others will get a few a month. Sometimes these episodes are random, and other times, they are triggered by different things, like exercise, anxiety, certain foods, and lack of sleep. This can be dangerous, as it can lead to dehydration and the tearing and wearing of your esophagus and teeth.

I have a personal connection to this as I’ve had this condition most of my life. It was really difficult to diagnose because the only realistic way to diagnose it is to rule out every other possible disease. This didn’t occur from me until I was fourteen because up until then, my episodes were only a few times a year and were manageable. I remember my freshman year I lost twenty pounds in two weeks and was stuck on the couch watching the Olympics for weeks. I was so sick and so often that I would go to the nurse’s office to be sick and go back to class when I stopped vomiting. Somehow, I managed to run varsity cross country for my school and maintain my grades, but I will never forget how miserable I felt. Luckily, now my CVS is controlled with medications and avoidance of triggers.

It is important to the community of people suffering from cyclic vomiting syndrome to raise awareness for the condition because it is not well known and has very little research behind it. It often takes years to get an accurate diagnosis of this disease because it is often misdiagnosed or sufferers aren’t believed. There is no cure for this disease, so preventive and abortive treatments are used to try to prevent attacks, stop them, or lessen their severity. Sometimes, hospitalization is needed.

Further Reading
https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/cyclic-vomiting-syndrome
https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/cyclic-vomiting-syndrome/