DEAR DR. GOTT: My healthy and smart 8-year-old daughter vomits in restaurants. When she was 3, she had a spell of vomiting over the course of a couple of weeks that we could not explain. Her pediatrician suggested keeping track of what she ate to see if there was a pattern with certain foods, because there was no abdominal pain and it was not consistent with motion sickness. We discovered that the vomiting often occurred after she consumed dairy products, so after another doctor visit, we limited dairy and used Lactaid tablets. The vomiting did not occur as often; however, we noticed it was still a problem in restaurants. Then our daughter revealed something: She got nervous in restaurants. She was afraid she would vomit and be embarrassed and got herself so worked up she got sick. Back to the doctor we went. The doctor said kids usually grow out of lactose intolerance as she probably had but “some kids just barf a lot.” He said she would grow out of that, too.
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