Creatine And Nausea
Creatine and nausea. That’s a set of words that don’t seem to go together. I mean, imagine the feeling of adding a new supplement like creatine to your healthy lifestyle, working out regularly in the gym and making great gains only to find that every time you take this wonder powder, you end up huddled in a corner holding your stomach or feeling dizzy, lightheaded and nauseous.
Well, for a small number of people, this is their reality. Although this isn’t the norm for the average person, what exactly causes this problem and what can be done about it? Read on to learn the answers to these questions and more.
Why Does Creatine Make Me Feel Nauseous
Since the problem of creatine nausea seems to affect a minority of users, the first conclusion is that it’s related to each individual’s physiology. In other words, this issue could be related to the way someone’s body doesn’t work well with creatine in general.
Now I know that’s not what you want to hear, and it certainly isn’t the only reason for nausea but it’s definitely a possibility that can only be ruled out by process of elimination and trying out the strategies that we’ll cover shortly.
Other possibilities are related to the brand of creatine being used, the purity of the creatine and even what you’re mixing your creatine with when you consume it.
Does Creatine Monohydrate Cause Nausea
In short, creatine monohydrate does not cause nausea. After endless studies and the reports of millions of users around the world, creatine monohydrate doesn’t have any reputation or scientific backing to support the idea that it causes nausea.
Creatine Nausea And Diarrhea
Nausea aside, what about people who report that creatine gives them diarrhea? According to individuals who say they get the runs when taking creatine, there are those that mention this side effect goes away after taking creating for several days and becoming accustomed to it.
One hypothesis is that regular creatine monohydrate, which isn’t micronized, doesn’t easily dissolve in water or other liquids which means that once it’s consumed, your stomach has to deal with this non-soluble compound.
This can give your entire gastrointestinal tract a hard time and ultimately lead to an upset stomach and diarrhea. If this sounds familiar, you may want to opt for micronized creatine monohydrate or an alternative version like kre-alkalyn which has faster absorption and requires less grams per day for the same results.
How To Get Rid Of Nausea From Creatine
This is the part you’ve been waiting for. Here we’ll list all the ways in which you can rid yourself of creatine nausea. For starters, many people who report on nausea related to creatine find that this happens when they first start taking creatine and follow a standard loading phase.
For some people, large amounts of creatine like the typical 20 gram daily dose during the first week of creatine loading is what causes this issue. As soon as the daily dose is reduced to 3-5 grams, the nausea goes away.
There also isn’t any real need to do a creatine loading phase in the first place. Taking it daily at 5 grams per dose is all you need. Another way to eliminate this nausea is to not consume creatine in a dry powder form but rather to mix it in some liquid like water or a protein shake.
Something else you can try is to make sure you drinking plenty of water. A lot of the time, people think they’re drinking a sufficient amount of water but in reality, they’re borderline dehydrated. Measure your daily water intake and try to be consistent with it.
This can help a lot as far as not feeling nauseas goes. Similar to taking certain medication, some people find that taking creatine after a big meal helps keep away feelings of being sick. If you haven’t yet tried that method, see if it works for you.
As previously mentioned, if your creatine isn’t micronized, it will have a hard time dissolving in water which can give your body a hard time breaking down the creatine.
Either use micronized creatine or if you’re stuck with a big tub of regular monohydrate that you don’t want to waste, make sure that the creatine crystals are completely dissolved before drinking it.
In addition to that, you can also take in some carbs that will accelerate your body’s absorption of creatine like glucose of fruit juice. The less time creatine is hanging around your gut and being delivered to your muscles, the better.
These are the main methods to get rid of nausea from creatine used by people who experience these symptoms. There’s surely a solution that works for you here.
Why Does Creatine Make Me Feel Sick
Generally speaking, feeling sick from taking creatine can be due to insufficient hydration, taking it before working out on an empty stomach, taking too large a dose at once or not letting it fully dissolve before drinking it.
The ways to get around this would be to either take half doses twice a day, let the creatine dissolve completely before drinking and making sure to not train on an empty stomach if your goal is to build muscle.
Fuelling your body before training has a majorly positive impact on your workouts and failing to eat before intense training can lead to dizzy spells and nausea. When you supplement with creatine it’s also important to drink more water than you usually would.
Dehydration is also a main cause of feeling weird or sick. If all else fails, you might simply not be responding well to your creatine brand and should consider switching to something that’s easier on your stomach such as creatine kre-alkalyn.
The doses are smaller, it dissolves better, is absorbed faster by your body and doesn’t seem to give anyone stomach issues like cramps or diarrhea.
Creatine Makes Me Feel Weird (Dizzy Spells And Vomiting)
Nine out of ten times, feeling weird, having dizzy spells or vomiting isn’t related to creatine but instead, something else you’re doing in conjunction with taking creatine.
This can be narrowed down to things like training very hard out on an empty stomach or simply taking creatine on an empty stomach. Taking it with your protein shake or after a meal can make a huge difference in how you feel after taking creatine.
Try taking smaller doses and skip the loading phase altogether. See if two or three smaller doses throughout the day improve your condition if you suffer from bouts of dizziness, nausea or vomiting.
On the off chance it actually is the creatine itself, it’s likely a creatine version like monohydrate that isn’t dissolving well in water before being consumed.
Dehydration and taking doses of creatine exceeding 5 grams per day can also lead to feeling weird and becoming lightheaded. You can always switch your creatine monohydrate for something like creatine HCL which is known to work well for individuals who don’t respond well to regular monohydrate creatine.
Creatine Side Effects
Seeing as how certain individuals can become nauseous or sick after consuming creatine, it’s worth noting the potential side effects in addition to feeling weird or dizzy. Keep in mind that the list below isn’t anything concrete.
It’s a list of certain conditions that few people claim to have experienced. This list includes:
• Bloating
• Dehydration
• Upset stomach
• Muscle cramps
• Insomnia
• Diarrhea
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Weight gain
• Loss of appetite
• Dizziness
Rest assured that after decades of research, creatine hasn’t been shown to be dangerous at all. It has a very high safety score and it’s only in rare cases that some people will experience one or more of the above side effects.
If you don’t have any of these issues, you can safely continue supplementing with creatine on a daily basis.
Creatine Allergy Symptoms
Besides side effects, is it possible that you can experience allergic reactions to creatine? And if so, what are they? Well, in all honesty, it’s very hard to find any resource citing allergic reactions to creatine but that being said, it’s not impossible.
People can have allergic reactions to literally anything. So if you ever take creatine and notice that you develop a rash, break out in hives, develop a swollen face or tongue or start to experience difficulty breathing, please stop all creatine supplementation immediately and seek medical attention.
This advice should be followed no matter what supplement you introduce into your daily routine.
Creatine And Caffeine
Can you mix creatine and caffeine? Well, you can definitely mix the two if you’re a fan of caffeine and want to mix your creatine in a nice warm beverage like coffee.
You may or may not have heard of a very old, isolated study done where it was concluded that caffeine counters the effects of creatine but newer research counters this conclusion.
It’s entirely possible that caffeine combined with creatine can even complement each other and enhance athletic performance relating to intense activity but this isn’t solidly backed by science. It’s just a possibility.
But the morale of the story is that you shouldn’t be concerned about caffeine nullifying your creatine benefits. In fact, it’s known that creatine dissolves much better in warm liquids than colder ones which can definitely assist in cases where people experience stomach cramps after taking creatine with water or juice.
In addition to that, carbohydrates are known to increase creatine absorption in the body and make it more readily available for your muscles. That’s a win-win situation if you ask me.
So next time you’re on the fence about whether you should add a scroop of creatine to your cup of coffee or not, don’t overthink it. Scoop and enjoy!
Does Creatine Make You Feel Anything?
For the overwhelming majority of people, creatine increases athletic performance, increases energy and leads to great results in the gym and on the sports field.
On the downside, for a small group of people, and taking into account the possibility that their bodies don’t respond well to creatine, there are reported side effects that range from a puffy face to downright sickness and vomiting.
If you’ve never taken creatine before, I’d suggest giving a try and see how you respond to it before making a decision based solely on the reports of others. It might just be the thing that unlocks your training and takes it to the next level.
Can You Be Intolerant To Creatine?
One last thing to note when it comes to certain individuals not responding well to creatine, is the fact that some people don’t respond to create at all! This is likely because these people actually have naturally high levels of creatine in their bodies at all times.
That’s pretty amazing if you ask me. If you’re one of these people, there’s no need to worry. There are many versions of creatine out there and if you aren’t responding to creatine, it might be worth a shot trying a different version like creatine HCL or creatine ethyl ester (both of which don’t taste great).
If you still aren’t seeing results, try increasing your dosage from what you’re currently taking and track your results. If after all of that you still aren’t seeing the results others report on, you might be part of the 20% that genetically don’t respond to creatine.
This doesn’t mean you should avoid creatine forever. In fact, more and more studies are showing the benefits of creatine for brain function, focus and memory.
Creatine Benefits
All we’ve discussed so far are the possible negative side effects that can stem from creatine supplementation such as nausea, sickness, diarrhea and cramps.
You might even start to ask yourself why you should take creatine at all, but the truth is, creatine comes with a host of benefits that have been proven scientifically over literal decades.
For starters, creatine is basically as close as you can get to steroids without harming your body or breaking the law. It increases strength and power in athletic and high intensity training, improves muscle recovery and increases lean muscle mass over time.
Don’t forget, this compound is produced in your very own body every single day! There are other benefits, especially cognitive ones but research in that area isn’t significant enough to prove much of anything at the moment.
But for now, we know it definitely improves physical performance, recovery and muscle gain.
Summary
We’ve gone from A to Z in this article touching on all the reasons why there’s a link between creatine and nausea from the type of creatine you’re using, not dissolving it fully, not drinking enough water, taking too large doses and even not responding well to creatine in general.
There are several ways to combat this such as skipping the loading phase, taking creatine with meals, changing the type of creatine you use and staying hydrated among others.
Creatine has a few side effects reported by some people such as bloating, muscle cramps and an upset stomach but it also has a ton of benefits, namely, improved physical performance, increased strength and recovery and increased lean muscle mass.
Finally, we’ve dismissed the idea that creatine and caffeine are a bad combination and touched on the reality that about 20% of people don’t respond to creatine due to having natural, elevated creatine levels.
Now that you know all about creatine and nausea you should be able to easily prevent it and live your best creatine life!
