Hi, I am an 18 year old, roughly 5'10" (178 cm) and 155 lbs (70 kg) man. I used to love eating, but for the past 5-6 months I've lost my appetite almost entirely and I feel nauseous at the sight, smell, or sometimes even thought of eating most foods. I've never had an eating disorder and I didn't really have any major trauma or stress in that time period, although I have had issues with depression and anxiety in the past.
Every morning, I wake up feeling nauseous. Typically I will counter this by sitting in front of the toilet and sort of forcing myself to retch until the feeling goes away. Thankfully I very, very rarely actually throw up because of this. Likewise, throughout the day at various points I will feel nauseous again, and if possible I try to handle it similarly to how I handle my morning nausea.
I never ordinarily eat breakfast and haven't done so for years, but with the reduced amount of food I have been consuming I definitely feel very empty by the time lunch comes around. I just never even feel hungry anymore, I only eat when everyone else eats or when I can tell it's really been a long time since I've eaten. I can't finish normal sized meals in one sitting anymore, which makes eating with friends difficult and a little uncomfortable at times when they question me about it.
Probably what is most concerning to me is that I don't ever even feel hungry anymore. I used to be able to eat all the time, but that's gone now. Simply smelling or seeing food is enough to trigger nausea; sometimes even the thought of eating gets me a bit queasy. It's particularly bad when the food in question is dry or hot, for whatever reason. The only kind of food for which that doesn't usually happen is fruit.
I thought I could handle this on my own since I've never sought help for non-physical medical issues before, but I just can't do it on my own. I talked to a friend about it and they suggested I should talk to someone about it; I plan on bringing it up at my next checkup, but until then I hope that someone can provide me with some kind of answer.
Thank you