I am writing this hoping that it will help provide some information for anyone else who has decided to go down the medical management route.
I am sorry if it is too long and maybe some TMI at times, but I am doing this hoping that it will help reassure someone else in their moment of need.
I was prescribed Misoprostol/Cytotec 7 pills, 200 mg each by a private ob-gyn after the u/s showed a missed miscarriage.
I was told to take 4 vaginally (insert them as deep as you can) and then (if the bleeding doesn't start within 4 hours) take the other three orally, one every 4 hours. The ob gyn said I should start the treatment in the morning so I can some sleep during the night but I chose to take them in the afternoon, because that's when my husband could be at home with me.
I inserted the first 4 pills at around 4.30PM and by 6.30 I started to get some light cramping. It didn't bother me in the slightest, it felt as if my af was about to come on (at this point I took some nurofen express, preventively) .
After another 30 min I felt a very sharp pain traveling from the front of my pelvic region to my rectum, followed by an urge to have a bowel movement. I ran quickly to the toilet and the movement was quite painful, my rectum really hurt for a few seconds and it got me scared.
Then I started having serious cramping so ran a hot bath and completely forgot about the pain mentioned above. I just sat there and within the next 20-30 minutes the cramping got gradually worse to the point it became unbearable.
I do not want to worry anyone but I have to be honest, the pain was so bad I thought I will pass out. I had no idea my body could take so much pain. I think these were contractions (never been pregnant before so I might be wrong) and they came in waves, every few seconds. At some point they lasted like a whole 10 minutes with no respite. I felt like I wanted to pull my hair and my eyes out, I was trying to breath and calm myself but God...it was extremely painful.
I have always suffered with painful periods (until the beginning of this year when they got much better) and I can take pain, but this was something else.
My vision got a bit blurry and I started to feel very shakey so I asked for something sweet. My husband bought me 2 boxes of chocolate the night before and brought them into the bathroom. I had a few pieces and started to feel calmer, the contractions stopped (this was just a coincidence, I am sure, but I went on and finished the chocolate within the next couple of hours anyway).
This very painful episode lasted about 1.5 hrs and then the bleeding started.
A few drops in the beginning followed by very small clots.
By now I have emptied the tub and run a hot shower over me. I think the bath was a brilliant idea at the time and really helped with the pain, but I've read that you risk infection because the cervix opens and got worried about it so I decided to go for the shower once the pain got more bearable. As soon as I felt another contraction I would turn the shower very hot and run it over my tummy. I don't know how much I bled, maybe like a very heavy period.
All this time I had horrible hunger pains and got out of the shower to have dinner.
I then returned to the shower and stayed there until 5.30 in the morning when the pain was more like a period and I moved to the sofa.
I have slept from maybe around 6 AM to 8 AM and then another 2 hours.
I have changed 3 or 4 very thick pads but the bleeding has not been worrying at all. It is not a lot on the pad but there is some serious bleeding every time I go for a wee. Some black clots coming out, a few pieces of something that looks like chicken liver, but these are very small, peanut sized or slightly bigger and haven't passed anything larger than that.
I have only slept 4 hours in the last 30 hours, I don't feel sleepy at all, however I feel weak every time I need to get up and go to the bathroom.
I feel hungry all the time and my tummy is very bloated. The pain is very manageable and I took my last nurofen around 6 o'clock this morning, nothing ever since.
Now, I am worried that I am not eliminating everything? Is it normal to have only small clots? I have read that normally women pass things the size of their palms and these are grey, not red?!
I continued to take the rest of the pills orally even though the bleeding had started after taking the first dose because I thought it will help completely remove everything.
Is this normal?