Hyperemesis Support

[LucindaE]

We need a new thread.

I hope everyone suffering from the Horrors of Hyperemesis will find this thread useful as a source of support and information.

There's no TMI on here - can't be by definition - and nobody should feel ashamed of moaning as much as they feel the need to.

I used to include extracts from MOH's wonderful website
sites.google.com/site/pregnancysicknesssos/
but I think that makes this link less visible so am merely putting the link. The information on this site is invaluable.

I would like to thank MOH MOP Ovaltine Caramellokoalalover (I think she's changed her nickname) Fluffy, Horsey Kali and Everyone who has given such invaluable support and advice on previous threads.

Remember when you are at your worst, 'This Too Shall Pass'. It really will.

morning waves. thats shit to hear you are back in again :( big hugs. def starvation will be affecting your ketones. when i was in last week, i managed to get mine down from 4+ on tues to 1 by wed eve but by thur morn they were back up to 3+ and they said it was because my body was still in fasting mode. really do try to eat something small and often if you can, and keep drinking too, even a we cup of tea and a biccy when they bring the trolley round. :)
i actually quite enjoyed my stay in hospital (yea am a weirdo lol) got to mooch around in my jammys and have my meals brought to me! eating regular meals really helped me and those fluids are the nuts!!
lucinda - yea i wasnt too impressed! if that happens again i will be getting my gp to ring through to the gynae ward rather than go to a&e. i think i would have been seen a lot sooner had i done that last time.

waves sounds awful- when you're medically so ill, plus all the other stuff you're going through. Sounds like wispa has a good attitude- try to enjoy being looked after in hosp, and if you can get something down you.

I managed to spend much of my day off in bed yesterday- didn't really eat enough because there was no food in the house til we got a takeaway in the evening.

I'm back in the office today- and here with the two people who don't know I'm pg (only 10 weeks today). Luckily neither of my bosses are in, so I can go home bang on time (got in early) and don't need to stress. Lots of travelling to do this week though and absolutely dreading it. I've recorded loads of terrible daytime telly so can spend my evenings on the sofa recovering. I also rode my bike today for the second time in 5 weeks and it was so liberating and wonderful. Hasn't stopped nausea etc but it was great.

I think with flying they only get nervous when you get big- and you need a letter from your dr if you're 26 weeks or more to say you won't pop on the plane! I just got an aisle seat so the toilet was easy access!!

Flo Rode bike? Goodness, such energy when ill. It seems a shame that you can't take more time off from work, cluck cluck. I am impressed you managed to wishstand those horrible changes in pressure that make the ears go funny without puking on the plane.
Wispa You're right there, if your GP takes it as seriously as s/he should that should save a nasty wait. I'm shocked they wanted to send you home at one point, despite ketones.The awful thing is, sometimes unsympathetic GP's tell women to wait until the next day, despite an emergency level of ketones, and then there's no choice but for them to bypass the GP and go straight to A and E.
Waves How are you feeling now? Any luck with peanut butter (dare I ask)?
Everyone
Lucinda
xx

:) I should point out that pre nausea, I was cycling 50+ miles a week and walking about 15-20 miles..... so my body is very used to exercise (not that gym kind, the fresh air kind)...... so it's killed me not being able to do anything.

Felt pretty shit today at work, but I managed. Spent the evening looking at nice pictures from the hen do and watching telly. Not so taxing....

Hi all. I have spent a highly unproductive day at work reading a hell of a lot of back posts here and felt I had to join you all here. I have had 3 unsuccessful HG pregnancies, ranging from 12 weeks to 9, each with multiple hospital visits, although each was slightly easier to cope with due to experience and speedier prescribing each time. now I'm hoping for a successful one, TTC at the moment. I am absolutely terrified because I know it will rear its ugly head at about 6 weeks, and so far I've only had to cope with a few weeks at a time, not an entire pregnancy. I don't know how I'll manage, but I want a baby that badly I'm willing to go through it again. I'm going to see a nurse and separately a doctor for advice and to make a plan, but also for swabs etc to see if there's a reason for the mcs.
I just had a really angry making evening where a lady in my quilting group who used to be a midwife basically belittled my experiences by saying "its only 9 months and you come out of it with a lovely little baby" and "every midwife knows the signs and symptoms of HG". I bit my tongue whilst also trying to explain to her that "these days" they aren't taught much as a rule. I just had to come on and rant to someone who will understand, sorry.
hopefully I will be updating you on positive progress, but we'll see!
sorry for the rant. this forum is amazing :-)

Tallyra Welcome, I'm glad you like the thread, sympathies about those miscarriages, that is truly awful to have had Hyperemesis and miscarriages three times, my goodness, I had one mmc where the nausea tailed off too quickly and then the run-in with Hyperemesis. Good luck and the statistics are on your side about miscarriage. I suspect Hyperemesis has to be connected with hormonal imbalance and miscarriage certainly is, it's interesting because on here more of us than average had experience of miscarriage.
I am about that daft remark too! Not all midwives are trained to recognise Hyperemesis - they may supposedly have been taught about it - but it's obvious from these threads that a lot can't pick up on the early signs at all. My experience was years ago, but from what I've seen on here it's often neglected too long still. Also, can that woman even imagine what it is like to be in say Waves's position, in hospital for the fifth time in about a month because she can't retain sufficient fluids even with meds?
Flo I am a great walker and work out with weights, but I take off my hat to you for the cycling. I'm too scared of the traffic...
Everyone I hope coping?
Lucinda
xx

wavesandsmiles Are you still in hospital, poor you?
I hope Everyone is coping.
Lucinda
xx

Hi, I was discharged at lunchtime with fortisip drinks to try. I really hope I'm not back in soon (or at all) but we will see. Frankly exhausted and slept all afternoon. My bed is a lot more comfy than the one in hospital! Lovely to have cuddles with my DCs who are now sound asleep like I will be soon too I hope. My tummy is sore from all the clexane jabs to thin my blood, and coupled with the bruises on my arms and hands from the cannulas I feel quite battered.

This is going to be a very long pregnancy. I hope to get back to work in the next week or so, plan to call my boss tomorrow to chat about reduced hours on my return, or some phases reintroduction and certainly hoping that I can hold off on the travelling for a bit!

Husband is flat hunting and should be out by the end of the month, so I also have the fun of trying to find lodgers. At least he is being helpful in getting the rooms ready, furniture moved etc so I don't have that to contend with. And the midwives have now referred me for extra support so I should have some practical help with things.

Waves I'm glad you are out, though the rest will have been good for you, and so glad about cuddling with LO's. I am going to be very bossy and say Agh! You mustn't even think about going back to work at this stage. I am sure your doctors agree. If you aren't even keeping enough liquids down you are still far too ill and would be back in hospital or would just collapse at work.Even when the sickness eases off, women find that they are still very weak from the starvation, and you've had it worse than almost anyone I've encountered on this thread. Have you got on to your union or personnel or whatever if sick pay is a problem? Some women have to be off all their pregnancies, that is just he way it is. They shouldn't discriminate against you for a pregnancy related illness, that's against employment law.
Did they mention trying steroids in the hospital?

How are the liquids/those drink things staying down?
Lucinda
xx

Hi ladies.

Thanks for the welcome Lucinda. It's good to find somewhere that really understands HG, that it's not just something that affects you during pregnancy, but forever afterwards as well. After my first mc I suffered from depression for about a year before I finally managed to make my way back up out of the hole. I'm sure much of the cause was to do with the fact that I was trying to get my head around so many conflicting things at once - ie not feeling pregnant enough to believe it in my heart and feeling the HG was just a completely separate thing, not really part of the pregnancy at all. The last 2 times were easier, but if I ever get a virus and feel ill I'm always terrified that once I start vomiting I won't be able to stop.

I'm sorry to use this thread like this, but I just need to rant again.

I'm having a really hard time with this mental disability I seem to have been left with after HG. I am so angry with the world. Partly because of the HG, partly because of the mcs and partly because of other people in many many ways. (I'm not sure if this comment belongs on a ttc forum or here, but this is the only thread I'm on and I feel I know you all slightly after reading what you have been through and that you might be able to sympathise with me.)

My boss has just given birth 2 weeks ago, and if I hadn't had the last mc, I would have been doing the same right now. All my colleagues are cooing about her and they don't seem to understand how much it hurts. I mentioned today that I am having a difficult week because of Kirsty and they were very sympathetic, but it made me feel that they hadn't even realised it might be affecting me. They know all about it - I told all the ladies that I was going to be ill before I was hospitalised and so they know how long I was ill and how much it affected me, and Kirsty announced her pregnancy the week after I had my mc. She had been incredibly helpful and understanding about the HG and I know I shouldn't be angry with her for having a 'normal' pregnancy, but I really want to!

I've been thinking more about what happened to me last time and reading this thread has been both encouraging and terrifying, finding out that so many of you have had the same in multiple pregnancies, and how far along you seem to be still feeling sick is really scaring me - I'm not sure I can cope with 7/8 months of sickness, I only had 6 weeks at the worst time so far. But knowing that you all seem to feel it's worth it is encouraging me to keep going, to go to the nurse and try to find the cause of the mcs and have a pre-emptive plan.

I bought some ketostix yesterday. A bit early for that, but reading how useful you find them I don't know why the doctors don't actually give you some when they discharge you from hospital - it would make admissions a lot easier if you just had to tell them your ketone level!!

One request of you all if you don't mind me asking - I'm trying to write a list of things I need to talk to the doctor about when I see her next week - so far I have B6 and B12, ask for ondansetron (that was almost the only thing that helped last time) get tested for h.pylori (I read about that on one of the earlier threads making it all slightly worse). Is there anything else anyone would recommend??? I was on steroids from wk6 last time. Does anyone know anything about this? Some people have said it is bad to have them so early on, but I really found that they helped lessen the sickness, and even made me able to eat some food fairly regularly last time.

waves, I hope you are doing OK now, it sounds like you have had a horrible horrible time these last few weeks and I send you all my hugs and sympathy. Don't go back to work!!! I remember after my last admission I tried to walk the dog and nearly fainted in the field - luckily my sister was with me and pretty much caught me before I fell over. It takes so much out of you, you need to rest, not make it worse by rushing around (understandably hard to avoid, but there you go).
wispa Good on you for enjoying being waited on! I can't remember ever actually enjoying it, but maybe next time I will try and get a wifi dongle thing and watch tv on my notepad - those hospital tvs are so expensive and crap!!!

I'm sorry for such a rambling and needy post. I'll try and become a little more stable for some proper conversation soon, just let this week go past and calm down a bit...

Talyra Hugs, I want most of all to sympathise about how hurtful that is about your boss having a baby when you've had a mc - after I had a miscarriage I was dreading going back to work because the woman I worked with was successfully pregnant and I felt bitter about it, quite frankly! I was so glad that I was made redundant. I do think people might have been a bit more sympathetic - none of them have had mc's, I take it?
If you were on steriods it seems to indicate that nothing else worked. One other woman had them on the previous thread - I have been trying to remember the name because of Waves who is suffering so awfully, and thickhead can't. Wait, I'll do a search for the post. No luck, but I do know that
on MOHs wonderful website there 's a lot of information on meds. [https://sites.google.com/site/pregnancysicknesssos/research/management-of-hg]

It is terrifying, seeing how people are suffering - but almost nobody suffers as much later on as they do up to week twenty, say - and the 'lucky' few are a lot better by week fifteen or sixteen.
I so agree that it is traumatic and leaves mental scars - I don't think medical people realise how much, it's a subject that will probably be researched at one point, and then the findings will shock people! I think in your case, when you've had the misfortune to have it and mc's, of course you are traumatised.
Waves I hope keeping (some) liquids down? Wispa I love thet picture of you in pj's, lounging, a good idea to try and enjoy an admission...Belle I hope no more retching for thirty minutes episodes? Littlemiss GatoradeReebok Flo and Everyone I hope not too bad?
Lucinda
xx

Damn link, Taly. I'll try again sites.google.com/site/pregnancysicknesssos/research/management-of-hg
Lucinda
xx

Hi all just checking in to see how everyone is doing? Hope there is a slight improvement and remember there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm living proof of it. Almost 20 weeks and can feel bubba kicking away. Makes those horrendous months of hG worth it and now feeling so much better and more like myself. I'm even starting to show on my tummy. Think now I'm eating (again a restricted diet but much better than before), the weight has no where to go but tummy!

Talyra, sorry to hear about the miscarriages. Ive had one mmc too and i must say the fear never really goes....but hoping you have a successful hg free pregnancy.

Will say a little prayer for you all and hope hG subsides soon for each and every one of you. X

Talyra A miscarriage and hyperemesis is particularly cruel. I had a MMC with my first and about 4 weeks of sickness when the baby wasn't actually alive. (My hormone levels also took two weeks to go down after miscarriage. Just rubbish.) Totally normal to be upset when colleagues have babies and you've lost one. I had to completely avoid some pregnant colleagues just to keep it together. Also, the fear definitely doesn't go away but I find private early reassurance scans a bit of a sanity saver. Had one at 8 weeks and 10 weeks.

lotta that sounds almost the same as my first, and they were all mmcs. how strange that they should all be the same. I had to go in for erpc all 3 times and the first wasn't noticed for 3-4 weeks either. the sickness didn't stop until the surgery any of the times, but it disappeared as soon as I woke up. the most amazing feeling in the world is sending dh to buy me crap food from the vending machine after all that!

hopefully the consultant I saw last time will take me back on and scan early when we manage TTC so I'll be sure to go and see her - I'll almost certainly be admitted on her patch anyway!

Lucinda I don't think any in the office have had mcs but most have kids. funnily enough, Kirsty is the most likely to understand as she's been trying TTC for a while.

Hi ladies, I haven't posted for ages, I've been madly busy having gone back to work. I just wanted to say hello and post a link, just to make you chuckle really and give you some ammunition for the idiotic comments. sites.google.com/site/pregnancysicknesssos/what-to-say-when

wavesandsmiles sorry, just skim reading and wasn't sure if I read it right, you're just out of hospital and you want to go back to work next week?!! You probably have more chance of flying to the moon than coping with work so soon, sorry to be blunt, but going back to work too soon is a sure fire recipe for a relapse. Can your doctor not sign you off?

Tallyra That's so hard, it takes a lot of energy to hold it in. its not her fault she had an easy pregnancy but you must just want to scream at her. You were on steroids at 6 weeks? Oh my goodness, that's hardcore, you must have been really bad. As far as safety goes, there is one animal study showing increased risk of cleft palate, but epidemiological studies in humans have failed to show any risk of birth defects above the background level. If you email me on [email protected] I can send you some papers on it.

Sorry for multiple posts, forgot, meant to post this too, new study of use of ondansetron in pregnancy shows no association with birth defects. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1211035

Hello everyone. How are you all?

tallyra well done on staying so together with such a lot going on. You sound very brave!

I think i have got over my "must get back to work" moment, after spending pretty much all day vomiting or retching. Baby is kicking away do much and I'm sure that those movements are partly setting me off. Still, I need a chat with my boss or HR, I'm a natural born worrier and there is a climate of restructuring and impending redundancies which is scaring me, especially as my marriage is ending. Because I left so suddenly, I'm conscious of not having done a handover and of all the bits which weren't urgent then which are becoming urgent now that I should really have got up to date before. Does that make any sense???

Ketone testing tomorrow I think, and in the meantime I'm hoping for a good sleep. They may be testing me for diabetes, my dad was a type 1 diabetic and although HG is still pretty much certainly the cause, the ongoing high ketone levels and weight loss could be being caused by that. Personally I'm sure it's "just" the HG, but pleased at least they are taking it seriously enough to investigate other things.

he he, I wouldn't say I was all that together right now! just been reading a TTC thread and burst into tears at the mention of us all snuggling on the sofa in onesies... OK think I've cracked....

morning ladies! how is everyone today? kinda feel like i dont belong in here now lol as ive been feeling so much better! (sorry to those still suffering horribly )
Waves - def try not to worry about getting back to work just yet, concentrate on getting back on your feet.
Lucinda - yes i think relaxing and 'enjoying' an admission might be the way to go lol. way i saw it was, they werent letting me out until urine clear and as long as i was keeping food/fluids down so didnt feel i was 'taking up a bed' if that makes sense?

Waves Oh no, the vomiting is continuing. Sending you cyber pats by way of a change. Is nothing staying down at all? I did a test on my non pregnant self with a migraine and despite drinking water I had 3+ ketones in 12 hours with vomiting 10+ times a day. Did they say anything about sterioids in hospital, as I think they go on to those when all else has failed? For sure, you can't go back to work until you can eat and have rested up a bit to get your strength back! They'll just have to manage at work.
Talyra and Lotta That is awful, having mmc's and Hyperemesis. That is so weird, so it can't be only the level of hormones, it must be somehow the body;'s reaction to them...When I had the mmc pregnancy the symptoms of sickness just went in a day or so...
MoH Lovely of you to come on.
Sorry to Anyone rudely ovrelooked.
Lucinda
xx

Hello all, been quiet over here as I went back to work properly this week (after monday off to recover from the hen weekend). It's been absolutely bloody exhausting but I've coped so far (though I have a feeling I have a complicated finance meeting which might send me over the edge this afternoon!). All I can manage is work- I leave the house at 7 am and get home by around 7pm most days (a little earlier some days). When I get home I head for the sofa or the bath, and my husband brings me food, tidies, washes up, does the clothes washing whilst I mindlessly watch telly and then I go to bed.

Still hideously nauseous, and trying not to be stressed about getting my repeat prescription. I'm the kind of numpty who lost that bit of the prescription, so can't fill in and post to dr surgery. I work in another town (leave home 7am, get home 7pm kind of thing) so unable to fill in repeat prescription form at the surgery during opening hours. My drs said on their website that I could do it by email, which I have attempted to do, but there's no reply from them to confirm that they've received and/or processed it. I'm just hoping I'm back from work in time to pick it up tonight if it has been processed. I only have two pills left in my pack and I don't think I can get my medication over the counter (though I plan to try if the rep prescription email falls through). The one day I didn't take one I ended up really sick the next day, so I'm hoping that I don't have a gap in my medication.

This weekend I have persuaded husband to go and take a little look at new kitchens with me...... :-)

Hi all - sorry to read so many of you are still really struggling :(

I'm doing a bit better - the norovirus and chest infection coming right on top of each other really knocked me flat on my back after weeks and weeks of HG and i def think they prolonged the sickness. I'm 17 weeks today and finally finally starting to feel a bit better. Still easily tired out but took DS to the park on my own for the first time since xmas yesterday and took him to Tesco to do the shopping today and even had the patience energy to hit the cafe with him afterwards. I'm not going to say I am miraculously cured and I do still need to take the procloperazine but I am able to go to work and get out to see friends and stuff now so my mood is so much better.

Sending lots of cyber hugs and anti nausea vibes to all of you still vomiting and hoping you all turn the corner soon xx

Flo Sorry nauseu persists - can you ring through for a new supply or a new one of those annoying repeater things? Two hours travel is bad enough - that twelve hour day must be tiring normally...
Wispa and Littlemiss I am so glad you are both feeling a bit better, and living a bit more normally.
Waves How are things today?
Lucinda
xx