Hyperemesis Support

[LucindaE]

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.

MOH's wonderful website is full of useful information on this illness:
sites.google.com/site/pregnancysicknesssos/
Another invaluable website is:
www.pregnancysicknesssupport.org.uk/
If you need help in obtaining medication, this phone number is
brilliant:
024 7638 2020

Lastly, the NICE guidelines on treatment are useful:
cks.nice.org.uk/nauseavomiting-in-pregnancy#!prescribinginfosub

I would like to thank Everyone who has given such invaluable support and advice on this and on previous threads.

Remember when you are at your worst, 'This Too Shall Pass'. It really will.
So many women on this thread have thought they couldn't get through this, but they did.

Dec2013mummy Excellent idea to get in those magic kesostix. If they refuse meds, do phone up the number on my introductory blurb at the top of the thread- they've helped lots of people get them. Puking five times a day is exhausting and not normal ms. Are ice lollies/jelly'sips of full sugar or diet coke - maybe left to go flat- any good?
Mampam I feel so guilty that I had never heard of such a syndrome and thought you were joking! Some Oh's deserve to be slapped for their lack of sympathy, but yours may well be one of the brilliant ones who do everything!
Sashamonsta Oh dear, I do hope you make it without too much suffering.
SomeSunny That sounds awful, though I'm glad it was a field - no staring audience there.
Sambo Yes, a lot of people pop blood vessels from the violence of the retching, sometimes they end up with eyes like a vampire, it's awful. I've heard it helps to keep them squeezed tight shut when in the throes of it, but I don't know why that should be.
Kali Thinking of you.
Waves to Booboo. I'll put up that updated list soon.
Apologies to anyone rudely overlooked or cross posted with.
xx

When I violently threw up from attempting to take a prenatal(I hadn't vomited for a few weeks) I came out in a rash around my eyes and all over my face and neck..was a bit worried but it turned out to be popped blood vessels and went away in a few days.

So sorry to everyone feeling so awful..it's so horrible..I am 23 weeks now and still totally exhausted and still nauseous/have to be careful what I eat but it has improved slowly since week 20 so I hope it's the same for you too.Between weeks 7 and 19 I felt like I was dying and cried all the time,was so horrendous but it has got better and I think most people have some improvement around that time.
Kalidasa So sorry to hear your news on top of everything else.Thinking of you.

Oklahoma and SomeSunny Annoyhing, annoying, annoying ill informed remarks Even in an ordinary book on pregnancy, Hyperemesis will be mentioned an unusual complication. How come so many midwives, who are meant to be reasonably up on pregnancy in general, don't know of it?
Much sympathy. Even severe normal morning sickness often doesn't lift till fourteen weeks, anyway...
xx

George I keep cross posting. That sounds awful and sppectacular. So glad about gradual improvement.
xx

It doesn't seem as rare as they say either.They only count people who've been hospitalized in their statistics.I find people who've had mild morning sickness sometimes the least understanding as they think you've got what they had and your being dramatic.I have started to get so fedup with people asking if I'm better yet(even though I know it's well meaning) because then i have to say no and it makes me feel rubbish.

George You are right, the actual number of sufferers must be much higher, as there are so many woman who don't get hospitalised or any adequate treatment. Then there is the grey area of people with severe sickness who must be borderline cases.

Thanks for your kind words everyone. Made itwithout vommiting & had a lovely day, except forgot I dont like margarine at the moment and put it on my jacket potato. Oops!
Just spent the night sleeping in a marquee on roll mats& duvets. Made me realise how much mu bump is now awkward to sleep on, despite being pretty tiny still.
Outfit was good for hiding under, noone would have known until I got changed in the evening! Driving home today, not been sick this morning, and have remembered my meds. Gooood. Hppe people have poitive sundays.

Sass I don't know how you do it!! Even the thought of your busy life is enough to make me throw up. You must have incredible will power.

I know, Sass, it's impressive , I literally haven't left the house (unless you count half an hour sitting in the garden) since Wednesday! My mum is trying to persuade me to go to a craft fair with her today. It's in the village hall, about 3 minutes' walk away, and I'm still honestly not sure that I can psyche myself up to go!!

Oops, that was, briefly name changed but have decided to stick with this one. It's all too complicated!

Sass Great you made it without puking. But staying in a tent, did you say? No loo to hand? I take my cyber hat off to commend your courage. and Somesunny I think it's incredibly brave even to face a craft fair three minutes walk away, though hopefully no cooking smells there.
I hope Everyone's ketones are low.
xx

Wow Sass I think you must be wonder woman

SomeSunny I hope you manage to get out to the craft fair but don't go if you really don't feel like it, 3 minutes or 30 minutes away it makes no difference. I've been out of the house 4 times since Easter (I have been in the garden a few times though) and that was only for GP and MW appointments

Lucinda Maybe I need to get some of these Ketostix you speak of? Never heard of them before despite suffering with HG in my last PG. (I do live in a very rural backward area and I think that is why GP isn't very forthcoming with different meds for HG). Can you buy them online?

mampam you can get them off amazon, very useful go keep in the bathroom. I was able to explain my symptoms to my gp and the results of the ketostix and she referred me straight to hospital over the phone rather than me having to go to the surgery, wait for an appointment and then wait for me to pee! I was once at the ooh surgery for hours feeling like crap! Not nice.

kali I'm so sorry to hear your news. My brother had Hodgkins lymphoma twice, he was diagnosed with it the 2nd time after his wife had just been confirmed pregnant after 2 failed ivf treatments and they went through her whole pregnancy in and out of hospital for her scans and his chemo! Talk about timing eh?!

I'm 24wks tomorrow, still being sick with morning bile run every day but after that life is pretty.good! Still get the nausea occasionally but it is a lot better than what it was. I hope you all have a relaxing puke free Sunday!

Even though I'm not being sick as much I still have this horrendous taste in my mouth all the time..it's driving me crazy and makes me feel nauseous.Is this normal and those who've had it before does it go away after or soon after you give birth? I'm scared it won't go away as it's unbearable.

George The horrid taste.........I sincerely hope this goes away too as I'm sure without it I wouldn't feel quite as bad as I do.

Mrsb87 thank you I will order some today!

Hi all :( at all the sickness, particularly if the weather is as wonderful as it has been here (which I have been admiring out of the hospital window ). Although I did find that the good weather improved how I felt marginally.

boo that's really interesting on the blood tests thank you. When do you have them done, at the start of pregnancy or before? I have had to give blood all the time in this pregnancy but that's mainly to check lithium and thyroid. I don't remember doing a Strep B test but meerka might know if it is standard + I think we also now have the Maternity 21 here too. Let me know what you think of it.

Dare I say it, but I already want to try for another DC although not for a year or two at least! Even with the journey we have had, I would still do it all again to have her. It's just awesome being a parent.

george the taste I know oh so well. It went pretty much straight away. If you can handle hot drinks, I found boiling water with a slice of lemon or lime really helped me.

Well finally my HG seems to have gone whoop. I had a salad for dinner last night and am now eating things that were making me vomit at the sight of them during pregnancy.

I have also FINALLY been discharged, was released yesterday with my antibiotic pescription and told the infection has pretty much cleared up now yay. It was wonderful to just spend what time I wanted with DH and Daisy without needing to be on a curfew (which I essentially was!). I also just went for a drive, just because I could We have our own little room in the hospital and DH stays at night with her. It's an amazing hospital and her care has been outstanding, as has the support given to us as parents. I was discharged by an Irish nurse yesterday who said there was no way we would get this on the NHS, sigh.

We're working a shift pattern at the moment on sleep as she's not sleeping much at the moment with her injections. Her IV stopped working so they inject the penicillin once a day into her leg but bless her it gives her bad cramps and she was in lots of discomfort. So I slept all morning and now DH is sleeping this afternoon welcome to parenthood I guess! Two sleeps to go till we can take her home :) she is making excellent progress.

Cheering you all on to the end of pregnancy and when life begins again

Ahhh Living you give me hope!!

So glad things are looking up for you guys.

The weather in the UK (well Surrey at least ) is glorious. I have been sitting in the garden watching DH potter around. So much nicer than being cooped up inside.

George yep, that taste. I find tonic water helps.

Sunny did you venture out in the end?

MIL came by earlier with 2 more supposed cures for HG. Floradix (some multivitamin) and Mindfulness (to meditate away the sickness). Sigh. She is trying so hard to help it's just...not.

Hope everyone has managed at least a bit of sun today.

living great that you are free! Enjoy it.

George oh yes, the taste. It's grim. I actually end up eating really strong food to briefly disguise it - spicy stuff, e.g. I can't do sweet at all as the combination of the aftertaste and the horrid taste is too terrible.

Okla glad you have nice weather - we have had a really quite wet weekend here. I did go out, thank you. It was quite nice. I bought a vase, and have put some flowers from the garden in it. We took DS2 to the park on the way home. The whole outing took under an hour, and by the time I got home I felt really very sick (which took a couple of hours of lying down to get over) but nevertheless it's the most normal thing I've done in weeks, and I know that I wouldn't have managed it even a few days ago. It's given me hope that things are very slowly improving. I'm definitely better than I was in the 7-10 weeks wanting to vomit 24 hours a day phase.

That is great that your MIL has found cure for HG . At least it isn't ginger based!

okla there is hope! Hard to believe I know, particularly when mindfulness is offered as the next cure all but you are doing so well to get through the hg. Everyone is

I just told DH about your MIL comments and he was I guess our partners see it 24/7 and understand whereas an observer like a MIL or parent just doesn't. But still....

sunny I had to go for a drive yesterday just to do something normal. And see people doing normal stuff. Because it exists. Flowers in the house is such a simple pleasure isn't it?

This is a belated addition to the earlier thread chat about depression and actually being traumatised as a result of pregnancy from HG or something else. I discussed with my psychiatrist the whole trauma issue, not just from the last week but throughout the pregnancy and she said absolutely it was a recognised problem. The thing to do was to keep talking about it with DH or get some type of talking therapy (I already see a psychologist but for DH as well as me). The same for the HG - the premise is the more you discuss it the more you can accept it as part of what happened and move on which is not helpful when you're in the throes of vomiting, but afterwards when your brain and body return to you. (Although I may look at some CBT around not being overly anxious and becoming a neurotic parent as a result of the hospital stay.)

For those who are worried about bonding with the baby, try not to (I know, easier said than done and I was one!). It will come, either that moment or over the next few days. I was actually so out of it on the first day I don't even remember much apart from lying there looking at her in her cot thinking 'holy cow how did you get here, you're awesome but I can't quite comprehend it right now'?! The bonding actually came after and I got a fierce protective maternal instinct as a result of all of this I never thought would be possible. I woke in the middle of the night having been on strong sleeping medication to call the nurse and ask for a drink. She was completely shocked as five minutes before she had called DH to tell him that Daisy had been sent to ICU but they were to leave me to sleep until he got here. But even through all the drugs and exhaustion of labour, I woke and knew something was up with my baby. Nature can be a b*tch but also is a truly amazing thing.

You are in no way going to hate your child :) but there will be tears. Be ready to cry lots. Very natural and healing. I feel like I've spent the last week in hysterics - and I would have been crying even without the complications! If you feel depressed, say something straight away to your GP to nip any PND in the bud. I am on a course of medication to reduce a few things related; it's only going to be for another week or two and has massively helped me cope.

Just be reassured that one day, that food you love that you can't currently have will be yours. Along with hugs with DH and loved ones and just generally having a life again :)

living that is a lovely post. And you sound very sensible, I wish I'd considered taking some action to avoid becoming neurotic after DS1's GBS. But I didn't and I still do really panic and overreact when the boys are ill.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share that, ever the caring boy, DS2 has just said to me "Mummy, which is your very favourite toilet to be sick in?". Bless him .

Hi all,

Just checking in, it was our anniversary this weekend and dh took me to Turkey for the weekend. Hotel had rubbish wifi.

Hi to everyone who's new.

boo, those new tests sound interesting but I don't know if I would consider them at your stage.still very interesting how things are so different in different countries.

Great news Living and I agree, really lovely post.

I still have the horrible taste thing too.I must admit I thought it would have gone by now tonic water helped me too as did spicy food although I'm only just managing to cope with that again, which is a good job or I wouldn't have eaten much over the last few days!

Sunny, that's very sweet of your ds! I'm sure everyone can identify with that most of us have one and have tried to make it more comfortable! Mine has a thick mat in front of it which I think was an idea I borrowed from someone else here.

I dont think I've had it so bad as some of you have, but also I've found Stemtil to be a genuinely amazing drug for me. I can function, go to work 2-3 days a week, and.drive again (though thats still dodgy at times!). I still have worse days and.good days, but Im hoping the very worst has passed as Im 13 weeks today - thats 9 weeks of feeling shit fading into my mind! I really feel for you ladies who suffer like my first weeks all the way through, and I hope so much that it doesbt.come back at 20 weeks!! Purely selfish I know!! I shall keep popping my head in from time to timr as nothing will change the fact that I still suffered.

Mind you, as Im typing this I've just coughed up blood again. Boo to my lungs!

Acyually, looking at the amount of blood in my regilar.sputum, I think Im off to see the Drs today. Usually would associate a small amount with burst blood vessel in lungs, or.slightly more with a noseblees, but not gor nosebleed. Grrrr, seen enough of that place - whats the betting its a&e for coughing up blood?

Panic over, its stopped and not enough to worry me when I double checked. Drs this week but not today then!

Oh dear Sasheh you are having a really rough time of it! Glad it's stopped and I hope you are feeling better.

living th French test for strep b as standard close to full term, not sure about the Greeks.