Looking for previous hyperemesis sufferers

[HyperemesisandPND]

I'm not sure if I'm posting this in the right place. I had hyperemesis in my last two pregnancies, in and out of hospital on a cocktail of drugs. The last pregnancy I was off work for the whole pregnancy barring about 2 weeks where I went back on reduced hours. The last birth was also traumatic for me and I was vomiting in the theatre.
Anyway I have noticed a fear of being sick and feeling sick. I didnt think it was that bad but I have been to the doctors as I have been feeling low. He diagnosed me with depression and prescribed sertraline. I took two and felt horribly sick. I was trying to continue my days as normal but would keep remembering episodes of vomiting from my pregnancies, I keep remembering being in the hospital and feeling so unwell, I remember the inability to eat and drink and the excess saliva that I couldn't swallow. The sertraline also triggered the saliva on a milder scale.
I haven't taken it for two days. I cant take it. The thought of taking it triggers my heart to start racing and I feel panicky and anxious at the thought of it.
Has anyone else felt like this? Is this normal after hyperemesis?
I'm worried now as I'm surely going to get unwell again at some point and I'm not completely sure how I will cope with it and also I dont know how to help my depression if I cant take the antidepressants and cope with the nausea for a while.

It's completely normal. Hyperemesis is traumatic, of course you are going to struggle after. My youngest is 5 and I struggle with just the thought of vomiting. So the bad news is it does hang around, but at the same time the blind panic does lessen - I still find it tough but not as tough as it used to be. You'll get through this.

It sounds like you’ve developed emetephobia (the fear of vomiting) as opposed to depression, although the two can go hand in hand.

I’ve suffered with emetephobia my whole life and ironically have had two Hyperemesis pregnancies! They have been incredibly tough periods of my life & it’s made my emetephobia worse. I have terrible panic attacks about feeling sick & being sick. I can’t breathe, I shake, I sweat, I cry, sometimes I pass out.

It’s not the easiest thing to treat, certainly medication does nothing unless you also have bad anxiety or very low mood with it. I’m lucky that when I don’t feel sick, my life isn’t overruled by the phobia. I am very careful with hand washing, I avoid food from say a market stall & if my child is sick, I’m absolutely useless. But I do live day to day fairly normally. It’s only when I start to feel nauseous that my fear kicks in. My biggest help is carrying anti-sickness with me at all times. You can get Buccastem over the counter and it works a treat on nausea if I ever happen to feel sick for some reason. I don’t take it regularly, it’s just there as a kinda security blanket for me. My GP is very kind about my phobia, she is happy for me to use anti-sickness as & when (it’s just cheaper to buy Buccastem over the counter than by prescription).

HG is an awful experience and genuinely leaves you with mental scars. Counselling may help? I had some after my last birth & it helped to talk through it all I think. If medication is making you feel sick & panicky, I think it’s worth a trip back to the GP to really explain your fear & what’s causing you to feel low. It sounds like coming to terms with your experiences & acknowledging living with a fear of being sick will help more than medication perhaps?

Thank you so much for the replies. I still haven't plucked up the courage to try the sertraline again so I'm thinking another visit to the doctor might be in order. This is the second time I've tried antidepressants in the last year and not got anywhere because of the nausea. It makes me feel a bit pathetic. I'm very relieved though to see others understand so maybe it's not as pathetic as I think. I was hoping to get counselling and was on the list but it never seemed to happen so I think I will have to chase it up.