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, phone them on:
024 7638 2020
Lastly, the NICE guidelines on treatment are useful:
cks.nice.org.uk/nauseavomiting-in-pregnancy
I would like to thank everyone who has given such invaluable support and advice on this and on previous threads.
It has been suggested that I add some practical tooth cleaning advice: a lot of sufferers find using a child's small toothbrush and strawberry toothpaste far less nauseating.
On my image of a pink castle: that is an image I use because when I was little, my family had a Snakes and Ladders board with an image on the last square of a pink castle in the clouds. As Hyperemesis is so like a grotesque version of Snakes and Ladders - eat a meal, go up a ladder, first thing in the morning bile run, down a snake - I have used the image of that pink castle on the last square of that Snakes and Ladders board as a metaphor for the happy end of Hyperemesis.
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.

@faithfulbird so sorry to hear of your suffering. Such scenes of back to back vomiting are known to all of us on here I’m sure. So grim. I hope the meds help and if you are severely dehydrated then an Iv may be sensible. Did your doctor check your urine? Very frustrating anyone would try to excuse the suffering... especially as weakness as a child! How bizarre. I have found there is much misunderstanding, if not ignorance, of this extremely debilitating condition.

@Jaysdream7 I’m sorry to hear both of your loss and also of your extreme suffering. I wish you luck with this last attempt 💐

Waves to all.

@Pygmyseahorse how are you doing? ❤️

@LucindaE yes I fear the strange weather is partly to blame for the headaches. I managed a nap this afternoon and that has helped relieve it a bit. Hope you are well.

@hgwarrior sorry for your loss. Thinking of you x

faithfulbird Welcome. I am sorry you are suffering badly. Did the doctor prescribe different meds? It must be very difficult to leave an LO, but it's not good for you to be dehydrated for too long. Might they agree to your LO coming the hospital with you while you get fluids? Is there an OH or relative who she could endure being with if you have to go in overnight? As you have been reading the thread, you won't need my spiel about 'have you got kesostix as while not the best test of dehydration, hospitals do take their measurements seriously' and 'A good anti acid can make all the difference' and 'do you find full sugar flat coke, ice lollies and the juice of tinned fruit any good'. Everyone is very supportive on here.
Jaysdream07 Wishing you all luck for your meeting with the consultant after such a tragic history.
Snowwhite2020 I hope your headache has gone.This humidity is grim enough when not suffering.
Apologies to anyone rudely overlooked.

Thinking of you all ladies. The heat makes it so much worse I feel.

Feeling so low at the moment. The constant nausea, sickness and general zero energy was just about bearable the first time round when it was just me to think about, but now I feel immense guilt that I am being such a rubbish mummy with my two children. They are 5 and 2 and very high energy / demanding and I am literally just going through the motions counting down the hours each day until their dad gets home from work. They are getting the absolute worst of me as I lie on the sofa, am tetchy with them and have no energy to do any of the usual activities we would do. They aren’t really ‘sitting in’ types and desperately need long walks every day and lots of high energy activities which I just can’t do, so they become increasingly stir crazy. It is turning into a rubbish summer for them and I did this knowingly which makes me feel awful.

Apologies for the pity party ladies but you are the only ones who will understand.

@Puddlelane123 the way you are feeling really isn’t your fault. You must remind yourself of that. Very little in pregnancy is guaranteed or under our control and that is sure true of HG. I think you are doing the right thing just taking things an hour at a time. I had a spell where I had to do the same, then it became a day at a time and now I feel much better on the whole. I hope things improve for you and please don’t be hard on yourself. This too shall pass... 💐

@Puddlelane123 I don't have children yet but I agree that the heat can make everything so much harder. I've been a lot sicker with the high temperatures over the last two weeks and have struggled to leave the bed/sofa/fan and do anything productive. I'm just waiting for a good thunderstorm to cool everything down!

christmasbox Welcome. There's lots of support on here.
There's been a thunderstorm here, but unfortunately, it's not much cooler so far (I'm not currently suffering: these days I'm Mother Hen on here. Putting up with this with Hyperemesis must be awful.
Puddlelane You mustn 't feel guilty about being irritable and not able to do much. While sadly, I didn't go for it a second time, from all I have seen in these threads, they will soon forget this period of comparative neglect. Children are very resiliant. I hope you get an improvement soon.
Waves to Snowwhite2020 and everybody.

Everyone, I am off to my daughter's for the weekend tomorrow morning, so I am about to start packing, and am calling in on the thread to say that lovely SnowWhite2020 has agreed to take over the thread in my absence. As most sufferers on here know, her advice and support is invaluable. Mother Hen urges everyone to look after themselves , particularly in this weather. We had an amazing storm last night here in Mid Wales: constant lighning and thunde with no intermissions for a couple of hours. I suppose the heat gave us a tropical storm,or some such thing...

Sorry I meant to send two separate messages down below not one together

Could someone delete my below comment so I can send two separate sorry I didn't mean to do one full message x

@mia22221 glad you are feeling better and keeping down some fluids and food. I understand the desire to come off the meds as soon as possible but my advice to you is not to go cold turkey. I tried this myself with bad results and so have a few of the other ladies on here. I would wait a full week without vomiting and then if you still feel good I would risk reducing the dose but not come off all in one go. A relapse can be rather shocking and unpleasant. It is also common to have a few days feeling better and then a few bad days again. In general this is a good sign though and hopefully means you are moving out of the eye of the storm slowly xx

Apologies for lack of personals ladies, struggling with screens today and probably don’t have long before my next puke, but thinking of you all. Quick question, what do you do about meds if you vomit straight after having them? Ie within 20 mins? Do you take another dose? I had a cyclizine earlier, had a craving for apple which then very dramatically came up immediately after with a looong vomit sesh. No wondering if I shld take another cyclizine or not?

So I am about to go in and see the HG consultant about making a plan. My options etc. I’m excited yet nervous. My partner is being very negative saying that nothing will work and why am I putting myself through this. He doesn’t understand the maternal pull obviously.
On a personal level I have been unable to have intimacy with my partner since the conception of our last baby in April. This has made things awkward between us. I have no desire to be physical only if it leads to a baby. Think I may be asexual or just mentally scared from 5 baby loses.
Will report how this appt goes. X

@Puddlelane123- I was told that if I vommited within 20-30 mins of taking a dose to take another, but you should check with your GP/consultant.

Hi guys, I might be jumping on a bit quick, but I had HG with my 1st child, it was awful, every day from 7 weeks through until 2 weeks after he was born, I could barely keep anything down. I ended up on an IV twice, on anti-sickness tablets at 8 weeks (which did nothing for me at all!).
I had a MMC at 12 weeks in April and I stupidly thought that because I hadn't suffered any sickness at all, that maybe I would get it again, but I think the reason I didn't get it was because technically I'd lost the pregnancy at 4.5 weeks, before sickness would have hit.
Today, I am 6.3 weeks and I'm back to not being able to keep anything down, and when I do keep something down, it hurts like hell. I'm hoping it won't last as long as it did last time, but I figured I'd join for some support if I ever found I needed it 💗

@Jaysdream7 I hope your appointment went well today. I am sorry to hear of the problems you are having with your partner also. The situation you are in must be very difficult for you both.

@Puddlelane123 I agree with @Seeker2020 advice. This was what I was told also. Vomiting up meds really is a particularly grim experience, again known to many on here I’m sure. It is advisable to double check with your GP however as I’m not sure if the type and dose of medication you are on may affect advice.

@RosieJess91 Congratulations on your pregnancy and welcome to the thread! You will find a lot of support on here from fellow HG sufferers and veterans. I am also sorry to hear of your MMC earlier this year. Unfortunately your experience in terms of lack of sickness and a MMC chimes with a few other experiences reported on this thread. I do know @LucindaE knows of a few sufferers who did not suffer so badly with subsequent pregnancies after a particularly bad first one with HG but it seems, unfortunately, that many are not so lucky. We will be here to help and support you if that ends up being true for you and it seems like it might be going that way from what you report. Have you phoned the GP in order to discuss meds and your previous HG experience? For many getting the right meds early can make a significant difference and can stop the symptoms setting in so hard from the beginning.

Hope everyone is ok tonight and that the terrible heat of this week is passing wherever you are! Here’s hoping for a cool and restful evening/ night.

Xx

Thank you @Snowwhite2020, I hadn't yet, but I feel a call first thing Monday might be on the cards, my lovely OH has let me just lay in bed all day while he took care of our 4YO all day. Sure he must be exhausted as well! I hope it won't be as bad as it was, fingers crossed!

Thank you @Snowwhite2020 appointment went well. Plan for meds and then injections and final stage will be long Line.
Xx

@Snowwhite2020 thank you. The meds did help initially but a two days ago I decided to take cyclizine and folic acid together at night before bed. Big mistake. I vomited within 10 minutes after feeling so nauseous. Didn't sleep till 3am so ended up having a nap yesterday in the afternoon. I'm pretty sure I'm having it worse in this pregnancy than my first. Cyclizine did work 90% of the time. But this time it's not working. I've been craving a lot of junk food. Mainly monster munch and Capri sun. Not sure why monster munch helped take away my nausea. I've been trying to peel potatoes this morning and I just had to let them go because I couldn't bear the smell. Thanks for your support.

Sorry I forgot to add my doctor didn't check my urine and give me cyclizine over the phone. My midwife checked my urine but didn't say anything to me.

@faithfulbird that’s good your midwife checked your urine- it’s important to monitor for dehydration with HG.

Strange you mention monster munch- that has been something I have craved and been able to tolerate when very sick! Xx

@LucindaE thanks so much for your support. He just prescribed cyclizine and told me if that didn't help to go to A and E. I know it's an option but last time I had food poisoning abroad and was on the drip for 3-4 days and it was horrible. Is it the needle in the hand?

I know you're not here but could anyone else advise which ketostix? Their are some on eBay for a few pounds and some that are like 8 pounds. I'll have a look at the anti acids.

Flat coke really used to help but it doesn't work anymore. I tried rubicon fizzy after really liking it in the can. But the nausea has put me off so much because it now smells like onions to me. HG is making me feel all sorts of things. Capri sun made me feel better. Ice lollies aren't helping but I'll try the tin fruit juice.

Stay strong everyone. This too shall pass. I went to bed quite early yesterday and got a good night sleep. That's helped me today.

For those of you with understanding partners. You're lucky. My partner is kind but he just doesn't understand because he's not aware of what HG is and what it can do. He finds it strange I want to be in bed all day and not eat.

@faithfulbird I found that water with ice cubes which I sipped was near enough the only thing I could manage and sometimes that was very hard. I did go through a phase of managing fresh orange juice but after a bad vomiting session with that, went off that pronto but I have heard of others drinking this on the thread.

You might find there is something on this list which appeals to you: sites.google.com/site/pregnancysicknesssos/eating-advice/drink-suggestions

I was doing a bit of general reading about HG today and found this article extremely interesting and it chimes with many of the issues we discuss regularly on here. The website also has useful links to alternative therapies and a section on “don’t tell us to eat ginger” which I found mildly amusing as I have wanted to scream at this recommendation at various points when very ill.

@faithfulbird I am sorry your partner doesn’t get it. I’m sure he would with only an hour in your shoes... perhaps you could show him this link?

It’s quite short and gets the basics across in an effective way I find... sites.google.com/site/pregnancysicknesssosfaqs

Love to all xx