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.

Hello, please could I join for a little support/safe place to moan. I'm 6 weeks and have recently been discharged from my 1st HG admission. This is the worst I've felt in my entire life. This is 3rd pregnancy for me, 1st ended in mc, 2nd Ds and this must be the devil. I had pretty bad sickness with DS but never admitted and didnt take many meds. I'm now on 2 kinds of meds and still heaving on them. Although I can eat and drink now. I'm absolutely miserable and freaking out that I wont be able to work. Missing work really creates a problem for many people, I know my health comes first but I'm never one for a sick day.

I also feel like the worst mum to DS who is 2 and desperately wants to play with me.

Anyone have any tips for me?

@Blissfulignorance very sorry to hear this. 6 weeks is early for an admission, poor you. I know it's hard to accept but I think you have to forget about work for a bit. Realistically you are still probably a few weeks away from the hormonal peak. If you are just out of hosp, managing to eat and drink but still being sick a lot despite new meds, then trying to do anything else is going to make you worse and send you straight back to hospital. Are you due in to work tomorrow? I would say in this situation you need to be signed off for a couple of weeks at least to take the pressure off. Did the hospital give you any advice about work? If not, can you try to arrange to speak to your GP tomorrow? No-one expects to go straight back to work immediately after any hospital admission.

In my second and phenomenally bad HG pregnancy DS1 was about 17-25 months. I was in hospital for about 7 weeks. It is really hard I know. But just sitting in bed with you and watching videos, or reading him stories, are all really good activities. Children that age do adjust really quickly to new circumstances so he will quickly accept that you can't do more active play for the moment. I think still having some time with you is the most important thing.

P.S. Did they do a scan @Blissfulignorance ? Both times that I've been admitted very early like that with HG they have wanted to scan to exclude a multiple pregnancy. They might do that with you too especially as you were much less ill last time, though every pregnancy is different.

Kalidasa thank you for the reply, so sorry to hear that you were admitted for so long!
They have offered me a scan on wednesday but warned it may be too early to tell much. I've had some spotting so I was surprised to get HG so badly. From what I've read most women feel better around 16 weeks, that means over 2 more months at least of this which honestly I'm not sure I'll have the strength for. This will be our last child if we reach the end but if I can't cope then I fear I'll have to discuss termination which is terrifying.

@Blissfulignorance I think most women do feel some improvement before 16 weeks, but it gets better for a lot of people a lot more slowly than it came on at the start. With DS2 I got out of hospital finally at 14 weeks, with DS1 I was first admitted at 5 weeks so quite like you but was def a bit better from about 12 weeks, it was just a really slow process. There are more drugs they can try so don't despair yet. A lot of women with very severe HG do terminate sadly but if you are considering this they should let you try all the drug options including steroids first.

@Kalidasa I am in awe of you for doing this so many times.
I have waves of feeling ok and I think I can get through it but then when you're so sick it's hard to catch breath and you can't even sit up it feels like an impossible task. I'm normally very active and I cant bare being this stationary.
Also i do hope there is only 1 in there!!!

@Blissfulignorance with DS1 the consultant was so sure there were 2 in there that after I came back from the scan super relieved that there was just 1, he insisted I have another one a fortnight later to find the 'twin they missed the first time'. Luckily it was still just one! So it isn't always twins but they do like to check, they did a v early scan with DS2 as well.

I'm about 9DPO now and feeling absolutely rough today. I think unequivocally pregnant to be honest but obviously so early there's still a high chance of a false start. Trying to stay calm and take it one day at a time. DH has a big work week this week so want to support as much as possible.

MyBabyBoyBlue I suspect that they are playing safe in withdrawing it; lots of GP's round that time went on prescribing it, interestingly; but it is obviously worrying for you. Do you think you could speak to the consultant who might be able to explain why they are stil prescribing it? I see that they are saying online that to sue, one needs to have taken it for at least six months. Hopefully, that means that you didn't take it anything like long enough for there to be danger. It is awful that you have this additional worry. I am not medically qualfied, and hopefully someone who is can better advise you.
BlissfuIIgnorance Welcome. You have had excellent advice from kalidasa. I will only add my normal spiel in the hope that some of it might be useful. Most sufferers find that they improve a lot at some point between weeks 14 and 20. Even those who are unlucky enough to suffer throughout generally are not as ill later on as they are in the first part. A good anti acid can make a surprising difference to the sickness. Kesostix are worth buying online or from a chemists, as while they aren't they best test of dehydration, hospitals take them seriously. Some drinks that have helped others: full sugar flat coke (if you don't find it too acid), ice lollies, the juice of tinned fruit, Lucozade, apple juice, Ribina, Dr Pepper, soda water, Elderflower water, tonic water, ice cubes, Iron Bru, lemonade, lemon squash, orange squash, orange juice (if not too acid), fizzy orange, 7Up, isotonic drinks, sips of chocolate milkshake (maybe soya), fizzy water, apple juice, Robinson's fruit drinks, Rubicon sparkling mango drink , raspberry Lucozade sport and frozen ice cubes of flat Lucozade sport . Foods of a sort include tinned fruit, cuppa soup, nibbles of crisps and chips, cheap ice cream, Scotch pancakes, bagels and biscuits.
kalidasa Cheering you on! Brilliant advice as ever.
Apologies to anyone rudely overlooked.

@LucindaE

Very quiet today. I hope everyone is coping. I am still outraged about the way6 that PhotoMum4'' has been passed about.

Thank you @LucindaE, I think I have been very unlucky throughout to be fair.

I have a midwife appt Wednesday (24 weeks) and hoping to get to see her face to face this time, however it hasn’t been confirmed where it will take place yet (last time I got a call the day before). If I manage to see someone in person I am planning on letting her know how I’m feeling and that I want some support.

Although I have a sinking feeling the appointment may not happen as haven’t had any contact since last Phone appt at 16 weeks despite trying everything to get hold of her.

My husband and I have both agreed that if Wednesday isn’t a success for whatever reason I am going to have to get myself admitted to get some support-which is ridiculous!

I have hypothyroidism too, and being managed by the “remote team” and they are just as awful at responding to messages. Had to arrange a blood test via my gp and get my own levels checked etc at one point as no response from the thryoid team.

@LucindaE

I meant to add, PhotoMum4 did you see Bunhead's tip about it being easier to talk to someone live to advise you from Pregnancy Sickness Support on LiveChat on their website? I am a bit of a dinosaur regarding IT, so I have never used that. I only recently used Zoom for the first time!

I tried this, wrote out a big long message of how I was feeling etc and just got a standard email reply with some pdf documents about HG.

I wonder if I filled the wrong thing in?! 🤷‍♀️
It put me off to be honest, as I felt I was honest about my feelings and mental health and didn’t get anything remotely personalised back.

Will have another look and see if I maybe filled in the wrong section.

Hey ladies hope you don’t mind me joining. I’m 8+3 and have my booking appointment tomorrow. Been sick since I found out and just honestly have reached my breaking point. I have anti sickness and anti acids but have good days and bad days. I am being sick in my sleep and now vomiting blood. Honestly I just feel awful and cry all the time. I’ve started to wee myself every time I’m sick too, it’s so embarrassing. My GP although helpful just keeps saying I can’t be admitted because of covid and change my meds around. I usually can’t keep anything down and even just looking at something can turn my stomach now. Any advice welcome please. I just keep saying we’ve made it through another day.

@PeanutButterFalcon do you have ketosticks to test your ketones at home? You can buy them easily online. If you have positive ketones, especially if 3+, you should forget about your GP and go straight to A&E. Your GP should not in any case be telling you not to go hospital unless he/she has been testing your ketones themselves.

Btw, I had a pre-conception consultation with my old consultant a few weeks ago and one of the things we specifically asked her because DH was worried about it was whether Coronavirus was having an impact upon hospital pregnancy/maternity services, and whether we should avoid conceiving for that reason given that I was likely to need to go into hospital. She very clearly and explicitly said no, that pregnancy/maternity services were always ring-fenced and there was no difference in service at the moment. So unless the situation is very different where you are (I'm in London), your GP's advice seems wrong and potentially dangerous unless they've done a full clinical assessment themselves. Are you seeing him/her in person?

If you are vomiting red blood, it is horrible and scary (I've had that happen too), but it is not usually clinically very serious as long as there's not loads of it. There are things called (I think) Malory-Weiss tears that you can get in your oesophagus from vomiting a lot, these produce a bit of red blood. If you're vomiting anything that looks like older blood (dark red/brown, like coffee grounds) that's much more serious and you should probably go to A&E straight away. I really feel for you though, it really freaked me out when there was even just a tiny bit of blood, I remember calling for help in hospital when I saw it.

I'm 10DPO now and for the first time woke up feeling absolutely rough rather than it coming on once I was up and moving around. Have activated Phase A of my preparations, put on those pressure-point wrist-band things and taken a load of ginger capsules --- I know the ginger almost certainly does nothing but I quite like the smell of them so I thought no harm in it. And actually the wrist-band things do seem to have helped slightly. I'm holding off on the cyclizine for now because it knocks me out and I've got loads of work to do today. Just working at home so I can sit still. Going to try to pre-record a couple of lectures this week (usually I do them live-online) just in case things progress and I'm really out of action before the end of term.

Oh and @PeanutButterFalcon the peeing-while-vomiting thing is (unfortunately) normal, vomiting puts huge pressure on your pelvic floor which is naturally relaxed by pregnancy, plus the pressure on your bladder as the womb begins to expand. It's an added layer of ghastliness though . . .

@kalidasa thank you for your super helpful comments. May I ask how you coped with the Cyclizine after a while? I’m roughly 7 days in and can see a clear improvement in nausea/vomiting, and taking two doses instead of three seem to not knock me out as much. I have another week off from work and then I have to realistically prepare to go back. Really, really hoping the Cyclizine keeps on working!
Also, I took a Rennie tablet yesterday evening as I felt my stomach was in my throat.
Is that something you would recommend also?

@kalidasa I work in a nursing home who are lovely and I currently sit answering the phone with a sick bowl next to me. They’ve been checking my urine there with the dip sticks and my ketones were off the scale phoned my GP and she said it just showed I was dehydrated and drink more. It’s not that I’m not drinking it’s that it doesn’t stay down. They’ve not seen me it’s all via telephone. I’m hoping the midwife might be able to see I’m struggling today.

Unfortunately I’m aware that our hospital doesn’t currently have enough beds for the amount of covid patients and lots are passing away there. I can understand why my GP is worried as i don’t think they expected it to be this bad in our area.

Yes it’s red blood. Then the taste makes me sick and we end up in a vicious cycle until there really is absolutely nothing left and I’m just heaving.

You sound so prepared! Good luck. I honestly take my hat off to you for going through this again! I’ve got the pressure wrist bands and can definitely tell the difference if I take it off. Ginger has completely turned on me unfortunately. Everything seems to.

Thank you for the lovely reply. I think I’ll have to get myself some panty liners. Just another reason to not go out and no one can visit so it’s getting isolating. Last night I was vomiting so violent it nearly knocked me over my OH has to literally hold me. Sorry for the midnight rant I just hoped once I’d fall asleep that would be it until the morning.

I’m also loosing 1kg every 2 days at the minute. Think it scares me as I used to have an eating disorder and worked so hard to get to where I was. I’m nearly back where I started.

If your ketones are off the scale @PeanutButterFalcon you need to go straight to A&E. Never mind that they are busy. Is there a hospital slightly further away you could try instead? But even if there isn't you should still go. It is bad for you and also bad for the baby to be stuck in ketosis for ages, and it doesn't (primarily) show that you are dehydrated, your GP is wrong about that, it shows that you are starving. More to the point, ketosis actually makes you vomit - in my experience it is impossible to get the vomiting under control yourself once you have high ketones for this reason, it makes the vomiting worse and it's impossible to get out of the loop without fluids and IV drugs. Your GP is really being irresponsible here I'm afraid especially as they haven't even seen you. You should really just go straight to the hospital but if you don't feel confident about that please please tell your midwife that you've regularly had v. high ketones and that nothing stays down. She should test them herself and get you admitted if they are above a certain level. Tell her about the extremely rapid weight loss too and about the ED history.

@Dutchess75013 cyclizine was actually the only drug I could tolerate really long term -- I took it through a lot of my pregnancy with both DS1 and DS2. Weirdly, I couldn't tolerate it IV though - it made me throw up! It never really stopped knocking me out to be honest, which is why I am hesitating to begin, though I will probably start taking it at night this week I think if this pregnancy seems to be continuing. Lots of other women have described the sleepy-effect wearing off a bit though as they got more used to it. I'm really glad it is helping you.

Yes definitely take anti-indigestion stuff as well. Rennies are fine, though the GP should also be happy to prescribe you a basic anti-heartburn/indigestion drug, in fact often they do prescribe one along with the cyclizine at the start.

Just been to my GP for blood test and urine tests which seems really odd when I’m
In a Crisis situation to have to waste further days on the result has anyone else experienced this ? It wasn’t even a doctor it was a Health care assistant so she wasn’t really asking how I was !

@Wingingitatlifesincebirth are you abke to contact your maternity care unit directly at all? How are doing in drinking or eating and what about medication? If things are really bad have you considered maybe presenting to a&e?

@Dutchess75013 you’ve had great advice from @kalidasa and I hope things improve.

@PeanutButterFalcon I totally believe that rest along with the right medication are muh needed when going through hg. I have been off work since 6 weeks and now at 13 weeks still off as I am nowhere near my normal or even half functioning self. I would encourage some time off work if you can as it really does help.

@PhotoMum4 I’m so sorry to hear you are still not getting any support especially in this climate. Is there anyway you can self refer to your peri mental health team at all if you google can you find their details? I used to have cbt with a counsellor and he has referred me due to the mental toll and my past experiences.

@kalidasa that familiar feeling of just knowing that the storm of hg is coming is so scary, I really hope everything works out for you. I agree with the preemptive meds as this time round I didn’t mess around and asked my go for what worked before and took the meds earlier than my other pregnancies. Unfortunately for me cyclizine makes me worse so I stay away from it.

I hope everyone else is doing as well as they can. Waves to @LucindaE

PhotoMum4 I am sorry that they didn't even bother reading your message through. That is awful. I know how it is when you psyche yourself up to speak out about something, and something goes wrong. I remember when I had an mc (this was in the days before everyone had the internet) I phoned up a miscarriage support number, and the volunteer said she had a kids party on and could I phone back. I nearly didn't, though she was really good when I did phone back. It is definitely worth a try and good advice from Composed.
PeanutButterFalcon Welcome. Sorry you are so ill. I so
second what kalidasa says, particularly about getting fluids if your ketones are high. They will have to be careful but they are giving fluids if needed. A few sufferers on these threads have been admitted. You definitely need time off work as others say. Working in a care home must be tough at the best of times. I sometimes vomit up red blood with a particuarly bad migraine, so try not to be too alarmed by that. You have already had great advice, but here is my normal spiel just in case some of it might be useful. Most sufferers find that they improve a lot at some point between weeks 14 and 20. Even those who are unlucky enough to suffer throughout generally are not as ill later on as they are in the first part. A good anti acid can make a surprising difference to the sickness. Kesostix are worth buying online or from a chemists, as while they aren't they best test of dehydration, hospitals take them seriously. Some drinks that have helped others: full sugar flat coke (if you don't find it too acid), ice lollies, the juice of tinned fruit, Lucozade, apple juice, Ribina, Dr Pepper, soda water, Elderflower water, tonic water, ice cubes, Iron Bru, lemonade, lemon squash, orange squash, orange juice (if not too acid), fizzy orange, 7Up, isotonic drinks, sips of chocolate milkshake (maybe soya), fizzy water, apple juice, Robinson's fruit drinks, Rubicon sparkling mango drink , raspberry Lucozade sport and frozen ice cubes of flat Lucozade sport . Foods of a sort include tinned fruit, cuppa soup, nibbles of crisps and chips, cheap ice cream, Scotch pancakes, bagels and biscuits.
Wingingitatlifesincebirth That sounds so frustating.
composed Great advice from you and from kalidasa.
kalidasa I hope the wrist bands and ginger help a little. Oddly enough, I've known a few sufferers on here who have been able to drink ginger beer, but I've never dared recommend it!
MyBabyBoyBlue I hope you have been able to get reassurance about your being given Ranitidine?
Dutchess I am glad to her Cyclizine is helping a bit.
Waves to all. I hope everyone is getting by....

Thank you everyone. It went well with the midwife yesterday. She’s going to get me sorted with extra bloods and check my urine regularly although I’ve been doing this at work. It is slowly improving so that’s a positive. She also said about not wanting to go into the hospital ( Covid must be quite bad here) but is more open about it and will stay in contact daily. She’s also getting me some support as I was honest about how hard I’m finding it at the minute. @PhotoMum4 I definitely recommend talking to your midwife.

Unfortunately I don’t get any sick pay so hugging a sick bowl and answering the phone is me for the time being. My boss has been amazing, I just can’t afford to be off as DH job is unpredictable with covid currently.

@LucindaE thank you so much. I’m going to take the list of drinks/food to the shops (or DH will). Some I’ve tried and some I’ve not even considered. I’m living on chips at the moment.

How are people brushing their teeth? Feeling a bit gross now!

@PeanutButterFalcon when I was pregnant with DS2 I found an Indian brand of toothpaste that meant I could at least sometimes brush my teeth without throwing up. Annoyingly I can't remember what it was called. It wasn't minty at all though, it had some sort of spice flavour, maybe clove? I'll see if I can remember what it was. It really helped me anyway with the teeth issue.

Forgot to say -- I'm so pleased the midwife was helpful and is going to keep checking on you regularly. I'm so sorry you're stuck in this situation re: work but at least great that your workplace is doing everything they can to make it bearable for you.

OK for the toothpaste I think it was this one: www.spicesofindia.co.uk/acatalog/Dabur-Clove-Toothpaste.html#SID=3553

There are a couple of other herbal toothpastes on that website as well.

I've also seen people suggesting using a soft child's toothbrush (so with a really small head) can help too.

Thank you everyone. You’ve really helped x

PeanutButterFalcon and kalidasa I found kids' strawberry toothpaste really helpful, too. PeanutButterFalcon I hope they get things sorted out. kalidasa how are things?