Morning sickness and emetophobia

[Rjh61]

Hi all. I’ve just found out I’m pregnant (third pregnancy, first gave me my son who is 3, second last year was an early miscarriage). I have severe emetophobia and I am freaking out.

I saw my GP last week for a chest infection, mentioned we were trying to conceive and he gave me prochlorperazine in case of morning sickness. I’ve started to feel a bit queasy which has sent my anxiety through the roof. I’ve taken one to make sure I don’t experience any side effects as we are going on holiday on Tuesday and didn’t want to take for the first time away. It worked for about 3 hours but that was it.

should I go back and just ask for the stronger ones? I don’t want all of this faffing around an uncertainty, I just want something that will stop me feeling sick.

In my first pregnancy I was in lockdown so I could rest as much as a I wanted, working from home, no small child to look after so I coped. I was also really excited about having a baby. This time life is normal, I have my son to look after and I’m having intrusive thoughts about losing this pregnancy again.

Please help!

Sorry to hear your going through this OP, have you got your booking appointment through for the midwife yet? These anxious feelings are something you could talk through with them.
If you've only taken the prochlorperazine once then it's probably worth another try before going back to the GP to ask for something different.

I’m also emetophobic and was petrified during pregnancy. I coped though and although it’s awful you just have to take it day by day. I found cyclizine worked well for me and also a watch device I wore that had electric pulse on my wrist pressure point. You’ll be ok

I also have bad emetophobia. I had cyclizine throughout both pregnancies but also did pretty much have a mental breakdown and didn't leave the house for the first trimester either time (I could wfh) so not sure my advice is worth much!

Cyclizine works for me too op.

As well as taking medication to stop the sickness, if you don’t already have any then ask the GP to refer you for some kind of therapy to give you strategies to cope if you do end up sick. The anxiety about it happening must be awful, but if you know you’ll be able to cope if it does (even if it’s unpleasant) then that should lessen the anxiety.