Me and the Loo : Our nine month relationship from hell (Hyperemesis Gravidarum)
Aug 18 '05
The Bottom Line When morning sickness becomes something more sinister....
For the vast majority of women, pregnancy is a time when they bloom and feel nothing more than a little discomfort. Yes they may experience morning sickness, but it usually settles by about thirteen weeks and never really stops them from enjoying being “with child”. But then there are a very few women, such as myself, where the morning sickness develops into something far more serious, and they find themselves unable to keep any food or liquid down, become seriously dehydrated and their own body starts poisoning itself. When this happens the woman is said to have developed Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG), which often requires hospital treatment. So lets take a look at my intimate relationship with the toilet bowl, (I will focus on my first pregnancy here, even though I suffered from the condition in all four) :
---The First Signs---
So for the majority of women the first sign they are pregnant is they’ve missed a period, well not for me I’m afraid. Two days after the act itself I started feeling queasy (and this was true with all my pregnancies I knew within a week that I was pregnant), when the queasiness wouldn’t go away I tried to convince myself (and everyone around me) that it was a stomach bug. But things steadily got worse until a week later, I was being sick after every meal, and my parents were starting to suspect that I might be pregnant. I guess I should point out here that I was only eighteen at the time and should have been taking my A levels later that year. So I went to my GP for a pregnancy test and was told to return in a week for the results. Within that week though, I became so ill that I literally could not keep anything down, not even sips of water and I lost half a stone. After a quick test of my wee revealed that my body was producing ketones (a sign that I was literally starving) I was rushed to hospital for the first of many stays.
---Treatment---
As soon as I arrived at the hospital my treatment started, and I found myself attached to the first of many drips. This was run straight through me in attempt to combat the dehydration, but I was actually drip-fed for the next week. The second stage of my treatment, were injections of a drug called Stemitil, which is an anti-sickness drug that’s often given to chemotherapy patients. This drug (along with the drip) helped stop the cycle of sickness, and eventually left me feeling well enough to go home. So I went back home with a bottle of Stemitil in tablet form, and instructions on exactly what point I would need to return to hospital. I wish I could say that was my last visit to the maternity ward, but sadly within a week I was back, and that was the pattern through the whole of my pregnancy, a week at home and then another week on the ward, I swear they kept my bed free for me.
---Side Effects---
HG had so many effects on me, not just in the fact that I felt so ill and tired throughout each of my pregnancies. There were times when I would be coughing up blood, due to the fact that the vomiting had damaged my throat lining, and my eyes were almost constantly bloodshot again because of the pressure. Then there was the fear that my baby would be damaged, although I was told that this wouldn’t be the case, the baby would take everything it needed, even though it left me with nothing. But perhaps the worst effect was psychological, I was left feeling that I couldn’t leave the house, even for the shortest time. You see certain smells would make me vomit, I couldn’t stand in a queue behind somebody that smoked, or even sit on the same bus as someone wearing perfume. The slightest thing could set me off and I became a virtual recluse for the whole nine months.
---Long Term Effects---
I would love to be able to say that I had my babies, the sickness stopped and the rest of my life was a happy ever after story. But unfortunately that’s not what happened, at least not after I had my first baby. You see due to the rapid weight loss I experienced, I developed Gall Stones, which resulted in my gallbladder being removed, and even now thirteen years later I have to take care with my diet, and certain foods make me feel ill or violently sick. So you could say I’m still suffering as a result of morning sickness even now.
---Coping Strategies---
As I’ve been pregnant and suffered HG four times I’ve learnt a few coping strategies that actually kept me out of hospital for most of my last pregnancy. Of course even though these worked for me, they might not for you.
The first thing I learnt, was to recognise the signs that meant I needed medical help before I got to the point when I was seriously ill. For all women this is different, but for me it was when I hadn’t managed to eat or drink for 24 hours and then I would take myself off to the doctor, this would cut the hospital stay down from a week to just a couple of days. Never leave it as long as I did during my first pregnancy, when I would hold on for a week and one time became so dehydrated that I was turning yellow.
The next thing to do is find out what foods you can’t be near, there are certain foods that made me very ill, and were also far more painful to vomit. I avoided salad like the plague, because it would just turn to acid, and I didn’t eat mashed potato as that would make me choke when I was sick. I also avoided milk (or anything milky), because this was one of my triggers. Of course this meant I had to find another way to get calcium, but that’s another story. As well as foods, I learnt to avoid the smells and situations that would set me off. Again these will be different for everyone, but mine included the smell of smoke, perfume and cooking food.
The next thing is to find out what you can tolerate, and at my very worst all I could manage was to suck ice-cubes. I found extremely cold drinks would manage to stay down, as long as it was little and often. Ice poles were another way of me getting fluid into my system. I also found that boiled sweets and glucose tablets would help keep me feeling a little less exhausted (as well as getting the awful taste out of my mouth). It was suggested that flat lemonade would help at quelling the queasiness, but it didn’t actually work for me, funnily enough ice-cold coke did (and still does).
The most important coping strategies for me, however, were to get plenty of rest (If I was asleep, then I wasn’t being sick, so I would have naps after every small meal) and when I wasn‘t asleep I kept myself busy (I knitted several shawls for my babies).
---And Now---
I have four wonderful children, and even though I suffered with HG through each of the pregnancies I would never change things. After my eldest was born, I swore never to even have sex again, yet alone anymore children. But, I did and I even planned two of the pregnancies, you see going through what I did made my children all the more precious. As each pregnancy progressed I became better at coping with, (and even laughing at) my relationship with the loo. After all I must have been the only person I knew that actually weighed less just before labour than they did before they got pregnant. That’s not to say that I don’t realise how serious the condition is, because I do, I’ve actually been advised never to have any more children because of the way HG has ravaged my body. So please if you suspect you are developing the condition then seek medical help immediately, as timely intervention can make it much easier to cope with and remember you are not alone, I’ve not only lived with it but actually gone on to have three more children.
* Only 0.5-2% of pregnant women will suffer from HG, so your chances of developing it are very small, but I felt it's important that women (and their partners) know about it as there was nothing in the baby books I got during pregnancy.
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