When it's not just morning sickness: Living with Hyperemesis Gravidarum

I’m cur­rently in my 16th week of my sec­ond preg­nancy.  With my first child, I was nau­seous dur­ing the first trimester, but hadn’t thrown up at all.  I wasn’t sur­prised to find a few weeks in that I was get­ting nau­seous this time around.  I wasn’t even sur­prised the first few times I threw up, about 8 weeks along.  I fig­ured every preg­nancy is dif­fer­ent and this time my morn­ing sick­ness was a lit­tle worse (not to men­tion it was usu­ally din­ner I was throw­ing up, so I liked to refer to it as “evening” sickness).

By week 10, I was throw­ing up pretty much every lunch and had stopped eat­ing din­ner.  I was try­ing all the home reme­dies against nau­sea I could find.  I made a super strong gin­ger syrup for mak­ing home­made gin­ger ale.  I tried med­i­ta­tion, black­berry juice, yoga, cumin seeds, pep­per­mint tea, chamomile tea, pres­sure point ther­apy, apple cider vine­gar, rice water.  Noth­ing helped.

Within a few days, I was throw­ing every­thing up.  Pre­vi­ously, I could at least count on keep­ing break­fast down, but that time was over.  I was even throw­ing up black tea and min­eral water.  I was get­ting weaker and weaker, and soon I couldn’t leave the house except to visit the doc­tor and split my time between the bed and sofa.  I relied on the tele­vi­sion to babysit my two year old.  I just didn’t have the energy to care for him.  He got microwave lunches and lots of edu­ca­tional videos.

My hus­band would take off half or full days when­ever he could, and the neigh­bors would take my son Oliver when­ever they could, but it was tough being an expat and liv­ing so far from fam­ily.  It was lonely being stuck in the house, not hav­ing con­tact with friends, and I strug­gled with depres­sion and homesickness.

My doc­tor sug­gested I check into the hos­pi­tal for a few days, but I hate hos­pi­tals and couldn’t bring myself to con­sider it yet.  She pre­scribed dimen­hy­dri­nate sup­pos­i­to­ries (the active ingre­di­ent in Dra­mamine), they helped me keep down food bet­ter, but I had prob­lems with the side effects.  The doc­tor switched me to Nau­sema, a high dose tablet of vit­a­mins B6, B1 and B12.  It didn’t have any side effects, but was also hardly effective.

Things got worse and worse.  I was los­ing about 3 pounds a week.  A pound is 3,500 calo­ries, so if you think about it, I was under­eat­ing by over 10,000 calo­ries a week.  I was look­ing towards the end of the first trimester as an end­point, things would get bet­ter then, and I had planned a trip to go home to my fam­ily in the states at week 13 of my preg­nancy.  I thought that things had to improve soon.

Then I dis­cov­ered the H.E.R. Foun­da­tion web­site (Hyper­eme­sis Edu­ca­tion & Research).  It con­firmed what I sus­pected, that com­mon nau­sea reme­dies don’t gen­er­ally work for HG (Hyper­eme­sis Gravi­darum — exces­sive nau­sea in preg­nancy).  It also said that HG usu­ally doesn’t stop at the end of the first trimester, it usu­ally lasts into week 20 and can last the entire preg­nancy.  I decided to check into the hos­pi­tal.  Before going in, at week 12, I was 18 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight.

This was the first time I’d been in the hos­pi­tal that it felt good to be there.  I’ve lost my hatred of being hos­pi­tal­ized.  I was on an IV drip with dimen­hy­dri­nate and elec­trolytes.  I still felt lousy the first 2 days in, but by he third day I was feel­ing a lit­tle bet­ter, although I still threw up sev­eral times dur­ing my stay.  I was in for 4 days, until the day before fly­ing to the US.  The doc­tors at the hos­pi­tal didn’t really want to let me out, I think the doc­tors would have kept me there for weeks if I didn’t insist.  I lost 2 more pound while I was in hospital.

I requested dimen­hy­dri­nate cap­sules for the trip, the only side effect of the cap­sules was that I’d get tired, avoid­ing the prob­lems I had with the sup­pos­i­to­ries (you don’t want to know about those, but if you use your imag­i­na­tion, I’m sure you could fig­ure out what might have been the prob­lem).  I was pre­scribed the equiv­a­lent of 8 Dra­mamine a day.  If any­one has taken 1 or even 2 Dra­mamine for motion sick­ness, you know how even that small a dosage can knock you out.

The trip to the US was tor­tur­ous.  I was in tears by the time we made it to the gate of our sec­ond plane in Ams­ter­dam.  I threw up dur­ing the transat­lantic flight, despite mas­sive doses of anti-nausea med­i­cine.  But things have been improv­ing in the US.  I’m sur­rounded by fam­ily, who help with my son and let me get all the rest that I need.  I’ve man­aged to gain back 8 pounds in the half month I’ve been home, although the calo­ries haven’t been the most healthy.  I find myself mostly crav­ing com­fort foods, like ham­burg­ers, ribs, Reese’s cereal, and Baskin Rob­bins ice cream.  I’m not wor­ry­ing too much about eat­ing right any­more.  I’m still nau­seous, although I’m throw­ing up much less fre­quently.  I just eat what­ever I have desire to eat.  Some days I’ll look at an apple and think “Yum!” some­times I think “NO!!!”  I don’t force the issue.  What­ever looks appe­tiz­ing goes.

Because of the dosage of med­ica­tion, I spend most of my time sleep­ing, or zon­ing out on the couch.  I’ve man­aged to leave the house twice since arriv­ing.  I went to the super­mar­ket on Christ­mas Eve, and that was fine, although it took me 3 days to recover.  Yes­ter­day I went to Tar­get to try on some mater­nity clothes (I got a really cute dress), but it was too much and I ended up mak­ing two rushed, extremely uncom­fort­able trips to the restroom, which was full of moms and kids, and was just not a place I would ever want to be sick in again.

I’m wait­ing des­per­ately for the nau­sea to ease up.  I try avoid­ing doses when I can, just because I feel more with it when I’m not on the med­i­cine, but I also know I need to keep eat­ing and I need to break the nau­sea cycle.

I have a few good days in between the bad.  The first few days after a good day are the worst.  The good day makes you think things are get­ting bet­ter, then it all comes crash­ing back.  The day or two after a good day, I often find myself in tears at the slight­est provocation.

My hus­band and I can­celed our vaca­tion next week in New York.  My hus­band goes back to Ger­many on the 7th and my brother goes back to work after New Years.  I’m a lit­tle ner­vous about how the month of Jan­u­ary here is going to go.  I wasn’t expect­ing to still be ill.  If I’m not bet­ter, I don’t know how I can man­age the flight back alone with my 2 year old at the end of Jan­u­ary.  I just hope I’m one of the women who feels bet­ter by week 20.

For more infor­ma­tion on HG, I rec­om­mend the HER Foun­da­tion web­site.  If you have a friend or fam­ily mem­ber suf­fer­ing from HG, there is a great sec­tion on what you can do to help them.

You may also be interested in reading:

• Struggling with Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG): Week 33 Update (2)
• Struggling with Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG): Week 23 Update (14)
• Struggling with Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG): Week 29 Update (3)
• Waiting for the Birth (5)
• Leo's Birth Story (9)

Tagged as: hyperemesis gravidarum, morning sickness, nausea, Pregnancy