What is hyperemesis gravidarum?
Having gone through 3 HG pregnancies, I try to educate people on this debilitating illness in real life and on Facebook, but I haven’t done much here on Tumblr until now as I’ve made the decision (as 1 in 7 women with HG do) to terminate my 4th pregnancy.
Not a lot is known about the cause of HG and the treatment focuses on relieving symptoms, as with many diseases that primarily effect women. The leading theory at my last reading was that a pregnant person’s body will have a negative or allergic reaction to HCG, a hormone produced by the placenta during pregnancy causing intense nausea and vomiting.
Very few women (less than 2%) will suffer from HG but for those that do it is hell. For many, HG lasts from the first month of pregnancy until the middle of the second trimester but for some, like me, HG lasts the entire pregnancy. HG is also known to become worse with each pregnancy.
Some women will have less severe HG than I experienced, some women will have more sever HG than I experienced but for me, this is what HG is:
1.Constant nausea. Just 24/7 nausea with no relief. I would go to bed nauseous and wake up nauseous. I had different levels of nausea, holding perfectly still in a cool quiet room having just vomited I would be only mildly nauseous but movement or heat ramped my nausea up to food poisoning levels.
2. Constant vomiting. Not just 4 or 5 times a day. I’m talking 20+ times per day. I would wake up from a deep sleep vomiting. It was the first thing I did in the morning for about 40 minutes, lay on the bathroom floor and cry and vomit. At every strong smell, after eating or drinking anything, every time I had to move more than a little, and sometimes for no reason at all.
And it hurts, that much vomiting. Your lips crack and bleed, your throat burns, you have constant heartburn, your stomach has cramped so much that it is sore to the touch. Not only that but the taste of the last dregs of your stomach bile and blood from your esophagus is awful and will trigger even more vomiting.
3. Going a little crazy. I was so miserable and depressed during my pregnancies that I seriously considered killing myself at various points. Not only because it hurt so much but because severe dehydration and lack of nutrition genuinely messes with your brain chemistry. I was slowly starving and my body thought I was dying. I remember clearly being in the shower, vomiting uncontrollably, unable to stand up on my own, sobbing and telling my husband I wanted to die, I wanted an abortion, I just wanted this to stop. And this was with a baby, my daughter, that we had planned for carefully and wanted so much.
4. Weakness. When I wasn’t vomiting, I was too weak to do anything. Simple tasks like getting the mail or making a bowl of cereal were huge things for me. It was so hard just to get my body to do what I wanted it to.
5. Weight loss. I lost a lot of weight during all 3 of my pregnancies due to HG. I did end up gaining some weight around month 7/8, when the vomiting was down to only 3-5 times a day or so. This is not helped by people telling you how lucky you are that you aren’t getting fat while pregnant. At all.
6. Tooth loss. I did lose a tooth from acid erosion during my second pregnancy and the enamel of my other teeth was weakened.
7. Medicine. Zofran and Phenegrin made my life bareable. They stopped me from vomiting in my sleep and around my 4th month I started vomiting only 10 or so times a day which gradually reduced to around 5 times at month 8 and then some days only in the morning by the end of pregnancy. My pills dissolved on the tongue, though some people even get a zofran pump.
8. Doctors, hospitals, IVs. I was in and out of the hospital for IV hydration and I saw my doctor more often than usual to check on the babies. The extra travel was not my friend.
9. Clothes and makeup. At a certain point (around day 3 of nonstop sickness) you give up on how you look. If I needed to leave my house it was in pajamas. Makeup was a thing of the past. I did not care at all.
10. Friends and family. Most of my friends and family stopped visiting all together. They didn’t understand why I couldn’t see them. They wanted me to come and visit them and I just couldn’t. A few kept in contact and a few would actually come to help, which was nice.
11. Excess saliva. Sooooo much excess saliva. I once read an article explaining the reason for this but I don’t remember it. And it triggers your gag reflex and you throw up. A lot of hyperemesis sufferers have a cup to spit in that they carry around because of this. It’s the less disgusting alternative.
There is more, I’m sure, for me to add later. But basically: this was my HG experience. 9 months of hell and people asking you if you have tried eating crackers or drinking ginger tea.
