If you do a quick search of the term Hyperemesis you will find that the Wikipedia definition of this pregnancy complication as follows:
Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) is a complication of pregnancy characterized by intractable nausea, vomiting, and dehydration and is estimated to affect 0.5–2.0% of pregnant women. Malnutrition and other serious complications, such as fluid or electrolyte imbalances, may result.
Hyperemesis is considered a rare complication of pregnancy, but because nausea and vomiting during pregnancy exist on a spectrum, it is often difficult to distinguish this condition from the more common form of nausea and vomiting experienced during pregnancy known as morning sickness.
Image from Google
Before I was pregnant with my daughter I had never heard of the term or even known that something like this existed until my OBGYN told me I had it, and not even then was I sure of what this meant…
The truth is that it is really hard to explain the symptoms… I guess you can say it is a really bad morning sickness but that would be an understatement, so I would try my best to describe it in my own words what the Hyperemesis gravidarum is.
We have stablished that it is a type of really bad morning sickness. What you might not know, is that it you get a constant nausea feeling. Let me put it another way, if you are awake you are more likely nauseas and you know how you have a stomach virus, your nausea goes away when you vomit? Well that is not the case in this situation, so again, as long as you are awake, you have nausea. So even when you are eating you have the nausea feeling, but then you know that for your sake and more importantly, for the baby’s sake, you need to eat and drink.
On a good day you will get sick several times after you eat something until your stomach is completely empty, now on a bad day you will get sick no matter if there is nothing in your stomach and that is the worse as you end up feeling even sicker.
There is also a very bad taste in your mouth that like the nausea is present for as long as you are awake and that I believe to be truth has a lot to do with the nausea.
Any smell would trigger your symptoms even everyday day smells that you are used to and even like… One of the really bad things of this condition, is that it drains you physically and mentally. If you think about how long you have to go before you get better…Some women can get the symptoms right about the 5th week , some sooner,and could last anything from the first trimester to the full term of the pregnancy and in some cases past the pregnancy.
There is no treatment to prevent this condition, and once you have it, all they basically can do is try to keep you hydrated and reduce the vomiting as much as possible with different medications. It has been several years since I had my first experience with the Hyperemesis and hopefully there are new medications to help women with this condition.
You have probably heard that Kate Middleton suffered from this condition in both her pregnancies and had to be hospitalized at least with the second baby if I am not mistaken. In my particular case, my doctor was able to keep me home and have a hydration therapy for about 6 weeks which consisted of around the clock IV’s and shots to keep me from getting dehydrated, but if I had to be honest that was the best part of my pregnancy!
I highly recommend any women out there suffering from severe “morning sickness” symptoms, to do a little research and if you think you might have this condition, talk to your doctor.
Can you guess…Yes I am pregnant and yes, got the Hyperemesis this time around also.
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