Difference between HG and MS

I had never heard of HG before I was pregnant and there is not a lot out there about it. If more people knew about it then less Hgers would be crackered/ fired/ seen as weak people not coping with morning sickness.

HG is NOT even bad morning sickness. It is a serious illness that you can only get from being pregnant. Without medical intervention, severe, intractable cases are gravely dangerous for the mother and her babies.

"G is a debilitating and potentially life-threatening pregnancy disease marked by rapid weight loss, malnutrition, and dehydration due to unrelenting nausea and/or vomiting with potential adverse consequences for the newborn(s)." HelpHER website.

With out medical help women can (but rarely do) die today from HG. Until the 1940s when IV and aggressive treatment started severe HG women died. Charlotte Bronte died from HG (http://www.trivia-library.com/c/final-days-of-english-author-charlotte-bronte.htm) and I think it was the reason that Nicole Kidman looked unpregnant her entire pregnancy. Alot of HG women have terminations as they are dangerously ill/ have no support.

I cannot explain the effects of nausea but interestingly Bug once overate melon as a child and it made him sick. He still cannot eat melon and I know of other similar stories. I find it interesting that foods have probably caused him and others many problems but the story involving nausea and vomiting is very strong in their memory and still causes aversion and dread years later. Bug is the most fearless man I know but i can chase him around the house screaming if I have a melon.

Alex in Clockwork Orange gets re-programmed with a N+V reaction to bad thoughts and is for a while 'cured'. I have always thought that the film was interesting, but his 'cure' implausible. Now I see it as a genuine idea that is explored as a concept through the film medium. (That sounds really wanky)

I try to explain HG as having bad flu for months, the kind where you cannot eat or move your head. Others compare it to severe food poisioning. I have had a nasty case of norovirus before after falling in to the Thames with my mouth open (out my scull) and HG is MUCH worse.

Anyway, for a good comparison to MS and HG this is from the hyperemesis web site.

http://www.hyperemesis.org/mothers/hyperemesis-or-morning-sickness/index.php

This page is also good to check for symptoms.

http://www.hyperemesis.org/hyperemesis-gravidarum/diagnosis/signs-symptoms.php

How low can I go?

Oh dear, things got a bit worse and ended up admitted in hospital!

So today is Tuesday and last Friday I took a nose dive. I did not think it would get any worse. I was wrong.

I have been finding it harder and harder to even sip liquid and most of the time it is coming out but with more liquids. On Saturday not a single sip would go down, we tried everything: hot tea, cold tea, energy drink, still and fizzy water, slush puppy stuff. But no, it is coming out immediately and I am wrecked.

I stay in bed as I am too dizzy and ill. If I move I am violently sick and everything spins.

By Monday I still cannot drink and I know that this is dangerous now it has been nearly 3 days without liquid going in and more coming out. I go to the bathroom to be sick and just big blobs of blood come out, that then alternates with bile and blood and I have to crawl as I am too tired and dizzy to walk.

I ring Bug at work and tell him about the blood sicks and he comes straight home from work and takes me to the local ER where they get me hooked up on some IVs and in a warm bed.

The IVs are really cold! I don't remember huge amounts about this night, the doctor says something about hyperemesis and twin pregnancies. They put some Gravol into me thru IV. Gravol, they explain is an OTC med in Canada to stop nausea. The only thing is Gravol makes me feel worse, I feel like I am tripping out and spinning! Things get totally weird and then I am really sick. So they give me something else called Zofran and you know what? This stuff works! It is a definate change very quickly.

Zofran is actually a medicine made for Chemotherapy patients (I am reading up on this). It is called an anti-emetic to stop you vomiting and cut some nausea away.

Not much research pins down the causes of hyperemesis so the only treatment for severe cases are drugs developed for cancer treatments. For some women even these do not work.

You know I have known a few people on chemo but I never realised that on the top of a life threatening and painful illness they are made even sicker by chemotherapy! I feel a bit humbled that I am no way as ill as a chemo patient and I also will have a lovely gift at the end of this.

Being ill gives me an insight that I hopefully can use as compassion one day. I have never been so ill before and so I have never got the concept about being 'ill'. I honestly thought you had to think positively and be strong (sorry), get on with it. I was an ignorant twat.

It also makes me realise a couple of things about my old job. I loved my old job, I loved the culture, the work, I loved deadline buzzes and mental hours and hard work. However if someone was ill for a long time and signed off it was a career killer. You just were not sick if you wanted the ladder. I would of killed my career if I was there, I am unable to work...have a shower, get dressed, drink ( I write this up a lot later on a good day).