I have had 4 HG pregnancies and 3 HG miscarriages. Here is my story. At the end are general guidelines I've found for healing.
TW – food, healing, prevention
My first pregnancy I became sick within the first week of
conception. This probably was due to an undiagnosed allergy to soy, on top of
HG. I spent the next semester in school trying to hide how sick I was and just
thinking it was the flu. The dance department is very competitive and any sign
of weakness I wanted to avoid. I was 13 weeks when I finally found out and
honestly I was really sad because I didn’t really feel ready. I continued to
work to hide it, though I knew I would throw up if I smelled certain people in
one class and so I did request to only dance with my husband in intermediate
Latin ballroom dance. I still left the class to cross the hall to the restroom
a few times to relieve my nausea. It was the last semester I performed on a
ballroom company.
When I went to my doctor and said I was throwing up three to
five times a day he misdiagnosed me with the baby being on my vena cava. He
figured I must be having lightheadedness from the baby pushing on my vein,
rather than blood sugar issues. (I later learned I tended toward hypoglycemia
which was aggravated by HG). He put me on bedrest.
The nausea abated when we moved closer to school and I could
spend more time resting. In my third trimester the heartburn that came was so
unbearable I tried everything, even goats whey.
The second pregnancy I finally realized that I absolutely
cannot have Italian food when pregnant. Nope. None. I had done a little sport
nutrition research, by this point, and was able to better stay hydrated. I
still was sick, but I only threw up 0-7 times a day. I’ll never forget the day
it was 7, but I did have a few days where I ate little and held it all down.
This time the nausea lasted longer overall. I still came back with roaring
heartburn in the third trimester.
We decided to wait. I got an IUD and we taught at a couple
of high schools. We did mini-studies with our students to see if our hypothesis
on injury prevention and recovery worked. We found it lacking, and I enrolled
in 2011 in massage therapy school. During this time I was so sick that I sought
help and a diagnosis for hypoglycemia (before it was undiagnosed but the doctor
had told me to track it…and I did, for the next five years). I was told that I
didn’t have hypoglycemia, the dramatic change in my symptoms was pancreatic
cancer. Mic. Drop.
Approximately a year and 7-8 months later I was cancer free.
Holistically. Naturopathically. Miraculously.
I did something very stupid. I chose to become pregnant a
week after I passed the last of the cancer. It takes 90 days to change your
blood, peeps. 90 days. I really ought to have fortified myself. I ought to have
believed my previous pregnancies might come back to haunt me.
That was January. By mid-February I was on total bedrest on the
couch. I was trying to homeschool, I couldn’t hold food down, I was so tired. I
was more sick during the pregnancy than I had ever been with the cancer. I was
so weak I couldn’t shower, I was so ashamed. Finally I admitted this to my
husband, (he probably could smell me, I never asked) and asked him to shower
me. So, like a little old lady I sat there unable to lift my arms above my
shoulders. He did such a good job washing my hair, and I was so grateful to
feel human again. This happened a few times.
Here is where my sports nutrition combined with my
naturopathy started to benefit me in battling my own Hyperemesis Gravidarum. I
remembered that
1.
potatoes have more potassium that an entire
bunch of bananas. Potassium is one of the possible building blocks for ATP (adenosine
tri phosphate, which helps your muscles relax after contracting).
2.
Pink salt and Sea salt are full spectrums salts.
Osmosis (the absorption of water in cells) can only occur if real salts are
present.
3.
Water is required for ATP.
My muscles were seizing up from the dehydration. I started
making sure that if I only ate one thing it would be mashed potatoes with
butter and pink salt, then sip water.
There was a day that I went to a course by a master
herbalist, and I brought my throw-up bowl just to be sure, and I sat and
listened to him. I had a client buying his herbs and I wanted to make sure it
wasn’t snake oil. I threw up all day that day, holding nothing down. I even
sipped the herbs in some water, but lost that too. When I got home I held down
2 TEASPOONS of mashed potatoes and I probably sipped about the same amount of
water.
I’m pretty stubborn. I’m sure the above story shows that.
What my husband didn’t know is that I was acutely aware of my medical state and
that if I didn’t hold any food or fluids down that night I would have asked to
go to the Emergency Room for an IV. At this point I had had repeated doctors
fail me and medical assault was a thing I knew was real and wanted to avoid. Yet
I was still considering going in. Within the week I picked up being able to
hold down a couple of tablespoons and gained more water.
Tip – I also started to delve more into Asian Meridian work
as part of my practice. When you’re pregnant you can have someone else hold
your pointer fingers and it helps you sometimes not throw up, may reduce the
nausea a bit, or help you get to a place to throw up into.
I wasn’t out of the dark, I did minimal work and even had to
decline a client because I was going to throw up. The HG lasted longer this
pregnancy than the two before. I’m not sure when it transitioned to heartburn,
but I honestly prefer the last trimesters because I would take heartburn over
nausea. This third trimester it was combined, but I threw up less.
Here is where more puzzle pieces came together for me. I was
working on a family member. Fascia is the largest organ to transport emotion,
so Somato Emotional Releases are fairly common with Structural Integration. As
I worked on a family member an emotion not only erupted in the client, it
erupted in me. I was shocked. All of the sudden I realized that I felt very
responsible for other people’s actions (as if I were personally accountable)
and my sensibilities completely rejected that. I said a personal prayer in my
heart and gave it over to my Savior. Gratefully the session was pretty much
over, so I went upstairs and threw up again. This time blood came with it. My
sweet husband did acupressure to make it less painful to vomit, and I’ll always
appreciate that.
This is when I noticed that BOTH the nausea/vomiting AND the
heartburn were drastically reduced. I had another week of pregnancy and
normally I would have raging heartburn and it was at most mild.
Now a puzzle piece was that energy work helps relieve
subconscious beliefs, and can therefore help with heartburn. Very cool.
Lol! The next story. Sigh. I had just had a miscarriage and
I was talking to an old “friend,” who rudely told me that I had no idea what
she had gone through when she was pregnant. She then described my pregnancies
and called it a name I had never heart before, “Hyperemesis Gravidarum.” I had
just miscarried twins, twins I had had HG with for 10.5 weeks, and I was being ruthlessly
mocked.
I have seen this since on HG support groups. Sometimes women
feel they have to one up another by saying their pain is more. It is about
that, NOT. We are here to support one another. This is hard whether it is
MODERATE or SEVERE HG. If you don’t know the scale look it up in the book “Beyond
Morning Sickness, Battling Hyperemesis Gravidarum” By Ashlii Foshee McCall.
I started researching. I miscarried twice more. I only had
HG for a short while on one of them. That was nice.
I started doing a little research to fortify my body. I
wanted to prevent this illness. I successfully did for about three weeks (which
by doctor’s standards is 5 weeks) and then I did something very wrong. I saw
that my husband was having a terrible bout of depression. He said mean words
and I became depressed. I didn’t eat. I didn’t take my vitamins. I didn’t
drink. I didn’t care.
HG is strongly affected by emotions, btw. Stress, anger,
resentment, fear, worry, grief, are all emotions that aggravate it.
I might have been able to avoid HG. I’ll never know on that
pregnancy because three days of depression ended up with an HG pregnancy. I did
my best to keep up with listening the moment my body was hungry. I already knew
my “safe” foods. Sometimes I had to have children’s vitamins and suck on them
because I couldn’t even handle chewing them.
While I was on bedrest this time I was home for a couple of
weeks while my husband and children went on a trip. My husband set things up so
I had to do only minimal anything, and I didn’t have to hold children and teach
homeschool. I was watching a movie and I heard a name, and I knew that was the
name of our daughter. My husband heard it over the phone and agreed, but also
had another name come to him for a girl. We were going to have two girls! Maybe
it was twins! I hoped so. I was so sick of being sick.
When I found out that it was a boy? I was a mixture of
grief, fear, horror, and joy! I loved our boys but that meant I had 1-2 more
pregnancies to come.
I literally had 6 weeks of this pregnancy where I only ate
Breyers vanilla ice cream, winco cocoa, and a drop of peppermint oil. That’s
it. After the six weeks I found I could also do greek yogurt. That was an
exciting upgrade. To travel to a family reunion I think I ate 3 full bags of
hard tack lemon candies so I wouldn’t throw up in the car, or so that it wouldn’t
hurt so much when I did.
I know how to study online. Really research and find
credible sources. I dove. If I was stuck doing little housework I was going to
find a way to overcome this stupid disease.
I learned a few things I was able to implement immediately.
1.
Probiotics, apparently that is one of the things
that consistently helps women with HG. Who knew? Very cool. Probiotics are
sweet, so if they come back up it isn’t going to kill me. Nice.
2.
Enzymes. I was too afraid to eat these, I didn’t
know how to get them then and I didn’t know what it meant. I do now, and I love
my goodzymes.
3.
Magnesium. I had put such a focus on potassium
during my third pregnancy and I could barely down potatoes on this one. After more
digging I realized that dark chocolate is rich in magnesium, which was probably
why my body was so specific about it.
I didn’t remove the HG all the way, but I definitely managed
it better. I had nausea until the birth, this time, but I never had that
horrible raging heartburn again.
When the pregnancy was over and my nursling was so adorable
I didn’t dare share my research. Proof is in the pudding and the medical
community makes it impossible to have a real study if you aren’t a doctor. We
can’t prescribe. It’s against the rules. We can plan, help, trouble shoot, but
we can’t do a real study. It’s dumb.
I continued to learn more about healthy ketosis, alkalinity,
and how to get my body to stop responding with insulin kicks and hangry
episodes.
I waited for our next pregnancy. I was doing Fertility
Awareness Method and I knew exactly when I ovulated. A complication arose and I
went to the ER for a CT scan, but I asked them for a pregnancy test first just
to be sure. It came back negative, and they didn’t even use a lead vest. That
was Wednesday morning between 1:00-3:00. Thanksgiving came and went and I
waited, finally on Friday we went to the $1 store and purchased several
pregnancy tests and smuggled them back to my in-laws. Sure enough, we were
pregnant! We were excited and concerned, but there was nothing we could do
about the CT scan. I was on the gentlest antibiotics because I was still
nursing my baby, and I was carefully maintaining my gut health with enzymes and
probiotics.
The next day I started taking the total health peak
performance pack. It had everything and more that met my needs in pregnancy and
it also went along with my theory of preventing HG. Months went by. I
occasionally would wake up and throw up first thing, but then I wasn’t
nauseated. I’d eat small bits of things and the nausea would stay away. I was
going to school full time and occasionally had a tiny bout of light morning
sickness but nothing that would alert my teachers.
I was fluffy, as I learned it is called in HG lingo, and I
took it for granted. I figured maybe my body was really just fine and I was
overreacting, and I wanted to tighten down on my budget. I instead switched to
just prenatals. Yeah. Dumb. Hindsight. I had light nausea all day every single
day of that week, and by the end I had already hopped online to return to
taking the full set.
I had to slowly get my body used to taking them again, so I
started by only a morning one day and then an evening packet the next. I even
did energy testing (some people do muscle testing/applied kinesiology) to see
which ones my body would accept right then. After about a week I was back to
taking them after 10:00 am and between 4:00 and 7:00 pm. Later I could just
take the PM whenever.
There was this one time where, fluffy again, I took the AM
at 9:00. I. Had. H. G. AGAIN. For 1.5 hours. The whole horrific, PTSD,
nightmare of an illness.
It’s real. Every time I get away from it I hope it’s fake.
Nope. Real as ever.
Did you know that the same nausea medication, Zofran, is
sometimes used to help women with HG as is used for Cancer patients who are
throwing up from radiation and chemo?! If you ever take that make sure to take
it with a fiber drink. Otherwise you’ll regret it.
Yup. Hyperemesis is not only real, it has the scale of HG
Moderate where women can’t hold things down, can’t eat, can’t handle sights and
smells…and HG Severe where women are literally living off of PICC lines and IV’s.
I had one friend who had over 100 IV’s during her last pregnancy.
Unfortunately the CT scan did cause too much damage. When we
stopped being worried about miscarriage it happened. At 16 weeks 4 days,
February 18 2019, I lost our sweet baby. She had perfect little ears, and an
adorable chin, the sweetest little nose, toes, and fingers. I love her and we all
miss her so much. I’m so grateful that I wasn’t horrifically sick this entire
time.
My biggest fear in writing this down was that I wouldn’t be
able to remember everything, or address everyone, and that I’d get too wordy.
Well, both have happened. I realize that I can’t put 17+ years of education on
a single post. Neither does everything come to mind all at once. When I’m
working with individuals I find out their story and we trouble shoot from their
perspective.
So, here are the basics as best as I can for your benefit.
Please forgive that it isn’t exhaustive.
So, the promised tips: Prevention is still your best bet,
but you can use some of these tips to manage things
1.
Hydration.
a.
Did you know that to be truly hydrated the
recommendation of ½-1 ounce of water per pound of bodyweight isn’t enough. When
I’m working on clients I find that they are dehydrated if they’re around the ½ mark.
b.
You’re more likely to be hydrated with ¾-1 ounce
of water per pound of bodyweight. My client’s fascial work responds better when
that is the case.
2.
Use Celtic grey salt (high in magnesium) or Himalayan
pink salt (another full spectrum salt) with all your food.
a.
When you are thirsty eat a pinch of salt before
taking a drink
b.
If you aren’t holding any liquids down: put a
dab of salt on your tongue and suck on an ice chip. You can absorb water in your
mouth and colon, and if you’re dehydrated this is a backup plan.
3.
Take a regular probiotic.
a.
There is kefir, but the water kefir is pretty
much just sugar so be aware of insulin spikes. Milk kefir is a little better
and more complex.
b.
Greek yogurt isn’t enough probiotic, but it is a
start. We buy it without sugar and add dark brown sugar, molasses, pure maple
syrup, or raw honey.
c.
If you’re going to buy a probiotic make sure you
get one that has both Pre and probiotics. The ramnosus has demonstrated to eat
bacteria that makes you feel depressed, so I like that mine includes that.
4.
Have enzymes for your foods
a.
There are many enzyme rich foods, but often they
are difficult to access with HG. Things like papaya, coconut, pineapple.
b.
I take a full spectrum enzyme, I’d suggest
looking or one with 18 or so to make sure it is helping with grains, dairy,
beans, nuts, meats, and any digesting.
5.
Magnesium and Potassium
a.
Dark chocolate has magnesium, I used cocoa as
part of my food source on yogurt and ice cream.
b.
You can buy magnesium drops. Do you due
diligence in researching a good one.
c.
Dr. Maria Zanandrea (3x Olympic athlete) taught
me that a baked potato has more potassium than an entire bunch of bananas. You’ll
also notice that you naturally eat salt and drink something when you eat a
potato.
6.
Keto.
a.
This is the under-talked about reason women
survive HG in the first place. I suggest looking into ketosis and intermittent
fasting to understand it. Why we survive is just a plain miracle. We’re so
blessed.
b.
The book Keto Clarity gives good details, but
doesn’t go into alkalinity the way I would prefer.
c.
If your body is already ketone burning you are
less likely to wake up as hungry. (I believe this was one of the reasons I wasn’t
so sick with my last pregnancy. It was rare I threw up and even when I did I
wasn’t nauseated before or after, it was more my body was throwing up to clear
up my stomach for the morning so I could eat a milk breakfast.)
d.
Recognize that keto looks different when
pregnant. You can’t go as long as normal intermittent fasting, it isn’t 8 hours
on 16 hours off, but because you’re used to keto it does help you not be hangry
in the morning and start a vicious cycle.
In our current generation we often are in front of some
style of screen after 9:00 pm, and the pineal gland, that is located in the
center of our head, is what sends the message that night has come. If it continues
to detect light then it doesn’t send that message. There’s a night mode on any
smart phone; but that’s still light. Not going to help. I know, you thought it
was going to make it better.
This one seems so weird, right? If you sit around all the
time, though, your body will not be getting out the energy that it needs to.
Your fascia (the connective tissue of awesomness in your body http://dancecoreif.blogspot.com/2013/07/basics-of-what-we-do-in-office.html)
gets all tight and wound up, your muscles get stuck in static contractions,
your organs don’t have as much oxygen because people usually slouch…so you
probably do. This is all around not so good for your ability to sleep. You’ve
got to get moving. Go climb a tree. Seriously, though, go swimming or biking,
take a yoga class, speedwalk, go to spin class, take a social dance class. Get
out and get moving. Sometimes doing a lot of yardwork or domestic movement is
enough to get your blood flowing, your lungs breathing, and your muscles
moving. You’ll find you can sleep a lot better after you move consistently, you
also may find you’re happier.
Let me give you a visual. Imagine a tiny muscle fiber, long
and thin, covered in some loose connective material. It distinguishes it from
other muscle fibers and also gives it space to contract and release. Zoom out a
bit and notice that all those muscle fibers are surrounded by this, and a small
group of the muscle has a dividing sheath of connective tissue. Stay with me.
Now, the muscle and the group of muscles have their own coverings…but it doesn’t
stop there…because that fascia around the muscle goes to the edges, becomes a
tendon, then covers the joint(joint capsule), and then the bone (periosteum),
and then becomes a ligament, and so on until it is covering organs like the
heart (pericardium). Seriously, guys, this stuff has no beginning or end. It just
keeps going in layers, and somewhat like a web, and when it gets tight you get
stuck. This image is used with permission, and is designed to teach tensegrity, or the idea that by affecting one spot you affect the entire object.
The first thing you’re supposed to stretch is the fascia. If
you push too hard, it’ll signal the golgi tendon reflex to contract.