morning sickness mamas! help!

[PatchyMama]

what are you eating?

I was feeling ok in regards to nausea up til today..... today I only kept one meal down.... and i can not fall asleep! Any suggestions for gentle foods? I seem to feel sick every time i drink water too :

*sigh* I had M/S really bad with kyla... like 6 or 7 months of it.. i dont know that i can do that again!

[angelamclamb]

I had nausea so terrible week before last that I would have to stop the car while backing out the driveway. Increased motion sickness, so to speak, the further the drive, the sicker I got and the harder it was to overcome it. It had been so terrible that I lost 22lbs in 3 weeks or so. Of course, I didn't know at the time I was preggers. Last week my doc gave me a rx for Zofran, a tablet that disolves as soon as it hits the tongue. It has been a "Godsend" for me. Thinking of you and {{{{HUGS}}}}.

[coleslaw]

Re: the water, I just started putting a piece of lemon in my water and it is so much better. I hope you find something that works!

[nikirj]

I agree about the lemon. Adding something citrus always seemed to help me for most foods.

Also - crackers are a big fat myth. They actually increase saliva production, which makes nausea worse. You want wet foods if you can handle them, that way you don't need to swallow so much saliva and your stomach isn't so irritated.

And take it from someone with really, really bad MS the first two times around (still waiting for it to surface this time) - always think about what something will be like coming up when you eat it. Seriously. It sounds very negative but you don't want to barf up saimin and jelly beans (it happened to me and it was, well, unpleasant).

One thing that helped in general was to eat an orange sometime in the morning, or at least peel it for someone else. Then I wouldn't wash my hands for a while and smell them every time I felt like I was about to barf, and if it didn't make me feel at least a bit better it did give me a chance to make it to the bathroom. This time I'm going to try vaporizing some ginger essential oil in the room and hope it helps a bit.

Foods I could almost always keep down were oranges, garlic pasta (my husband's own specialty!), and usually I could keep soup down. That was it, seriously. So I'm not very good for food suggestions, other than don't eat dry stuff.

[Jessviola]

i didn't drink enough water yesterday because it was making me nauseaus too. that's definately a first for me. i'm going to have to stock up on lemons because i love lemon water and did notice the other day that i felt better when i sucked on a little piece of lemon.

niki,
thanks for the info about dry foods. i've been forcing myself to at least eat a few crackers every hour or so thinking it would help but i think i'll try something else today. i noticed yesterday that i was really craving fruit. i think i'll make a big fruit salad to munch on throughout the day....if i could only get the energy to go wash the fruit....and dry it....and cut it.....:LOL
did i mention how EXHAUSTED i am?

[Larissa]

That's a great tip about the dry foods! I have been sticking with clear broths. I also wear the sea sick bands. Don't really know if they are helping...I keep thinking that maybe it would be worse if they weren't on. I never vomit, but I feel like I could most of the day.

[StillForest]

Ditto on the lemon! Sour really seems to help. I'm also finding that herbal infusions (nettle and red raspberry leaf) are helping **immensely**--to the point where I've had almost three days free of nausea. I'd forgotten how wonderful these are. I was given Susun Weed's Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year when I was pg with DD1. Wonderful book! She gives all sorts of herbal/practical remedies for every stage of TTC/pg and postpartum/infancy. Found this book incredibly helpful.

Lots of information about the benefits of herbal infusions and how to make them are available for free at her website, susunweed.com. The infusions, herbs steeped in water for at least four hours, have many different vitamins and minerals. I'm wondering if my nausea was at least in part due to some sort of deficiency---in spite of eating very carefully and taking high quality prenatal vits regularly. I think that the vitamins/minerals in the infusions are more easily absorbed. I feel so much better!!! I also noticed that a couple of women had posted on her pg forum about homeopathic remedies that had helped them relieve severe nausea/hyperemesis.

Anyway, hope that this isn't TMI.

[mommyheidi]

I wasn't drinking enough either and honestly those were the days that I felt the worst. I've been feeling much better drinking the clear Gatorades. They don't taste as sweet to me as soda and I can definitely do without the carbonation. My mom keeps insisting Sprite will help, but just looking at the cans make me gag! Water is a no go for me right now, too, I need something with a little more consistency to it.

I've also learned the hard way that I absolutely can't eat lettuce at all. I threw up yesterday and the night before that on the front porch. Thank God it was raining...

I've had pretty good luck with peanut butter, I try to eat a piece of toast with peanut butter first thing when I wake up and those are the days I have the best start. Eggs worked for a while, but I think I overdid it. yuck!

[Morwenna]

I guess a lot of us have this problem! I agree about the lemon too! Plain water just seems too disgusting to me and I have been getting dehydrated and my lips are cracking! I am drinking Crystal Geyser lemon fizzy water. I was drinking a real nice herbal infusion every day but now the idea makes me totally sick! I wonder if it could really help to start it up again--I just don't want to make it so I feel sick whenever I drink it from now on (the association). It has Red Raspberry, Nettle, Oatstraw, Peppermint, Alfalfa, and Rose Hips. Maybe if I just tried Nettle and Red Raspberry?

[*~*SewHappyNow*~*]

Ugh I am so nauseous today. Yesterday I felt so wonderful! I thought I was finally getting over this and getting some energy back

I'll have to try some lemon too

[ladymadelon]

my morning sickness hasn't started yet, but I've stocked up on my favorite: chicken broth. ditto on the lemon water. (or lime). Also, eat many small snacks rather than full meals. keeping food always in your tummy can help. try a protein before bed or during the night so that your tummy isn't too empty in the morning.

[nannymom]

to puke or not to puke or to just freak out trying to avoid it

AHHHHH! I had to leave aerobics this morning because I felt so sick. I haven't actually thrown up yet but it's manifesting itself in other ways if you catch my drift
I don't know if any one has already mentioned this but my sister recomended pregnancy tea and I tried it this morning. It seemed to cut the m/s feelings in half at least. I also feel slightly more energetic.
p.s.- To all of those disgusted by water why why why ?

[Jessviola]

nannymom,
i have no clue!!! i usually down huge quantities of water daily but recently it's been a real struggle. adding lemon helps me considerably.

[Kerlowyn]

I have MS for the first time ever with thie pregnancy..yuck. What really sucks is that it seems to be different every day. Some days it is just the motion sickness/dry heaves kinda thing. Other days, like today it is a nausea/bloating kinda feeling. I try new things all the time and what works changes every day.
I have been living on crackers & cheese, granola, friut and yogurt, or waffels, all in very small servings.
Hoping for this to pass for us all very, very soon!

[ishtarmaia]

what's helping me

I, too, have been having trouble keeping stuff down, but the other day I made miso soup and ended up sipping out of the pot the whole day! I put wakame, a bit of tamari, carrots, bok choy, onions and miso in it and it was heavenly! My theory is that sea veggies have so many minerals in them that it was helping the imbalance that has been causing my nausea. Yay! I drink Reed's extra ginger brew sometimes in the afternoon and that helps. It's the only kind of carbonated drink I like at all.
Just a word for anyone drinking Gatorade or any of the other commercial thirst-quenchers; those products are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, the mainstreams cheapest and most low quality sweetener. Not to mention that the corn is usually from GMO sources; it's bad news all around. If you have access to a health food store or even a mainstream grocery with a natural foods section, look for Recharge, made by the R.W. Knudsen company and sweetened with pure fruit juice (white grape). It is even available in organic! Yay!

[MammaV]

I've had pretty bad M/S this time. I've tried sea bands, ginger, wild yam, homeopathy, and energy work. The best results have been from the homeopathy and energy work. Food is just gross right now. Good luck and try to drink. Dehydration really makes the nausea worse. It's ok to throw up water. If dehydration is really bad you can always do a water implant rectally....

[EnviroBecca]

I have been especially miserable the last few days, not because I've been any sicker but just because 5 weeks of this is really wearing me down!! (Also, I think the hormones are affecting my emotional state more than they were. I've been crying every day.) :

What kind of wet food can be kept on the bedside table overnight and is not too messy to eat lying down in the dark? Dry foods don't seem to be causing me trouble (I've been eating a few pretzels before getting out of bed) but I do find them difficult to swallow first thing in the morning. Eating before getting up definitely helps. Waking up without the alarm also helps; I'm getting pretty good at it when I can keep down enough water at night to make my bladder wake me after 5-6 hours to eat pretzels, drink just a little water, pee, and then either go back to sleep or mosey carefully to breakfast and nap after that.

My best food these days is white rice. I cook up a big batch and reheat a little at a time. At my most queasy, I eat it w/just a little soy sauce and juice from pickled ginger (the kind served w/sushi). Otherwise, I top it w/these great sprinkles from the Asian grocery (seaweed, sesame seeds, dried egg yolk, and salt--decent amount of protein) or nutritional yeast flakes.

Much as I hate being sick, I'm starting to see it as a good preparatory step for parenthood. I can't maintain my schedule, my whole life revolves around fulfilling baby's needs (I guess these are baby's needs--it sure ain't me who wants to spew that nice applesauce all over the floor!), and just when I think I've figured out the rules for doing things right and avoiding disaster, I'm faced with a baffling exception!!

[Patrice#1]

This is baby #5 for me, and I have had morning sickness with all of them but this one (thank God; I have no energy to deal with that)! I remember I had it soooo bad with my 1st daughter, that if I threw up only once a day, that was a good day, lol. Anyway, I peeled some ginger, and put it in my mouth. The morning sickness stopped very shortly after. I know everyones relief comes from different places (what works for one may not work for another), but you can try it; maybe it will help !