www.d-mer.org
Dysphoric milk ejection reflex (D-MER) is something that has been discussed here before on several other threads when it was nameless, but I wanted to bring it up again for a couple reasons:
-For new mamas
-To bring attention to the new website
-Becuase we discovered the mechanism and treatment for D-MER
To sum it up, it kinda feels like this:
"What I was experiencing, about 10-15 times a day, was a sickening hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. There would be a strong aversion to food. I wouldn’t feel sad, but I would feel “icky and yucky” and pretty hopeless and melancholy. I sometimes would feel down right suicidal for a passing moment. It was a feeling I seemed to have associated with strong feelings of worry and guilt in the past, because when I first started experiencing the sensation I kept searching for what I was feeling guilty or worried about. It turns out there was nothing; it was just that same sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I had experienced in the past for other reasons. It would last for about one to two minutes every time, which sounds very brief, but it was so overwhelming that it would grab my attention from nearly anything I was doing. I would end up needing to focus my way through it, nearly like I needed to for a contraction during labor. The rest of the day I would be fine, in fact sometimes I was great. "
Other mothers use some of these words to describe it:
67% of mother experience a hollow feeling in their stomach
55% have feeling of anxiety
55% feels like there is something in the pit of their stomach
50% have feelings of depression
47% experience sadness
44% of mothers feel hopelessness
44% describe it with “yuckiness”
44% have general “negative” emotions
41% say it’s an “ickyness”
41% experience a feeling of dread
35% have an urge to “get away”
38% experience irritability
29% experience a sense of guilt or shame
29% feel tearful
23% feel nauseous
23% of mothers say the feeling is familiar of the past
23% feel panic
20% of feelings of aggression
17% suffer a loss of appetite
14% have suicidal thoughts
14% feel homesickness like feelings
I have been doing some research on this topic (which is different then just the intense thirst or the plain nausea some mothers get while breastfeeding) and I want to see possibly what percentage of mothers suffer from dysphoric milk ejection reflex (D-MER)- hence the poll. It's very unofficial, but it's a start.
Thanks all for your poll votes and for any additional comments you might have to add, to keep this bumped up for awhile!
Dysphoric milk ejection reflex (D-MER) is something that has been discussed here before on several other threads when it was nameless, but I wanted to bring it up again for a couple reasons:
-For new mamas
-To bring attention to the new website
-Becuase we discovered the mechanism and treatment for D-MER
To sum it up, it kinda feels like this:
"What I was experiencing, about 10-15 times a day, was a sickening hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. There would be a strong aversion to food. I wouldn’t feel sad, but I would feel “icky and yucky” and pretty hopeless and melancholy. I sometimes would feel down right suicidal for a passing moment. It was a feeling I seemed to have associated with strong feelings of worry and guilt in the past, because when I first started experiencing the sensation I kept searching for what I was feeling guilty or worried about. It turns out there was nothing; it was just that same sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I had experienced in the past for other reasons. It would last for about one to two minutes every time, which sounds very brief, but it was so overwhelming that it would grab my attention from nearly anything I was doing. I would end up needing to focus my way through it, nearly like I needed to for a contraction during labor. The rest of the day I would be fine, in fact sometimes I was great. "
Other mothers use some of these words to describe it:
67% of mother experience a hollow feeling in their stomach
55% have feeling of anxiety
55% feels like there is something in the pit of their stomach
50% have feelings of depression
47% experience sadness
44% of mothers feel hopelessness
44% describe it with “yuckiness”
44% have general “negative” emotions
41% say it’s an “ickyness”
41% experience a feeling of dread
35% have an urge to “get away”
38% experience irritability
29% experience a sense of guilt or shame
29% feel tearful
23% feel nauseous
23% of mothers say the feeling is familiar of the past
23% feel panic
20% of feelings of aggression
17% suffer a loss of appetite
14% have suicidal thoughts
14% feel homesickness like feelings
I have been doing some research on this topic (which is different then just the intense thirst or the plain nausea some mothers get while breastfeeding) and I want to see possibly what percentage of mothers suffer from dysphoric milk ejection reflex (D-MER)- hence the poll. It's very unofficial, but it's a start.
Thanks all for your poll votes and for any additional comments you might have to add, to keep this bumped up for awhile!
When my periods returned at about 10 weeks, I changed to where I had sad feelings when I nursed including thoughts that it would be bad to harm myself because ds needed me. 
Those thoughts are not so intense now but I do get the hollow dehydrated feeling.
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