Monday, November 8, 2010

Bleargh

Over the weekend (specifically 4:30 am Sunday) I was run over by the nausea train. I now have 24 hour kill-me-now nausea, just like last time. It’s not quite as bad this time, since I started taking Unisom (I read Arwen’s archives when Meg was about six months old and immediately wanted to know WHY NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT UNISOM WHEN I WAS PREGNANT). It is helping - I take a 25mg pill every four hours and feel fairly good for the two hours in the middle. Good enough that if I time it right, I can eat a full lunch, which makes me feel better for the rest of the afternoon. And, bonus!, Diphenhydramine (Benadryl and Unisom are the exact same thing, just different dosages) has always made me hyper, not sleepy. Which, when combined with pregnancy tiredness, makes me feel NORMAL all day (not tired, not hyper). It’s honestly a miracle pill for me and I AM STILL TICKED NO ONE TOLD ME LAST TIME.

The stupid nausea makes me hate mornings all the more. When I wake up, I usually haven’t taken a pill for a while AND my stomach is empty, which makes it almost impossible to even MOVE without throwing up. Add in an energetic 17-month-old and I had a VERY difficult time talking myself into going to work this morning. The only thing that convinced me to go is that Thursday is a holiday, so I don’t have to work a full week. I don’t know how I’m going to drag myself to work for the next three months.

4 comments:

  1. I'm so sorry about the nausea, Jessica! It's awful, isn't it?

    By the way - the Unisom that I take (and that I gave you on Sunday) is not actually diphenhydramine. There are two different kinds of Unisom - diphenhydramine and doxylamine succinate. Doxylamine succinate is the one that my doctor recommended in my first pregnancy, and the one that I use. I think it's probably more effective against nausea than diphenhydramine, since it is a component of an anti-nausea drug called Diclectin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diclectin). As suggested by my OB, I take a 25mg pill of Unisom before bed, and another half a pill (12.5mg) each morning. If you've been taking diphenhydramine, you should try the doxylamine succinate instead, because you might be pleasantly surprised by the results!

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  2. So where do you find this Unisom? I scoured my local Wal-Mart a month ago and only found ONE bottle of Unisom in the whole store. It was diphenhydramine, so I bought generic Benadryl instead. Is diphenhydramine supposed to help at all? Am I getting the placebo effect? If so, I like it!

    I was WAY confused when the Unisom you gave me Sunday made me so tired I could barely drive home. I stopped twice to take a mini-nap. I thought it was so weird since I've never had that reaction to diphenhydramine.

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  3. Oh goodness, I am SO sorry! My first pregnancy, I threw up 1-2 times per day, every day, but then usually felt better after. (or maybe I'm blocking it out. Now that I think about it, I threw up every morning before I'd eaten breakfast and remember a number of times while at work kneeling in the bathroom - including once when the cleaning lady was in there and her asking me if I was okay. I answered. "yeah. just pregnant.") My 2nd pregnancy I almost never threw up (a handful of times) but I was nauseated all day, every day for months. Hope it passes quickly this time!

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  4. I am sorry to hear that you are not feeling well. Boo. It was so nice to meet you this past weekend even though you weren't feeling 100%. I look forward to keeping up with you and hope your week only gets better.

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