Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Aug
9
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…They’ll Keep You From Getting Dehydrated…They’re Carbohydrates. They Have *Hydrate* In The Name!”
“When you get home, instead of trying to drink liquids, just eat lots of crackers and breads and cereals…they’ll keep you from getting dehydrated, because they’re *carbohydrates*. They have *hydrate* in the name!” -OB to a mother in the hospital for hyperemesis gravidirum.
There are 51 comments to this post.
First point: I’ve been through Hyperemesis. Carbs did NOT help. Protein did help a little for my third pregnancy but not my first. I vomited up everything. Even the stupid saltines that the doctor recommended.
Second point: If a mother is being hospitalized for hyperemesis it is very serious. Eating saltines is not going to help if you’re that dehydrated.
3rd point: “Carbohydrate =/= hydration. I guess you could also point out that “obstetrics” comes from the same root as “obstruct”.
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Jane Reply:
August 9th, 2010 at 4:25 pm (Quote)
And in editing, “stet” means “leave it the hell alone,” which would also be a good thing to remind the doctor. :-b
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Mama Mirage Reply:
August 10th, 2010 at 4:42 am (Quote)
Arg! ITA- saltines no. Protein yes. Stupid doctor hasn’t a clue what he/she’s talking about. I just can’t even think of a comment to express my state of extreme stupification over the carboHYDRATEs HYDRATE you comment. That’s pretty much the most uneducated, logic-less thing I’ve ever heard. Or at least in the top 10.
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Robbin Reply:
August 10th, 2010 at 5:30 pm (Quote)
As another H.G. survivor (I have it right now with #2) I agree. Carbs don’t help. I throw up everything, even protein, even water, if I don’t take my medications religiously. And saltines are pretty awful to vomit back up. Old wives tales do not work for H.G.
The only thing I can think of here is that she thinks the salt content will help. Which, to an extent, it does … but you still need water/fluids to keep hydrated.
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I think my four year old might have said something like this.
Hyperemesis gravidirum is serious, serious, serious, but I’ve heard of so many women getting treated by “medical professionals” as if they have nothing more than the uneasy-queasies. I hope the mom who submitted this got some actual help.
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Heather P Reply:
August 9th, 2010 at 4:46 pm (Quote)
Yep. I’ve mentioned this before but my advice given to me by my OB was to eat saltines. Great advice to a woman who throws up everything. I ended up caling the On-call OB at 15 weeks because I hadn’t kept any food or water down for four days straight. Advice from on-call OB: “Eat bread” Me: “I throw up EVERYTHING”
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that sucks. There’s actual information about HG over here:
http://www.hyperemesis.org/mothers/faq.php
Maybe the doctor could, you know, learn something?
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They also have “carb” in the name. This means you can use them as fuel in any automobile that has a carburetor!
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Jane Reply:
August 9th, 2010 at 6:36 pm (Quote)
Wait, you mean there’s a difference between carbohydrates and hydrocarbons…?
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Kathryn Reply:
August 9th, 2010 at 7:03 pm (Quote)
It’s the same word, they just spell it differently in Canada.
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Thats the same kind of logic my OB showed when she opted for an elective c/s with her 1st baby because she wanted to avoid pelvic floor damage! What the HECK are they learning in MED SCHOOL?!?!?!
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O_O
No.
Way.
And I hate hate HATE when OBs don’t take hyperemesis seriously. Like during my first pregnancy when I complained at every. single. appointment. about not being able to keep anything down. Month after month, and every time he’d say “Oh, that should go away soon”. And then he’d go on to say that I wasn’t gaining enough weight so he might have to put me on an Ensure Shake diet. Yeah, I’m SURE that would work when I can’t even keep down things that I LIKE! But what did I know, I was just a stupid pregnant 19-year-old. And I just kept vomiting up to and including the day my son was born. I even threw up the meds the gave me to keep me from throwing up during my unnecesarean.
Um, yeah. That turned into a rant. Sorry.
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AJ Reply:
August 9th, 2010 at 6:21 pm (Quote)
I went through this same thing with my first. 19yo bringing up horrid N/V at every appt just to have it shrugged off, then the ranting and raving about my lack of weight gain, just made me want to scream at them.
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Mama Mirage Reply:
August 10th, 2010 at 4:50 am (Quote)
Yeah same here. Puking through all 9 months and labor too with my first daughter. Having another daughter – due in a month – and still puking so far. Puked up the anti nausea meds. Only thing that helps is a high-protein diet and even that, not too much. My last midwife told me to try to diet and loose weight while pregnant and suffering from hyperemisis, And she said that “all the anti-nausea meds are exactly the same” and didn’t want to switch me to something new when Promethazine was coming right back up and was making me HALLUCINATE large furry black balls falling out of my ceiling. So yeah by that logic I should be happy that I can’t keep down any food or water or meds and when I do keep the meds down I still can’t keep down food and I’m hallucinating to boot. No thanks. I switched midwives for that and other reasons. Thankfully my new midwives take my hyperemisis seriously.
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racheleh Reply:
August 10th, 2010 at 7:01 am (Quote)
I lost 25 lbs in a month with my nausea.I had good luck with Zofran. If you have insurance a syringe pump through home nursing care might be helpful. Provides constant anti nausea med that you can’t throw up. It requires a bit of bravery though as you have to stick yourself daily. The injection site has to move, but its not that painful, just weird.
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Sarah Reply:
August 10th, 2010 at 7:17 am (Quote)
I’m glad you have good midwives this time. 
During my second pregnancy, I made sure to tell my new midwives my story and insisted that it be taken seriously if it happened again (which they were totally positive about). THANK GOODNESS I only had “normal” morning sickness that time which was resolved by 16 weeks.
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By this logic, consuming electrolytes would be a fast and natural way to reduce your energy consumption after dark, because CLEARLY you’d start radiating light like a miniature sun!
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Jena Reply:
August 9th, 2010 at 10:40 pm (Quote)
Actually, I figured it out. This OB really always wanted to be an actor, and this session was part of the audition tape to get a part in Dinner for Shmucks.
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When my friend told her doc she wasn’t keeping anything down and was concerned about hyper-emesis gravidarum, he said there was no such thing, but since she was throwing up, to prevent dehydration, she should ‘suck on a wet rag’. ?!?
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“Really, doctor? Wow! And here I just thought they were called carbohydrates because they consist almost entirely of long chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms! Maybe I should just drink straight liquid hydrogen and eat a bag of charcoal?”
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Sounds like someone needs to visit http://beyondmorningsickness.com/
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I’d be willing to bet the OB didn’t actually believe this. He just figured the mom was stupid enough to believe it. If the OB didn’t believe that she *really* threw up everything, then he might believe she just had “really bad morning sickness” (and she was being hysterical/exaggerating, and he was trying to “trick” her into treating what he decided that she *really* had. Which says nasty things about the doctor, his treatment strategies, and his misogyny, of course.
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This was mine…the killer part was, he wasn’t even MY OB, he was covering at the hospital that weekend.
A little back-story here…at 16 weeks, my OB (who was taking the HG seriously and had tried me on every older anti-emetic he could) admitted me to the hospital when I came in to the ER vomiting blood, with pretty much no potassium in my system, heart arrythmia, and down 30lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight. He put me on “stomach rest” (not even clear liquids the first 3 days I was there) and IV hydration, 6 days of IV nutrition, plus the IV version of Zofran. I spent a total of 8 days in the hospital.
Unfortunately, Dr. Smarty-pants here (whose practice I had specifically avoided because I had heard horror stories about him and the way he treats his patients, especially first-timers) was covering the weekend I was scheduled for the “reassessment”. He ordered my IV stopped and that I was to resume a full “normal diet”. The same afternoon I was released from the hospital, I was given beef and vegetable soup that I threw up all over the tray (because the nurse took my emesis basin away and the food tray was the closest thing. She was not happy about having to clean me/the bed up).
Later that afternoon, Dr. Smarty-pants came in to give me my lecture…I mean discharge instructions…and dropped this gem on me. I honestly couldn’t think of a single thing to respond to this…I was totally jaw-hanging-open speechless. To top it off, when I asked for the prescription of Zofran my OB had promised for me, Dr. Smarty-pants refused, gave me 3 days of Phenergan (which I had told him didn’t work for me) and told me I needed to “Learn to deal with it on your own instead of relying on drugs.” (Got a lecture about how the meds pass through the placenta and could potentially harm my baby.)
At that point, I just wanted AWAY from this joke of a doctor, so I let them discharge me, went home and spent the weekend throwing up again, called MY OB first thing Monday, and got my script for Zofran…which WORKED, thank God!!! Luckily, with this pregnancy, the HG settled down to “plain nausea and vomiting” (I say that because “morning sickness” is a lie, it was all day, every day) by week 22 and I was able to control it with the Zofran and regain the weight I lost by the day I delivered DS (who is perfect and healthy, praise God!)…so I ended my pregnancy at +2lbs over pre-pregnancy weight. And with a fear of strange OBs.
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Oh, I almost forgot…when I told *my* OB about what Dr. Smarty-pants said about the “carbohydrates”, he said “What? WHAT?!?!? That’s it, he’s not covering for my patients anymore…”
My OB was really great…he was the only one who took my HG seriously. During my 2nd pregnancy, I went to the same practice I used for my 1st…and got constant brush-offs about the seriousness of losing weight instead of gaining and my bottomed-out potassium levels. After one of the CNMs blew out a vein in my arm trying to place an IV when I came in to the office dehydrated and spilling ketones (and I had warned her about trying to use that vein…) and told me I wasn’t a high-risk patient, just high-risk for throwing up, I transferred out of that practice and to my old OB (who had left the practice to go out on his own). In 24 hours, he had me set up with a medication pump that the CNM had told me would take so long to get approval for, by the time they got it, I wouldn’t need it anymore.
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What an idiot. It’s sad that nutrition is NOT a major part of medical school, but you’d expect a doctor with advanced science classes to know what a carb is. Did I already say, what an idiot? LOL.
Sada, I’m thrilled your doctor listened to you. Not enough practitioners take HG seriously. My friend almost died because of a jacka$$ OB, who wouldn’t take it seriously. She ended up in the hospital, and a resident was the best care provider she found. He listened and helped her manage the condition, even though he wasn’t “officially” her doctor. When she lost the baby at 14 weeks, her jacka$$ OB told her it was because she hadn’t forced herself to eat enough. Unbelievable.
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Sada Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 1:19 pm (Quote)
I’m so sorry to hear your friend lost her baby…that was one of my biggest fears through both my pregnancies, even more than everything * I* suffered through (including tardive akinesia from Reglan) I was terrified that my babies would be born with problems (or not make it to birth at all). To have to put up with “medical professionals” telling me things like “Oh, morning sickness is a good sign for a healthy outcome” (true in the case of regular morning sickness, not HG) and that the drugs that were keeping *me* alive could “possibly” harm my baby, and that I needed to “force” myself to eat because “Think of your baby, you’re the only source of nutrition it has”…that was just adding insult to injury.
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The Deranged Housewife had this to say,
Aug 11, 2010 @ 9:22 am (Quote)
“When she lost the baby at 14 weeks, her jacka$$ OB told her it was because she hadn’t forced herself to eat enough. Unbelievable.”
! Wow. I can’t think of a stupider, more inhumane comment to make to someone. I honestly think some doctors think pregnant women are just all whiners who are out to get sympathy and medication. Yet, if they had kidney stones, would be whining in pain from the beginning until the end, non-stop. They do say that doctors make the worst patients, so I’m guessing they think everyone should approach health and medicine like they do. 
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*head*desk*!!!
This was a real doctor, right? Went through 12 years of regular school, followed by 4-8-12 years of college including med school and OB residency??? *Shudder*
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Knitted in the Womb Reply:
August 10th, 2010 at 8:14 am Knitted in the Womb(Quote)
Well…I have heard that 1 in 50 “doctors” falsify their credentials…
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Lucia Reply:
August 10th, 2010 at 5:53 pm Lucia(Quote)
Must have nearly failed that part of school. Hey D is for Doctor right!?
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Nani Reply:
August 17th, 2010 at 10:37 am Nani(Quote)
What do you call the person who graduated last in their class from med school? “Doctor.”
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