TMI, maybe.
Tue Dec 18, 2007 at 06:02:06 PM PDT
Ladies, I need your perspectives on a (down)side of pregnancy that I really wasn't aware of two years ago. I am having a really horrible time with all the physical changes that have happened in my body since having a kid. This is stuff that I never thought about, and I'm trying to figure out what is normal, and what I need to fix. Oy.
At the risk of getting banned from this site forever and ever, the one downside of pregnancy that everybody knows about was never a problem. I sweated the weight away in about two weeks. Not through exercising, mind you, but through night sweats. I had been so sick throughout my pregnancy that I only ever gained 20 pounds. By the time I sweated it all out, I actually ended up 10 pounds lighter than I had been before the pregnancy.
Ok, please, put down the bats. Really, there's more. (And I've put the 10 pounds back on anyway through my amazingly bad eating habits. Yay me.)
Pregnancy seemed to trigger several difficult-to-manage health problems.
The biggest, and the scariest, was the abdominable cramps/chronic diarrhea. The members of my family are insanely aware of our gastrointestinal systems and all the ways they can screw you. My grandmother, whom I loved so much, died of colon cancer when I was in college. 9 years after that, my brother, whom I also love so much, was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. Crohn's is a disease where you have chronic diarrhea and inflammation mostly in your intestines, although it can show up anywhere in the gastro tract. You become a prisoner of knowing where the bathroom is at all times, because those with the worst cases can need one more than 20 times a day. My brother has a very stubborn case, and was on steroids for SEVEN years, and his weight dropped as low as 122 lbs on a 6' tall guy. (He just got off them a few months ago, and is symptom free so far. God, we are so happy!) So, a few months after delivering, I started having symptoms, and I was scared. So scared that I ignored it for a while. Finally, I went to a GI doc, and immediately got a full mouth-to-butt workup due to the family history. Total clean bill of health. They couldn't even see a reason for my constant burping, also a legacy of the pregnancy. But I still have the symptoms! I have since then waffled between self-diagnoses of Irritable Bowel Syndrome, low fiber diet, and, the latest, gall bladder problems (it explains the burping!!!) In the past few months, its gotten a lot better, and I haven't needed the hyoscamine for the cramps (as I call it, the epidural in a bottle. Marvelous little pills.) Now, it pretty much only acts up right before my period. Any thoughts on this? It gets me pretty stressed.
The next thing is the fibrocystic breast disease, although I'm not sure I can blame pregnancy for this one, because after I was diagnosed I found out my mother has it too. So it could just be my genes. But I get these shooting, amazingly bad pains in my breast tissue--I literally can't breathe because it hurts to expand my chest. And then of course there are the fun little cysts that show up on the boobs that make me freak about breast cancer regularly. Good times.
Finally, though, there is the sweating. This is where the TMI comes in. I'm really embarrassed about this, actually. (Hysterical, right? I can discuss pooping with equanimity thanks to regular dinner conversations about my brother's "angry colon," but mentioning sweating makes me squirm. I'm crazy.) I have lately developed a really bad case of constant underarm sweating. And its worse on the right side. It started a little bit after the first pregnancy, but all I had to do was avoid certain fabrics. Now, though, after the second abbreviated pregnancy, I am sweating through all my clothes. Fabric doesn't matter--cotton, silk, synthetic. All of them. Temperature doesn't matter. I am constantly freezing in my office, but I sweat through all my shirts. I used to be able to wear blazers several times before taking them to the dry cleaners, but now that's impossible. I am hyper self-conscious about this, I have deodorant in my purse at all times, and always wear a sweater. This turning me into a basket case. I'm positive I smell bad, which makes me very uncomfortable in meetings and such. I talked to a doctor about this, and she was amazingly unhelpful. Luckily, this wasn't my regular doctor who is currently out on maternity leave. I'm going to try again next week, but I'm not hopeful. So, ladies, did this happen to anyone else? Help?
In the interest of full disclosure, I did just turn 35. This could just be due to age. But I hated being pregnant anyway, so I'm willing to pile on blame here. Insights, advice and strategies would be welcome. I didn't even get into the fact that my eyes need physical therapy, but really, do you want to know that much more about my body?
Permalink | 39 comments