Twice the Luck

This week, we’re going to get into morning sickness but since that term is so misleading that it’s entirely useless, I refuse to use it.  Instead, we’re going to call this what it is – nausea, plain and simple, and it can happen all the time and anytime.

For me, nausea was one of the earliest indicators that I might be pregnant.  This is pretty common and in twin pregnancies, it can start very early on and with a vengeance.  That was my experience.  We’re going to get into what it is, how it shows itself, and what you can do to make it better.

What causes it?

The short answer is that no one really knows.  Spend any amount of time researching it and even sources like the Mayo Clinic will give you vague, “we think it has to do with hormones” answers.  It really blows my mind that we live in a world where billionaires can live out their space vacation fantasies but a woman’s body is still a place of mystery, ruled by hormone mystics and fairy dust.

In all seriousness, of course it’s hormones.  In the first few weeks of pregnancy, there are so many changes going on in your body and hormones are driving the bus and yelling at all of your systems to get on board.  My first doctor mentioned that there’s some thought that it’s actually the fluctuations in these hormones that cause nausea because even though your hormones are desperately trying to get everyone organized, they don’t have their act together either.  This would explain that nausea typically, not always, goes away in the second trimester when everything has settled into a bit of a routine after the steep learning curve of the first trimester.

Bottom line: nausea exists and we can probably blame hormones (along with everything else).

Types of Nausea

In my experience, not all pregnancy nausea is created equal.  I found that I had two main types of nausea – I started calling them background nausea and acute or triggered nausea.

Background Nausea

For me, especially at the beginning, I just felt like I was constantly motion sick and while it wasn’t enough to make me throw up, it did make it very difficult to scrounge up the appetite to actually eat anything.  I had to be careful with what I did and the situations I put myself in because the line between feeling sick and actively being sick was pretty fine.  I started calling this background nausea because it was always there, just lurking, affecting everything seemingly without actively doing anything.

My current job is on a bridge over a river.  Standing still and watching moving water go by was not a good plan with background nausea.  My job typically requires working at heights in man lifts but I had to bow out of that duty almost immediately after I learned I was pregnant not only for safety concerns but also because the motion of the man lift was more than enough to make my background nausea well and truly up front nausea.

Acute or Triggered Nausea

While background nausea rarely actually made me sick, nausea brought on by a particular smell or food did every time.  This is why I started calling it triggered or acute nausea.  This one was both better and worse than background nausea.  On one hand, there’s no fighting it – you’re going to throw up but afterwards, I always felt immediately better.  You win some, you lose some.

Smells are hard – they can come out of nowhere and you don’t have to be anywhere near the source of the smell.  I also found that I never really knew how I was going to react to a smell until I was in the thick of it and then it was too late.  It’s not necessarily “bad” odors that sent me over the edge.  In fact, most of them were very ordinary food smells, such as fish, cooked spinach, most meats (this wasn’t a long term one), and corn in almost every form.

Food was the same way and there was no rhyme or reason.  One food could be completely no good and a similar food would be totally fine.  For me, my weak spot was more texture than taste.  Pre-pregnancy, I usually had two fried eggs and spinach in a wrap for breakfast.  That was all fine and good until one morning, I was halfway through eating one and then everything was really not good.  Once fried eggs were clearly off limits, I moved on to scrambled eggs and everything was fine until one morning, everything was really not fine.

What to do about it

I never fully shook nausea in some form during my pregnancy but I did find some ways to help soften the blow. Unfortunately, there were times when there was nothing I could do but go through it.  

The good news is that I found that background nausea was fixable in most cases.  First off, ask your doctor about vitamin B6.  If you have persistent nausea, B6 can be a good place to start your intervention.  I found it really helped knock things down to a dull(er) roar.  While it didn’t solve all of my symptoms, I feel like it did allow some other things I tried to actually work.

Not eating because you’re nauseous is a vicious cycle – it will get to a point where not eating will just make you more nauseous.  I found that starting with something small and “light” helped me eat something of actual substance later.  For example, I would snack on a plain rice cake and after that sat well, I would move on to something of substance.

Sipping watered down lemonade instead of water also helped curb the nausea and made sure I was staying hydrated even when I didn’t feel like drinking water.  I’ve also heard that cranberry juice is helpful.

There are lots of little ways you can make eating a little easier and keep you on slightly safer ground.  I had a hard time with the smell of meat at one point but I wanted to keep eating it even in small amounts to help boost my protein and iron levels.  We used strong smelling marinades (especially with citrus) and cooked outside as much as possible.  I also stuck to whole cuts of meat because I found that I struggled with the texture of ground meat.  If you’re like me and texture is a big deal, taking smaller bites can help prevent the texture from becoming a problem while you’re chewing.

One tip I want to shout from the rooftops – when eating starts to become a minefield and you aren’t sure what is the next food that is going to ruin your day, stop cooking and serving food all mixed together.  No more stir fries, no rice with veggies mixed in.  Keep each different food separate so when it turns out that one is bad news, it doesn’t mean your entire plate is inedible.

The Run down on running

Overall, I found running to be mostly helpful with nausea, especially the background nausea.  Triggered nausea and running were not a good mix but easy, steady state running definitely helped ease that constant motion sick feeling.  I didn’t do much strength training during this time as it definitely didn’t help make me feel less sick so I just focused my energy on what was working.