Irritable Uterus

Pregnancy has its ups and downs and last week was definitely a down week. I had two nights of very painful cramps to the point where I seriously thought I was going into labour. It can be quite common for pregnant ladies to experience Braxton Hicks (or "practice contractions"), but any more than 6 per hour is cause for concern. (I timed them and had 13 in one hour - and they really hurt!).

Time for another trip to the hospital, where I found out that my old friends the fibroids were playing up again and I now had an "irritable uterus". (I know how it feels, I was pretty irritable myself after 2 nights with no sleep). Irritable uterus is a condition where the womb contracts without causing any changes to the cervix or bringing on labour. IU symptoms are either painless Braxton Hicks contractions or painful labour-like contractions.

Of course, one difficulty is that IU can lead to preterm labour and it can be difficult to distinguish between the two. Preterm labour would be a disaster for me at this stage as premature babies do not generally survive until they are at least 24 weeks old (I'm currently 19 weeks). Either way the pain was too much to bear so something had to be done.

I left hospital with some interesting new drugs to try. The first was Nifedipine which is normally prescribed for angina, and basically works by blocking calcium absorption into muscles. (Calcium causes muscles to contract, so by blocking the calcium, the muscles should relax. The heart is a muscle, but so is the uterus, so I guess the same principle applies). The second drug was Daflon, normally given for piles. Apparently Daflon opens up the blood vessels and allows the blood to circulate more freely, which should reduce the pressure on my fibroids.

Well, two days on the medicine and a lot of rest later, I feel much better. The cramps have gone, I can stand up straight again and I don't feel like an elephant is permanently stamping on my belly. And on the plus side, getting piles is another common pregnancy side effect which I have yet to suffer. So at least with these meds I should be able to cross piles off the list!

http://www.irritable-uterus.com/