 | I feel for you! I got the rash 8 weeks before my due date. It was by far the worst part of my pregnancy, including labor and delivery. It started on my hands, spread to my stomach, thighs, calves, feet, but never on my face or neck. This is most similar to hives or an alergic reaction; it starts from under the skin. I saw two different dermatologists who said it was the worse case of PUPPS they'd ever seen.
Things that helped: warm oatmeal baths w/ relaxing music playing (often at 4am when the itching woke me up), & lots of Sarna lotion. I also had to take Benedryl every 4 hours and finally take a course of oral steroids. It was bad. If I forgot to take my Benedryl, the rash would start to appear like clock work. I had to wake up in the middle of the night not to miss a dose. My doctor wanted to induce me 1 week early to put me out of my misery.
But the good news is that I went into labor 2 weeks early on my own and now have a beautiful healthy boy who is 2 years old. He has had no side effects from the steroids.
If I have PUPPS again in a future pregnancy, I will not hesitate to take the benedryl and steroids again. Note, you can take them at the same time. The steroids take a few days to work so the benedryl can help you in the meantime. Without these two drugs, I just wanted to die because the itching was so bad. I still have a scar on my leg from where I iched and iched and iched.
If you do end up taking steroids, try to time it so that you are coming off of them before your due date. I needed two courses of steroids and the timing didn't work out well because I was two weeks early. But it didn't seem to have an effect on my baby.
Good luck! |
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