Has anyone ever taken L-Histidine?

[faithlove]

My Dr is a holistic minded guy and he recommended trying L-Histidine to blunt the forcefulness of hyperemesis. He said he has had luck with it in more serious morning sickness patients (I'm his first official HG). It's an amino acid of some type.

Has anyone ever heard of this or possibly even used it? I have done some research and he found in one of his medical books that it was indicated for nausea and vomiting, so has been suggesting it to those willing to look outside traditional approaches.

[faithlove]

Well, I have been taking this for 3 weeks now, and I'm starting to think it may be helping. I have absolutely no smell aversions yet. Usually my supersniffer would have kicked in by now and have me so averse to everything. But so far, I haven't had that. I am sick already (nauseus), but controlling with zofran and b6/unisom right from the start. So far, so good. I am interested to see how this works, he had very high hopes for it to mitigate the pain and severity of my HG.

I plan to continue updating this post if it seems to be helping as I get further in. This is just a supplement anyone can buy, it's not even a scrip.

[leahmsilverman]

I'm gonna keep an eye on your progress with this, I'm very interested. I might go pick some up (and by that I *obviously* mean send my husband to go pick some up) and just do the experiment with you. I would love something to tone down the super sniffer.

[mzzzny]

I'm happy this is helping you and curious about how it continues to work. I'm thinking about ttc at the end of the year, and am currently taking vitamins and herbal supplements ( eg- milk thistle) to try to decrease HG.

[faithlove]

So far it's still the same, no real smell aversions. BUT I have very bad head congestion this week, so that might be why. He gave me Nutri-spec brand of L-histidine. (That made a huge difference when it came to probiotics, the Nutri-spec where far superior to the ones I got from the GAPS diet website which I thought would have been the better ones.)

[faithlove]

My head cold is gone and I still don't have my super sniffer. But I was able to smell the water today at first when I took a shower. I don't know what to attribute this to except the L-Histidine. But I'm only 8.5 weeks now technically, and I'm sure it can and very well might get worse. I am so grateful to not have it right now though, it makes a world of difference.

[mzzzny]

I really appreciate your updates and I hope things do not get worse. I'm really curious about protocols for lessening the severity of HG. I probably won't ttc until next November, but I started my protocol back in September. I'm focusing on the liver as the culprit, and crossing my fingers. I would really like to know about some of the things you did to prepare or rather, to help decrease HG. Please feel free to pm me when you have an opportunity. Thanks.

[faithlove]

My HG is better than it has ever been in my 3 previous pregnancies.
To give a background, I did a full liver cleanse with all types of great items (including eating fresh dandelion from our yard for months) before our third pregnancy (in which we lost our baby at 4 months in October). We also had spent the last two years completely overhauling our diet, basically went completely organic or all natural and greatly increased our vegetables and almost eliminated packaged foods. Also started drinking kombucha and other fermented foods along the lines of a mini-GAPS diet. And my Dr had sent me the L-Histidine, but I never took it and then the pregnancy ended. My HG was really bad up until the baby died and then it steadily started getting better until I finally miscarried (we had a delayed miscarriage).

But when I found out I was pregnant in December, I immediately started the L-Histidine and the Zofran. And I seriously can't believe it but I still don't have the super sniffer at 10 weeks. Just to describe what I'm talking about and I'm sure almost all HG gals get it-- it's the smell-everything-every-step-you-take type of problem and I really did feel like some type of super-hero with the power of smell with all 3 past pregnancies because I can smell things that no one else understands because we are too far away from it and they don't smell it.

I could smell the water in the bathroom, along with my husbands deodorant just sitting on the counter, and the soap from the shower and I could even smell the toilet paper and it all assaulted me at once when I walked in the bathroom! I could smell every different plant when I walked outside, and not in a good way, most aren't the type you can usually smell and they stunk. It was just overpowering. When I walked down the hall I could smell the air vent, I could smell the couch when I sat on it, and on and on. It's like having super acute hearing and it gets to a point where there is too much stimulation and it's extremely painful. I just wanted to talk about that and the fact that I DON'T have that now! I really felt like that was one of the most painful parts of HG. Now, I do smell the water in the bathroom and I never ever walk in the kitchen for fear of smells, but it has not been overpowering and in fact I've hardly thought about it this time.

I have also been able to truly manage my HG for the first time.

I am not vomiting every day, I've only vomited a few times so far. With the first two pregnancies, they were terribly managed. I didn't understand the need to take zofran AND something to control nausea so I was severely dehydrated. I couldn't swallow pills at all, barely ate and drank was bed ridden for 3 months and ended up looking like a starvation victim. Ketones off the chart with all 3 of last pregnancies but didn't go to hospital, we do homebirth and honestly I'm afraid of hospitals, never been in one and afraid they are more concerned about liability than me. I explain that only to contrast with this pregnancy, which has been so different- very little vomiting, I eat every meal, nausea is present and I am in bed most of the time because of it, but I use two things to manage it- b6/unisom and an alternative therapy, PM me if you want to know which. I struggle with dehydration simply because I find all types of fluids very painful on my stomach, but it has been manageable. In summary, I am starting to think the L-Histidine did it. I have noticed when I miss taking it, I feel like those are bad days and sometimes I don't know if I'm imagining it but feels like the sniffer turns on a little. He said it helped other women with severe vomiting and nausea. If you want it you have to order it from a Dr. My Dr's name is Dr Sherfey in Monterey TN, just google it, he has a website. He is the best Dr I've ever met, he was insanely thorough when testing for my postpartum thyroiditis a few years ago. To be honest, he had several different ideas for fighting my HG but I didn't follow through with them like I should have because big life events kept coming up and it just sort of got away from me. When we talked and I told him I was pregnant earlier this year, he sort of reprimanded me for not getting around to it because I was suffering so bad in the pregnancy a few months ago. If you do end up calling him to consult just know he has a really wierd phone etiquette, quirky. But he was an ER OB/GYN for decades.

If anyone is still reading at this point, I'd be surprised, but I want to add one more theory or possibility. If it is not the L-Histidine, there could be another explanation. My sister-in-law got pregnant and I was out of state and not around, but from what I understand she had HG, though she never called it that. She was on Zofran but she threw up every day at work multiple times at her desk from the beginning of pregnancy all the way to the end, up to her delivery. She gave birth and then she got pregnant right away (Quite literally-- conception took place 3 weeks later! They were newlyweds before the HG kicked in). In this second pregnancy, she was not sick AT ALL. I was absolutely stunned. So, I am wondering if I am not as sick because I conceived right away as well (during my first ovulation cycle after the miscarriage was complete.) I'm going to post a poll after this to see if anyone else has conceived directly after birth or m/c.

The only other thing we've changed or done differently is the alternative therapy but I haven't been taking that every day, some days I take unisom/b6 instead.