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Ectopic pregnancy
Hi all,
I need to tap the vast knowledge of this group. I am currently 5w6d pregnant. On Friday, 5w3d, I went to the doctor and she made a sonogram on which she could not find the baby. She checked the HCG levels and they were over 2,000. The doctor assumes an ectopic pregnancy, maybe. I have another appointment today but I'm restless and scared. I am also overdiagnosing myself -- I feel pricks and stabs everywhere in my body. However, I don't really have any pain. I feel nauseous, exhausted, hearburn-y... my usual pregnacy symptoms (I have two healthy boys already) but no pain -- I read that pain from ectopic pregnancy is really bad. Two questions: Who has experience with ectopic pregnancies and can tell me more about them? The webpages are so... medical. They don't help me at all. What are the symptoms, how much do they vary, when is rupture possible? And then, who had the experience that in early stages the baby couldn't be found and then everything turned out all right? (Naturally, this is the one that I'm most interested in!!) TIA and best wishes to all, Claudia |
#2
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Ectopic pregnancy
"Claudia" wrote in message om... Hi all, I need to tap the vast knowledge of this group. I am currently 5w6d pregnant. On Friday, 5w3d, I went to the doctor and she made a sonogram on which she could not find the baby. She checked the HCG levels and they were over 2,000. The doctor assumes an ectopic pregnancy, maybe. I can't speak from personal experience, but I have read that the rule of thumb is that a sac should be visible when HCG 1000. That may be why your doctor has mentioned ectopic as a possibility. See, e.g., http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...PubMed&dopt=Ab stract&list_uids=89285165 Did they do a transvaginal ultrasound? Or just an abdominal? That would make a difference. If and only if you have an ectopic -- Ectopics, if that's what's going on, can be in your fallopian tubes or much more rarely, in the abdomen. Fallopian tube pregnancies eventually rupture -- which is very dangerous, causes a lot of bleeding -- if they are not terminated. There are ways to terminate early and save the tube -- using an abortion pill to stop progesterone production, for example. This carries benefit to you, because you will have 2 tubes to try for your next baby. They can also go in surgically, which may please the doctor because it's more conclusive immediately and thus more llitigation proof? But that damages or removes the tube. It's your decision. Abdominal pregnancies are also highly dangerous, but because the baby can sometimes reach viability before something horrible happens, (which never happens in a tubal pregnancy), sometimes mother and baby are healthy after the dangerous operation to deliver the baby without having Mom bleed to death. Fallopian tube pregnancies would not necessarily cause pain until the sac/placenta/embryo was big enough to start stretching the tube. Sometimes, maybe no pain until rupture. I am so sorry you are going through this. This sucks. I wish they had a way to transplant the baby into the uterus. Ectopics are horrible. Dagny |
#3
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Ectopic pregnancy
"Claudia" wrote in message om... Hi all, I need to tap the vast knowledge of this group. I am currently 5w6d pregnant. On Friday, 5w3d, I went to the doctor and she made a sonogram on which she could not find the baby. She checked the HCG levels and they were over 2,000. The doctor assumes an ectopic pregnancy, maybe. I have another appointment today but I'm restless and scared. I am also overdiagnosing myself -- I feel pricks and stabs everywhere in my body. However, I don't really have any pain. I feel nauseous, exhausted, hearburn-y... my usual pregnacy symptoms (I have two healthy boys already) but no pain -- I read that pain from ectopic pregnancy is really bad. Two questions: Who has experience with ectopic pregnancies and can tell me more about them? The webpages are so... medical. They don't help me at all. What are the symptoms, how much do they vary, when is rupture possible? And then, who had the experience that in early stages the baby couldn't be found and then everything turned out all right? (Naturally, this is the one that I'm most interested in!!) TIA and best wishes to all, Claudia What type/level of ultrasound did they do? A trans-vaginal U/S shows more than an abdominal one early (but is not the most pleasant experience), and a high-level one shows more than a regular one. Here's hoping that the baby is just hiding, but is where he/she's supposed to be. |
#4
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Ectopic pregnancy
"Claudia" wrote in message om... Hi all, I need to tap the vast knowledge of this group. I am currently 5w6d pregnant. On Friday, 5w3d, I went to the doctor and she made a sonogram on which she could not find the baby. When I was 5 weeks pregnant with my twins, I had absolutely crippling abdominal pain in the middle of the night. We got up and went to the ER, assuming a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. They could not see anything, however - no sac, no nothing, not in the uterus and not in the tubes. They COULD see an absolutely enormous corpus luteum cyst, which had apparently leaked some fluid but not ruptured entirely (I was told by a nurse this could not happen, but as the cyst stayed enormous for months, I think she was wrong.) Anyway, I was told that ectopic pregnancies cannot be seen, and do not tend to rupture, until 7 weeks or so. I was referred for further follow-up appointments. At 7 weeks, we did see the pregnancy - in the uterus as we hoped - but there were 2 of them (which was not at all what we had hoped! But we got used to it!) That's what I was told at any rate. I hope for your sake that the fetus cannot be seen merely because it is still too small - but that it is where it belongs. --angela |
#5
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Ectopic pregnancy
Hi Claudia. (I love your name!)
We were discussing this at work last night... Ectopics can be detected as early as 3 weeks in someone with a very sensitive tube. The pain from an Ectopic pregnancy differs to (for example) appendicitis in that ectopics cause bowel pressure. (even small ones) If you do have an ectopic and it is in the tube, you would be feeling pain (enough to make you sweat!) and bowel pressure. If there is no pain, perhaps you don't have an ectopic? I hope so! Good luck! Jo(RM) |
#6
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Ectopic pregnancy
Donna wrote:
What type/level of ultrasound did they do? A trans-vaginal U/S shows more than an abdominal one early (but is not the most pleasant experience), and a high-level one shows more than a regular one. Here's hoping that the baby is just hiding, but is where he/she's supposed to be. I think it was a regular level one, and it was trans-vaginal. Thanks for the good wishes, they seemed to have helped: we found a tiny something INSIDE the uterus at the ultrasound yesterday. It's still kind of small for age but, as my doctor said, some people have to be at the end of the bell curve to make a bell curve. Best news is, of course, that it's inside. Next check-up is Thursday. Thanks for answering and also thanks to the very detailed post from Dagny which was very helpful and informative. For some reason, I cannot answer to your post directly but I did want to say thanks. Claudia - much less agitated but still worried, a bit |
#7
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Ectopic pregnancy
"Chotii" wrote:
When I was 5 weeks pregnant with my twins, I had absolutely crippling abdominal pain in the middle of the night. We got up and went to the ER, assuming a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. They could not see anything, however - no sac, no nothing, not in the uterus and not in the tubes. Huh. Interesting. Now I don't feel so bad about the tiny something anymore (see my previous post). Anyway, I was told that ectopic pregnancies cannot be seen, and do not tend to rupture, until 7 weeks or so. I was referred for further follow-up appointments. At 7 weeks, we did see the pregnancy - in the uterus as we hoped - but there were 2 of them (which was not at all what we had hoped! But we got used to it!) :-) That actually sounds lovely to me at the moment. That's what I was told at any rate. I hope for your sake that the fetus cannot be seen merely because it is still too small - but that it is where it belongs. --angela We've got reason to hope that now, thanks! And thanks so much for writing back, it helped a lot to know this! Claudia |
#8
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Ectopic pregnancy
"JoFromOz":
Hi Claudia. (I love your name!) Thanks! (I'm German and it's a common name around here -- I don't get too many compliments on the name, so I appreciate it quite a bit!) We were discussing this at work last night... Ectopics can be detected as early as 3 weeks in someone with a very sensitive tube. The pain from an Ectopic pregnancy differs to (for example) appendicitis in that ectopics cause bowel pressure. (even small ones) If you do have an ectopic and it is in the tube, you would be feeling pain (enough to make you sweat!) and bowel pressure. I didn't feel much pain and after the ultrasound yesterday -- where we found a little something inside the uterus -- that little pain subsided too. (My doctor friend Natalie told me I was over-diagnosing...) Your post did reassure me quite a bit, thank you so much for that! I'll keep you all posted on what we find on Thursday. Hopefully, it will all turn out all right. I'm glad and lucky to have escaped the ectopic but this roller coaster of emotions and fear were no fun, either! Best to all and thanks again to all who answered! Claudia |
#9
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Ectopic pregnancy
On Mon, 31 May 2004 04:55:26 -0700, Claudia wrote:
Two questions: Who has experience with ectopic pregnancies and can tell me more about them? The webpages are so... medical. They don't help me at all. What are the symptoms, how much do they vary, when is rupture possible? I have no experience with ectopic myself, but I do know that a lot of pains can be normal in the first weeks of pregnancy. And they can get very intense too, even worse than my normal period-like cramps. From what I heard and read, if you have an ectopic, the pain becomes truly excruciating at one point. Furthermore, your hCG levels will not double within the usual 48-72 hours at this point, but slower. Was your u/s transvaginal? If not, they would not have seen anything, since it's too small at 5w3d. If it was, it can still be a close call to even see the gestational sac. You will not see the embryo until you are ~6w along, and even then it's hard. Your hCG levels are well within normal, but that doesn't say much, you need two tests to confirm a viable pregnancy. And then, who had the experience that in early stages the baby couldn't be found and then everything turned out all right? I know at least one person directly who was even operated on to remove an ectopic, and then it turned out she was just too early to see anything on the u/s. She was literally rushed into the OR since she had quite a lot of pain as well. She is now almost 11w along, so far with a healthy baby (the operation usually has no effect on the pregnancy). -- -- I mommy to DS (July '02) mommy to three tiny angels (28 Oct'03, 17 Feb'04 & 20 May'04) guardian of DH (33) |
#10
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Ectopic pregnancy
"Claudia" wrote in message om... Donna wrote: Thanks for answering and also thanks to the very detailed post from Dagny which was very helpful and informative. For some reason, I cannot answer to your post directly but I did want to say thanks. Don't mention it, I'm so glad they found something in your uterus. Crossed fingers. Dagny |
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