Sick & Pregnant - NOT COOL!

So, I knew it could happen, I was just hoping with the extra vitamins it wouldn't. But hey, no one's perfect right? I've had a pretty sparkling health record lately (except for a few extra lbs, of course). Paul tends to be jealous as, being a teacher, he inevitably get's deathly ill at least once a year.

I was a little surprised when on Saturday morning I woke up and did not want to move. I think all of the extra stress and work with our Welcome Christmas concerts finally caught up with me... I was stuck with a CRIPPLING sinus headache. That's it. Really. Not such a big deal, but when you're pregnant and your body is already working overtime, something as stupid as a headache can put you in bed all day.

The worst part about being sick while pregnant is the usual cough, cold, sneezy, stuffy, feel better stuff is suddenly completely unavailable to you. The stuff they allow you to take is basically Tylenol. That's really it. So I took one and managed to make it through Saturday and Sunday. Today, however, my symptoms have worsened and I've now woken up with a sore throat. Not, good. :(

So a call into the doctor and I had my VERY short list of what I could buy (BTW, I'm glad I mentioned my pre-natal vitamins, the woman who called back didn't even realize I was calling because I was pregnant. That's comforting.) With a quick stop at the townhouse to meet an inspector (we're now licensed renters, hooray!) I headed to my local-chain-store-taking-over-the-world pharmacy.

Now the drugs they give you are not easy to find. After 10 minutes of searching and with the help of a clerk I found the one I needed and went up for a pharmacist consult. (Interestingly enough, she was showing herself.) So she looked up the active ingredients and discovered that one of the 2 was a "class C". If you aren't familiar with the pregnancy classifications, see Wikipedia. Basically, A and B are okay, C they don't really know, D could be bad (they think), and X is one to stay away from (that's not obvious or anything, they might as well have made it "Mr. Yuk" classification.) Also, this pharmacist has her own opinions about my doctor's "safe" list - she says they list the drugs that they've used with other patients and didn't have adverse affects. Again, comforting.

But hey, it's on the "safe" list and you should trust your doctor. Plus, I'm out of time here. So I got that one and some sore throat lozenges and proceeded to work through another blizzard (another 8 inches, supposedly).

Upon getting to work, I did a quick internet search - we all know how this goes. Some sites say it's okay, some sites say it's not. Who do you trust? So, I put in a second call to the doctor, who called back and confirmed it was okay. So I took a dose (yes, they said the full dose was fine too). I almost immediately felt better - Hooray!

By the end of the day (which due to the blizzard was only 3pm) my symptoms had returned. :( Still feeling miserable, but now with cramps (are they growing pains or something worse?) I didn't feel like chancing another dose. So now I'm worried that I've f-ed up my baby by taking some class C medication. About an hour worth of internet searching later with little results (except the realization that some of the info was from 2006), Paul finally pulled me away for dinner and convinced me to call the nurse line for our insurance.

I spoke to a nice lady who said that this one was classified as B. I had her confirm the date that was given and it was copyright 2010, so I'm going to trust it and stop worrying. Although I think I'll still try to stick it out without taking another dose unless I have to. They sure know how to scare the crap out of people on the internet, though. I guess I should have learned this the first time.