Kate Middleton and Amy Schumer suffered from severe morning sickness. This women’s health platform wants to cure it

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Fifteen years ago, I was pregnant with my first child and became very ill. Everyone referred to it as “morning sickness” – even though it is a difficult condition – but I knew it was more than that. I was constantly vomiting and had little strength. Opening my eyes, getting out of bed, and putting clothes on my body was like the most painful thing I’ve ever done. Some days, I couldn’t do it at all.

After the first trimester went by and I was still losing weight, my illness was finally acknowledged at the doctor’s office. Before, my complaints were met with mere head nods. I was told that the illness is completely normal, and that pregnant women experience varying levels of nausea – no one really knows why – but that there is no need to worry. By week 18, I had lost more than 20 pounds, which prompted the nurse to double-check my chart. “This can’t be true!” She said as she stood on the scale and waited for something to click. Finally, I was given a prescription for nausea which enabled me to keep down food and water.

Since then, I’ve learned that my affliction has a name: hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), or severe morning sickness. And while 18 weeks is a long time to vomit profusely — it feels like an eternity when it feels like it — my case of HG was much milder by comparison. Over the years, I’ve talked to many women who were hospitalized intermittently throughout their pregnancy, or even had to have feeding tubes placed in their stomachs to deliver nutrients. I have also spoken to women who have lost pregnancies due to the disease.

However, many people still do not even know what HG is. Celebrities like Kate Middleton and Amy Schumer brought some much-needed attention to the disease after they were exposed to it, but the condition has been devastatingly understudied, and thus extraordinarily misunderstood.

However, this may finally be starting to change because someone – not surprisingly, a woman who has suffered from the condition herself – has researched and found answers.

Go to the why

Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Marlena Viso, a geneticist at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, was pregnant with her second child and so sick with HG that she was unable to move without vomiting. Ultimately, her condition led to the loss of the pregnancy. Even during her intense suffering, doctors told her that the nausea was in her head and even stressed that she should seek care.

After that experience, Figzo got to work, devoting the past two decades to studying the disease. “After my battle with HG, I searched medical journals for information about why I had the disease, and came up empty-handed,” she says. Fast company. Given her personal experience, she realizes how important this research is to ensure that women do not continue to be “dismissed” by their providers. She wanted them to have better treatment options than IVs and Zofran, which, for many women, have little to no effect.

Those decades of research have paid off. Last year, Viso published her findings in the journal nature. The study confirmed that the GDF15 hormone was responsible for some women developing mercury. The amount of hormone circulating in a woman’s blood during pregnancy, and the extent of her exposure to it, will determine the extent of her illness. Women with HG had significantly higher GDF15 levels during pregnancy compared to those who had no symptoms.

The research also provided an interesting introduction. According to the study, women with a rare blood disorder, which gave them high levels of the hormone before pregnancy, rarely experienced nausea during pregnancy. Essentially, they were less sensitive to the surge of pregnancy-induced hormones because they were already exposed to high levels of it. The case that exposure therapy can be more effective is supported by promising laboratory tests in mice, which lost less appetite to the hormone after previous exposure.

The birth of Harmonia

Thanks to Viso’s research, there will undoubtedly be a greater understanding of the factors surrounding mercury, such as its causes, and even just that it is real. But for Viso, that was just the beginning. Next, she wanted to develop practical treatment plans that could help women experience safer, healthier, and less debilitating pregnancies.

Fejzo is now co-founding a new women’s healthcare platform for HG patients called Harmonia Healthcare, along with Leslie Gautam, who will serve as president while Fejzo will be chief scientific officer. Harmonia will become the first-ever treatment center for hyperemesis gravidarum when its first location opens its doors next month in New Jersey. The second location will arrive in New York later this year.

Care will be advanced. Viso says it will combine “the latest functional medicine treatments with science-backed decisions.” She explains that care will take place on an outpatient basis and will include infusions, electrolyte replacement, medical care, diagnostic blood tests and home support. But another important mission for Harmonia will be to “find new ways to identify people most at risk from mercury, and… [playing] A critical role in clinical trials that test new ways to prevent and treat mercury based on the root cause.

Despite her pioneering work, it was not lost on Viso that the cure took a long time to arrive. She says this is partly because health issues that primarily affect women have not been adequately studied. “Women have historically been underrepresented in health care,” she says. “Many women’s cases are still in the dark ages when it comes to understanding the root cause and ways to diagnose and treat them.”

As for me, four years after my first pregnancy, I fell ill again during my second pregnancy, and this time I had a little baby to chase. Because I knew what to expect, I started treatment a few days after I found out I was pregnant. But early on, the disease was so strong that medication had no effect.

In the fifth week, I started vomiting profusely. I was terrified. For four months, I ate cookies and occasionally sucked on frozen fruit. I wore SeaBands around my wrist and chewed ginger, sprinkling drops of lavender everywhere (to this day, I still hate the smell of lavender). None of that helped, but fortunately, once I reached the 18-week mark, the medication finally enabled me to not suffer.

As a woman who has been baffled by the lack of a cure for HG — just as Viso was during her pregnancy — she feels dark, helpless, and hopeless. It’s terrifying to be sick when no one around you has answers. Now, I can’t help but feel so grateful for Viso’s dedication to a cause that will help many women—maybe one day, even my daughter—never feel trapped in such darkness again.

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