Pregnancy Rash

It's a last trimester pregnancy rash called P.U.P.P --- Pruritic Urticarial Papules of Pregnancy. 70% of pregnant women who suffer from this rash carry a boy and it breaks out during the last trimester of a pregnancy. 1 out of 200 women suffer from P.U.P.P and unfortunately, I was 1 out of 200.

I was on my 32nd week when I started having stretch marks on my tummy. Something i did not really freak out about. I was pregnant, it was natural and there were very little of them. But then I started experiencing a weird itch on my tummy, right where my stretchmarks were. I didn't really pay attention, i just scratched when i itch, thinking it was my skin stretching. That was until I noticed small wheels on my tummy, wheels that looked like mosquito bites. It itched like crazy, I ended up with scars below my bellybutton.

After a week, the rash started appearing on my legs and I thought that it would stop there. Oh but it didn't. The rash eventually spread to my thighs, arms, legs, even my hands and feet. Only my back, neck and face were spared. I'd wake up crying in the middle of the night. I drove my husband crazy asking him to fill the tub with ice so I can dip myself into it to numb my skin, which makes the itching stop ---- for about 10 minutes. In short, 85% of my body itched 24 hours a day.

I suffered from this morally damaging rash until my 38th week. It disappeared almost instantly an hour after I gave birth to my son via normal delivery.

When i still had it, I religiously saw my dermatologist everyweek for a checkup. Although there's really no cure for P.U.P.P, except to give birth to the baby (the baby's male DNA is the allergen), she had to do something to help control the itch. She worked hand-in-hand with my OB-Gyn to make sure that whatever medication I had to take would do no harm to the baby. They both let me take steroids starting with 20mg once a day during the first big rash breakout. They took the dosage down to 10mg and then to 5mg as my due date neared. Honestly, the steroids did not really help. Nothing did.

Now, looking back, I am glad that phase is over. It actually made me kind of a stronger mom, like i can take on anything. Of course I'd rather not go through that again, but it's okay that I did. Another reason I'm Spider-Mom. ;)