So you are pregnant (or have just recently given birth) & have a strange rash that began around your belly button & spread outwards? (And Intra-hepatic cholestasis/Obstetric Cholestasis of pregnancy, herpes virus & other similar conditions have been ruled out).
It itches & stings like you have been rolled in a bed of nettles, whilst simultaneously being stung by a swarm of angry wasps & had hot lava poured all over you?
Your doctor or midwife has told you it's PUPPP (Also known as polymorphic eruption of pregnancy PEP) & that there is no cure?
Medical practitioners have fobbed it off as something, or nothing?
Health professionals involved in your care have claimed that steroids will help (but they don't really)?
You've been advised that any number of topical treatments will soothe it (but they either are ineffective or make it worse)?
Consultants/Obstetricians have told you that the best they can do is induce your labour to shorten your suffering by a few weeks (!!!)...?
Welcome to the crazy, painful, maddening, sleep depriving, skin-tearing-off, itchy-like-you-just-can't-believe condition.... with a name many medical professionals can't pronounce themselves... or do not know about... or refuse to diagnose... Known as:
Pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy. (PUPPP)
Also known as polymorphic eruption of pregnancy. (PEP)
Nobody can believe what this condition is like who hasn't suffered from it... It's a hellish thing.
If you're anything like I was, you will have spent hours on the internet reading through pages upon pages of opinion & conjecture about it's causes...
You will have empathised with the hundreds of women on forums who, like you, have been told by doctors that it's cause is "unknown" & that there is no cure...
And you probably will have shed many tears of frustration between those of agony, believing you will have to endure this until you either go into labour or are induced.
You may, as I did, have tried many, many creams & home remedies that others have claimed gave some relief.... and pondered about whether it's worth risking the funny little concoctions described on those alternative medicine sites... or resigned yourself to the fact that you are going to have the most miserable pregnancy or earth, with little to no sleep & potentially permanent scarring.
NO MORE... THERE IS A 'CURE'!!!
And you are going to be gobsmacked when I tell you that it's one of the most common things you have ever come across....
The humble DANDELION!
YES! THAT'S RIGHT!... DANDELION!
I tried them all... the shop bought creams... the cooling salves... the skin thinning steroids... the oatmeal washes.... Also the special soaps... the homeopathic remedies... The ice packs... The cool showers...
I spent months unable to put on clothes & shivering at night because it was just too painful to have even the lightest of cotton sheets upon my skin... Scratched 'til I bled... Cried bitterly long into the sleepless nights... And pondered if it was really worth risking my baby's health by allowing myself to be induced...
But after many nights of research... many weeks of experimentation with everything I could find suggested... and many different health 'professionals' ill founded opinions of causes & cures bearing no fruit.... I decided I would do the unthinkable & try that whacky, 'alternative' medicine cure I'd heard whisper of in some corner of the internet.
It took a couple of months to perfect the dose (I developed PUPPP at 19 weeks gestation, so I had plenty of time to get it right)... but eventually I found a way to hold the fire at bay.
Here it is:
Tincture of dandelion ROOT & LEAF (Taraxacum officinale)... (not the capsules of dried root, unless you can't find anything else, as they only work a little)... The tincture! AND LOTS OF IT!... Most tinctures say about 15-20 drops taken three times a day... I found that I needed about 30 drops every 4-6 hours... If I left it any longer I could literally see & feel the rash re-appearing in a very short space of time.
(You will find that most commercially available preparations say 'Not for use whilst pregnant or breastfeeding'.... It says this on ALL herbal remedies... It's a standard precautionary principle but has no sound scientific basis because herbal remedies are rarely tested by mainstream science... The only real contraindication is for people with Gallstones... If in doubt consult a herbal medicine practitioner... but if you're really suffering, like I was, I suspect you may wish to try it anyway).
Also... this stuff tastes yuck!... I found it was most pallatable when mixed with another drink.
I was using lemon juice at first... but when I told my herbal heath practitioner this I recieved a strong telling off... Dandelion is a liver cleanser... so is Lemon. Together they are too much, especially at the dose you're going to need for this to be effective. Dandelion on it's own is a safe liver cleanser because it contains high levels of potassium, which replaces that which is lost as your liver is purged.
The reason this stuff works....?
As PUPPP is not harmful in the long term to either mother or baby, research is thin on the ground as to either causes or cures... but if you spend enough time looking there are some likely causes emerging through scientific study of how pregnancy (the carrying of one human life inside the body of another) effects both the baby & the mother's DNA.
Since
mainstream medicine claims it doesn't have a definitive answer to the
causes of PUPPP rash then it's quite hard to come to a definitive answer
of why dandelion works. I'd hazard a guess that since the liver stores & expels toxins from around the body, this might include a certain amount of the migrating fetal DNA too.
PUPPP is commonly touted as mainly occurring in first pregnancies, multiple pregnancies & pregancies where the foetus is male... Whilst this may be statistically accurate, none of these were true in my case. (4th pregnancy, single pregnancy, female baby). So do not be fobbed off by medical practitioners who claim that it can't be PUPPP because due to one of the above risk factors not being present, it's not statistically likely.
Doctors who have not kept up with the latest findings in DNA research will tell you that it's possibly caused by hormonal changes. It is not!
Whilst these can certainly make an inflammatory response more acute, it is emerging that the most likely cause of PUPPP rash in mothers is THE FATHER'S DNA Via THE BABY! ( In overly simplified terms, you're allergic to your own baby because of the father's genes)...
You may now turn to your partner & give him that hefty slap you were putting off until labour!
But really ladies DANDELION!
It is the only thing that *GETS RID* OF THE RASH!
Don't expect your doctor, obstetrician or midwife to approve though... Even if they've heard of it working (& most haven't) they will tell you that they cannot recommend herbal remedies, or that they do not believe you... or they will scaremonger & tell you you're taking a risk with the health of yourself & your child (If they do this politely ask them to point you to the peer reviewed research that *proves* that Dandelion can cause harm- I bet they can't).
As
far as topical preparations go, none of them worked to get rid of the
rash... and some (such as Aloe- which is normally so soothing) actually
made the pain much worse... However I found that Zinc & Castor Oil
cream helped to dry out the hives & gave some pain relief in the
very short term & that the Oatmeal wrapped in a piece of porous
cotton material was about the only thing I could bear to wash with &
it did make my skin feel nice & soft afterwards.
Good luck.
PS: If you can't get hold of tincture... or capsules... find yourself some pesticide free roots & leaves from the garden & steep them in hot water. Also effective but you'll need a fair few & it's a bit of a faff.
