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Chrissy's Story
Chrissy Shaffer experienced acute
postpartum symptoms immediately after her son Marlow was
born.
She was manic for two weeks,
followed by a severe depressive crash. “Pendulum swung
pretty hard,” she says.
She also had PUPPS during
pregnancy (Pruritic urticarial papules and plaques), a rash,
which can spread over most of the body. After the child is
born, it is supposed to go away. For Chrissy, it didn’t and
served to exacerbate her symptoms and caused her to visit
the ER.
The antihistamines she took in an
attempt to control the PUPPS itching caused an adverse
reaction; she became hyper instead of sleepy. She stopped
sleeping. Stopped eating. Talked incessantly. “It was like I
was on amphetamines for two weeks,” she says. “I was
obsessed with cleaning. Obsessed with knowing how everyone
was doing and telling everyone how I was doing. I just
couldn’t shut it off.”
Her husband tried to help and
wanted an answer to the problem, but there was no answer for
Chrissy. “I just wanted someone to say, yes, that sucks. I
was so out of it. High. Magnified and pissed at everyone.”
Within the two week period,
Chrissy’s mom called the midwife but she was [un?]able to
reach her directly. The doctors she did speak with
prescribed sleep medicines. One particularly bad evening,
Chrissy called the office afterhours and got only a message
instructing her to call the pager or dial 911 if it was an
emergency . “I thought it’s not emergency, I just have rash,
can’t sleep and don’t know how to breast feed.” But it was
so horrible that she went to the ER.
“I told them I was manic and had
a rash. I said ‘manic,’ like thirty times, and they treated
my rash by giving me steroids, which made me even crazier.
The nurse said the drug might make me jittery. And I
remember lying on table in the ER twitching like I would
fall asleep but not, just twitching.”
A couple of days later, Chrissy
saw her midwife, who saw how horrible she looked physically
and emotionally and sent her to a psychiatrist and a
dermatologist.
Her mania developed into a deep depression.
“I wanted to just lay in bed. I
didn’t sleep. I just laid in bed.”
At three months, it was a little
easier. It became a little bit better, and she finally saw a
pinprick of light.
“Now it’s totally awesome, and I
enjoy being around my baby.”