My relief for PUPPPS

nhasni

Hi everyone, I am so sorry if you've been experiencing the awful, rare pregnancy rash known as PUPPPS. I had it twice and I will share with you what I did below the second time basically CURED it. I'll give a little history (sorry for the lengthy post) but want to let you know that you are not alone in the suffering. Here it goes...

I learned about PUPPPS when I was pregnant with my first son back in 2016. I was 37 weeks pregnant and felt a bad itch at the bottom of my belly. I looked in the mirror and it looked like red bumpy hives, almost like a bunch of insect bites. Within days, it spread like wildfire all over my body: my stomach, arms, legs, back, all the way up to my neck. I had it on my fingers and feet. It was awful. My OB prescribed me a Z-pack, I put Sarna cream all over, calamine lotion, used Grandpa's Pine Tar soap, drank V8...nothing provided much relief. Teatree oil helped the most - just rubbing it all over the rashes. But again, that was only temporary - maybe for an hour max. I couldn't sleep, eat, go out. I cried and cried. I was going to be induced to deal with the rash but ended up going into labor and had my beautiful son. The rash was there, healing, but still itchy, even post partum. I ended up going to a dermatologist who miraculously had experience treating it and she prescribed me a steroid cream to help. The cream but the rash was on it's way out at the point - close to 1.5 months after arriving. One thing the dermatologist told me was if I happen to get it in future pregnancies, to call her and she'd put in a UV light box a few times a week to control it and perhaps eliminate it. And then, 2 years later, I got pregnant again!....

During my second pregnancy, I made sure to take Vitamin D as a supplement each day (I read that PUPPPS could be caused by a deficiency in D). So this was preventative. I ate clean, avoided too much meat (read another theory that PUPPPS could be caused by strain and toxins the liver needs to break down), and limited caffeine. But week 31 of my pregnancy, I felt and saw some itchy red dots around my stomach - not a lot - just a few. But it was the beginning of PUPPPS again! So I panicked but also kicked everything I read into action: Dandelion tea, no meat, no caffeine, NO SCRATCHING. I called that same dermatologist as the bumps started spreading and took the first appointment I could get. She walked in and within seconds said “yep, that’s PUPPPS alright!”. Right away, she got me in the UV light box in her office and told me to come every two days and stand in there for anywhere from 45 seconds to 3 minutes. It would be totally safe. On top of that, she prescribed to a tub of steroid cream called Triamcinolone Acetonide Cream 0.1%. That was safe too for pregnancy. She advised me to slather that all over the affected areas twice a day. So I continued drinking the dandelion tea (twice a day), V8, limited meat, and went to her office to stand in the light box twice a week and applied the cream twice a day. I even went on vacation and during that time, went to a tanning salon and laid in the tanning booth for 2 minutes  (advised by my dermatologist). All of this together WORKED! Within days, I felt relief, less itching. Rash areas did appear but not too many and went away after a couple of days and the itching was not as severe. The rashes appeared as bumps, itched for a day, went away, then appeared in different areas of my body: spots on my arms, my boobs, my neck, my back, my legs. But they didn’t appear simultaneously, and went away after coming out for a day or two. It was totally manageable. I’m convinced the light therapy + the steroid cream + dandelion team did the trick. After week 36, the rashes were GONE EVERYWHERE! No new ones appeared! I had my second boy who’s perfectly healthy and happy week 38. He’s now almost 8 weeks old, and I’ve had NO MORE RASHES.

So that’s my story. I hope this helps anyone out there.