Welcome, Lindsayduca! Thank you for sharing your story!

Fyremon: I am also so sorry to hear about your daughter! I too presented a similar situation. I think that sometimes the symptoms of HELLP can be brushed off as not a big deal or, "well that is normal for any pregnancy." I must admit I even did this myself as a critical care nurse. I had severe URQ pain and a general feeling of malaise the week before my son was born. The pain in my URQ worsened it began to be painful to breath. I finally informed my doctor only 2 days before my son was born and she insisted on working me up for a pulmonary embolism. I convinced her that my case was not such but I would come in anyway. At the hospital everything appeared normal although no labs were taken. I went home and dealt with my discomfort. Not long after I came back in labor. I was hoping for a natural birth but at 8 cm with my son sunny side up I requested an epidural. At that time the resident refused to do the epidural as my plateletts were too low (55,000). I thought I was loosing my mind as labs continued to come back abnormal. EXCEPT I was not spilling protien in my urine nor did I have high BP! My labs continued to drop for 12 hours after my delievery. Ultimately my son and I were ok after an extended stay in the hospital. BUT my point in this response is that NO your BP does not need to be elevated nor do you have to be spilling protein into your urine AND trust your own instincts.

Fyremom, I remember reading about Bri's death. I'm so sorry you had to find us under those circumstances, but welcome, and thank you so much for sharing your knowledge here.

Welcome, fyremom. I'm so sorry to hear of your daughter's death. Thank you for sharing her tragic experience in the hopes that it could help others.

You do not have to have high bp nor protein in your urine. I know as my daughter, Bri, died of HELLPS on Sept 13, 2009. I believe that she was not diagnosed because her dr said her complaints were typical of first time moms!!! Don't let your doctor tell you this. CHANGE DOCTORS. I know of a woman who changed dr's at 9 months because hers would not listen to her!!!!
We do have a beautiful grandson. (Dr failed to notice that part of his bladder was outside his body! He will be fine after a few more surgeries). She ended up, after a week, being flown to *** Clinic, had a liver transplant and died two days later as her brain pressure could not be controlled. We donated her kidneys and she saved two lives.
So, she did not have high bp and no protein in her urine. Good luck.

Yeah, the idea at this point is that all of these conditions stem from implantation failure followed by release of relevant substances into the bloodstream and a predisposition towards placental failure - and the terminology hasn't caught up to that yet. They adopted "gestational hypertension" as an umbrella term in the year 2000 or so, which drives most people crazy because that's naming the whole set of conditions after a downstream symptom that not everyone gets!

I never had high BP with my HELLP until well after the HELLP was underway and my son was already born. I "skipped" the PE beforehand and just went straight to HELLP. It doesn't seem to be that common, but there are some of us on here who had no protein in the urine or high BP before the HELLP. I did, however, have a LOT of swelling. This is yet another scary thing about HELLP - you hear about it as a severe complication of PE, yet you can get it without having PE first!

i didnt have high bp or officially pre-e by diagnostic criteria but my docs both consider hellp=severe pre-e.

HELLP stands for Hemolysis, Elevated Liver enzymes, Low Platelets. Technically that's all you need - and you can even have partial HELLP, with HEL but not LP, or HLP, or ELLP...

But no, you don't need elevated bp.

You can have HELLP without high bp. Some women develope HELLP without PE.