Uric acid in blood

[Vickyjayne]

Hi
I developed Hellp at 37 wks, me and my son are lucky to be alive. He was born via emergency c sec at 37 wks- 5 lb 9
I was constantly ignored! I was suffering from high bp, protein in my urine, Epigastric pains, severe bleeding from a tiny cut on my finger- I basically felt like I was dying. I went through absolute * from wk 35. My son was always small and was being monitored. I had a lot of scans to check he was growing properly. Once I got to the hospital I was immediately put on magnesium sulphate. My diastolic bp was 114!
What's odd is I had been at the hospital very poor just 18 before, showed symptoms of pre eclampsia
But most notably I had uric acid in my blood. We're they wrong to send me home?
I can honestly say that I feel as though I know what dying would be like. I was scared to go back to the hospital in fear of them saying "silly woman stop complaining"
Was the uric acid a sign of Hellp coming?
I am incredibly frightened for next time. All tests for underlying problems came back clear.
All I will be given is baby aspirin. I still suffer from trying to get my head around what and why it happened. 11 months on!
Anyone else had uric acid in their blood prior to hellp?

Do hospital staff really understand hellp or could things be done better? I feel here in the UK it's not ferrous properly and this could mean mothers/ babies will end up dying

[Lee2011]

**HUG**

I'm also in the UK and have just downloaded forms from the hospital to request full medical records of the 9 days surrounding the birth of my son, you should be able to do the same. I am planning to start trying again next year and am planning on first speaking to my GP (after having read my notes) and I am then likely to be placed under consultant care and on aspirin (which seems to be the default medication for all sorts of pregnancy things!).

I was lucky enough, that although HELLP was picked up late, the consultant at my hospital had seen it before and once it was picked up (weird symptoms meant that it wasn't their fault it wasn't picked up earlier) I received very good care. Could you ask if any other local hospital has a consultant who specialises or who has seen HELLP before and request to be placed under them? I have found that very few non-specialists know much about HELLP, hence my mission to equip myself with as much general and me-specific information as I can before anything else.

[Vickyjayne]

How would I go about getting my medical records?
Thanks for any help you can offer me

[Lee2011]

I just googled the hospital name and request records and it came back with:
http://www.epsom-sthelier.nhs.uk/contac ... h-records/

At worst you'll have to phone someone, but by law they have to release them to you (mine makes you pay for the copying though!)

Let me know if you have any success.

[Vickyjayne]

Will give it a shot thanks ever so much!
Where in the UK are you? I'm in Greater Manchester.
There certainly are NO hellp specialists at the *
hospital!

[tree]

I hope you have good luck getting your medical records. Reading through mine helped me process what had happened when my daughter was born. It sounds like you were very sick, and you had almost every scary red-flag PE/HELLP symptom in the book. It is impossible to say whether your doctors made a mistake sending you home because this disease can move so quickly. While it is possible that they did, it is also possible that you got much sicker in hours. Many of us would probably be more comfortable being monitored in the hospital when things start to go bad, but that isn't always possible or prudent. I am glad that you and your son are ok now.

Many women have elevated uric acid levels when they develop pre-e/HELLP. I don't think that it is considered a "hard indicator" of HELLP, but many doctors do monitor it. They are primarily looking for hemolysis, low platelets, and elevated liver enzymes. I think that my uric acid was also elevated, but pretty much all of my values were off by the time I actually went in for blood work.