Birth control and epilepsy meds?

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Wobblez

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Hi everyone,

I hope you're all having a good day!

I'm going to speak to my Neuro about this in mid march but i'm curious to know how you girls deal with contraception and your meds? I'm currently on Lamactil. Apparently if I choose to go back on the pill again (I'm in a new relationship), I'll have to effectively double my dose of Lamactil to maintain the same efficacy. Surely there must be other alternatives, such as progesterone based pills or depo provera that don't interact so much?

Love to hear how you girls get around this issue.

Thanks!
 
I was on depo provera before and after I was diagnosed with epilepsy. I was on the pill before I had epilepsy but the main reason I started taking it was because I would have horrible PMS. Cramps, headaches etc... I also had very heavy periods and even with the pill they were sometimes irregular too.

I was able to start taking the depo provera again after about a month after I was diagnosed.

Both my neuro and gyno said that the depo provera would be ok to take, and I never had any problems with it. I know that PMS can be a seizure trigger for some people and I knew I wouldn't have to worry about that since you don't have a peirod with it.

I'm not sure about messing around with the epilepsy meds when you would take it. They were still trying to get my epilepsy meds strait in general to help control the seizures. I don't know if the depo provara had anything to do with that or not.

I had a hysterectomy in October because I can't have kids due to the epilepsy. They say that there is only a very very small chance that you could get pregnant on birthcontrol and I didn't want to be that one who would end up getting pregnant.

I haven't had any problems with seizures after I've had the surgery and not taking the depo provara any more. I'm still having them but I don't seem to be having any more or less than I did before. I haven't had to adjust my meds in any way either.

Maybe talk to your neuro and/or gyno and see what they have to say about it.
 
i'm on depakote and i didn't have to change my pill at all. when i tried progesterone based because of the lupus, i got super emotional. of course, my birth control use is not for pregnancy prevention lol. its used to control polycystic ovaries so i don't know if that changes circumstances
 
i dont trust doubling the pill, doc told me it might not work! .... i use depo injection bit scared about bone loss tho

o yeah i think the depo makes my side effects worse . not 100% sure tho
 
Hey,

I was told that medication COULD affect the effectiveness if the pill, so I chose depo provera and then implanon - didn't see any point in taking a risk. Plus, I didn't want to add any more pills to my daily diet!
 
Hand of Blood said:
i dont trust doubling the pill, doc told me it might not work! .... i use depo injection bit scared about bone loss tho

o yeah i think the depo makes my side effects worse . not 100% sure tho
Click to expand...

Hi HOB,

I actually meant that if I choose to go back on the pill, the Neurologist told me we have to effectively double my Lamactil dose because the pill lowers it's efficacy. I'm not too keen on pumping even more drugs into my body so i'll look into other options =)
 
Yes, the interactions between Lamictal and the Pill were one reason I opted for an IUD.
 
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