my baby is stealing my meds

[LMReggcellent]

And it's a little too early to hide my meds because Baby is not supposed to be born until January. My tonic clonics have been controlled for fourteen years, but then I turned twenty weeks pregnant. I've had three tc seizures in the past two months.

I've been taking lamictal alone for a couple years and it's not hurting my baby. My neuro has just added 200mg of oxcarbazapine again, I took that many, many years ago and I stopped just because it didn't work. I've gone from 400mg bid of lamictal to currently 650mg bid because Baby just will not let me have it! I'm due for another blood test and level check next week and if things continue my level will have gone down again and my rx will go up another 100mg.

All of my baby appts have gone well so far, we're both growing and changing like we're supposed to. My baby doctor and neuro have worked together before, even regarding this issue. So whenever I have a tc seizure I'll come into L & D to get a nst test. I've done that twice now with awesome results, everything is okay. I didn't do that once because I hadn't received orders yet. My latest ultrasound shows that Baby has no sign of being affected by this drug. Our biggest concern these days is keeping my level where it's supposed to be at, and also the possibility that Baby will stop taking it and my level will suddenly skyrocket. Has this happened to anybody else?

*my child's name is Baby. I'll find out if I should use He or She in January.

 

[KarenB]

It may not be so much that baby is taking your meds as that your pregnancy is affecting your metabolism.

Some individuals (not pregnant) metabolize their meds at abnormally high rates -- our son is one example. Even when getting extremely high doses of Valproic Acid (Depakote) by IV, his blood levels were still not at therapeutic levels.

Pregnancy affects many aspects of metabolism, so that's probably why your med levels are low on blood tests and seizures have reared their ugly head again.

Praying that the last trimester will go well for Mom and Baby -- keep us posted!

 

[Nakamova]

Lamictal is known to be negatively affected by estrogen: Estrogen increases the clearance of Lamictal by inducing the liver enzymes involved in its metabolism. The estrogen surge varies form person to person, but some folks (like you LMR( can end up with sub-therapeutic levels of Lamictal, with seizures as the result. As estrogen levels gradually rise over the course of pregnancy, the clearance of lamotrigine may increase by as much as 200 to 300 percent. So your doc needs to check levels frequently and adjust accordingly. You also need to start tapering down on the Lamictal after the delivery, because your estrogen levels will also be dropping at the time, and you want to avoid being on too high a dose.

Hope things even out for you and go well for the rest of your pregnancy (and afterwards too, of course!)

 

[LMReggcellent]

Thanks for the responses. I'm not worried about raising the lamictal because I've been on as much as 900mg bid before, so I know what I should expect. But side effects got me too much at that dose so I reduced it and got on some other thing at the same time. The only thing I'm concerned about is the lamictal causing the vertigo as much as it did back then, it's starting to already but only for an hour after I take them. I'd rather not be on bed rest for 2 hours after I take my pills again like last time. But there's a clinic not too far away and it's pretty easy to go there every two weeks to get my blood drawn and level checked.