Epilepsy, pregnancy and giving birth

Re: Epilepsy, pregnancy and giving birth

Submitted by BeeJay1 on Mon, 2013-03-11 - 19:47

Hi there, thanks for your question. Sorry this is way too much information, but I hope if I put it all out there, you'll take out of it what you need, I'm pointing out the different reactions I had to different drugs - might be different for you. The ***** comments relate to babies. All the best with it : ) BeeJay MEDS IN ORDER - TEGRETOL CR (aka CARBAMAZEPINE) 11 years on this - My first epilepsy drug; was good at controlling seizures. Initially too high a dose - I felt dizzy, stumbled around quite 'out of it', which was gross. But the lower dose was fine, I felt normal. It managed seizures ok, unless pills were missed. I did have auras that were quite strong. (Didn't know that these were mini-seizures.) Side-Effects: Not quite fully normal cognitively; hated the mind fog, and poor recall of words. (The tip of the tongue thing - but words would NEVER come to mind later, whereas they used to.) Auras on this drug were physically/ mentally unpleasant and uncomfortable. It felt like a wave of something crawling under my skin and loud sounds in my ears. I probably should have had a little higher dose to stop the auras, but since I didn't know they were mini-seizures, I did nothing. Later the dose was raised when my specialist explained. I was cautious though. ************************************ Had my baby while on this drug and they didn't seem too concerned, on a fairly low dose. They may have increased it slightly, since my body was coping with growing the baby, but I can't remember now. For me it had no problems at all. Someone else posted online they had also been on it and had no problem with their baby, pregnancy, etc. My son was fine and very healthy, it didn't affect breast-feeding or anything. Would highly recommend it if you can take it. The only caution was to not trigger stress or a seizure at time of birth, but that depends on what is the cause/ trigger of your seizures. The C-section was fine for me. LAMOTRIGINE (aka LAMICITAL) on 1 year - Switched to see if could improve memory and brain-fog. It did improve word-recall, but still some memory problems. (Did not know if it was meds OR damage from seizures by then.) The auras were far more pleasant on this drug, slightly dream like, not as physically irritating. Side-Effect: The problem for me was the auras increased a lot. Too high a dose probably affected my memory, so after showing my specialist the Aura record, was switched to Keppra. (Sadly, after ending the drug, found out the pharmacist gave me a generic brand, on which, auras worsened. Wish I'd realised it earlier.) - Recently read this drug can lift the mood of depressed people. I felt fairly okay emotionally, coped with life. KEPPRA (aka LEVETIRACETAM) 2+ years - This seemed okay initially, during the first few months I had bad depression, so was put on CITALOPRAM. It didn't seem to help. If anything life was more AWFUL. I thought feeling low, was about job and personal stress. Life continued becoming MORE flat, depressing, pointless, I lost interest in life and relationships; was angry, tired, unmotivated, couldn't cope with parenting, decisions or even preparing meals, it was all too much. It was very out of character. I slept a lot! I left the job but it didn't improve. I didn't know I had PMS. I rarely exercised then either, I ate too many sweets. After a year, I went off the anti-depressant (Citalopram), thinking that was the whole problem. Withdrawal was revolting, worse than normal depression. My tiredness improved a bit, but I was still 'flat', bored with life, excited by nothing, sick of the drudgery, had no interest in people. I began exercising by walking more which helped somewhat. Side-Effects: Shortly after starting, I noticed I would bite my tongue during sleep/ dozing. (Never happened before.) On this drug memory and word recall were ok. The auras were well-controlled, but physically they felt unpleasant and irritating. Still I just couldn't handle the lack of caring, that a heavy cloud was over me. (Some personal issues that got resolved improved my mood a little.) I tried to remain on as low a dose as possible, without any auras. I learnt through Online Forums that other people felt flat and demotivated on this drug. I pinpointed the beginning of this lethargy matched the time I'd begun this drug. I worried about my mental state. (Tip: Breathing - make sure your breathing isn't causing more auras. When you breathe into your lungs, instead of your diaphragm, it causes light-headedness or hyperventilation, and starves your brain and body of oxygen. I do believe it contributed to my auras. So retrain to breathe properly if you're not. My auras improved.) *******************************I would be very wary of taking Keppra myself during pregnancy, because of the potential effect on mood and mental health. LAMOTRIGINE/ KEPPRA - current (Mar 2013) - 4 months + Because of the 'flat feeling', specialist agreed to go back to LAMOTRIGINE. As I increased the Lamotrigine, memory problems resurfaced. I kept missing letters out of words, or typing a different word than I meant to. The same on paper, sometimes missing a whole word. (NOT normal prior to this med.) Because of the memory I didn't go fully onto Lamotrigine yet, I've stayed on both - Keppra 750gm + Lamotrigine 50gms(morning and night). It seems to strike a reasonable balance between the two. My auras are much less, tend to be shorter and more euphoric, pleasant, seldom are they physically uncomfortable. Side-Effect: my recall is slightly worse regarding events coming up that I need to attend, bills to pay, jobs to do on a certain date. Was mildly there before, but now is irretrievable. (Using Calendars, notes, reminders to prompt me, otherwise I will not remember it at all. I let people know my short-term memory may be affected by medication, as I can forget conversations more easily.) When changing to this new regime I began taking a Multivitamin, Magnesium, Vit B complex and Fish Oil supplements. This boosted my mind and energy. Mentally I feel better, more motivated to be active and able to cope.