The makers of Lamictal were right when they said that estrogen containing drugs could cause Lamictal blood plasma levels to be decreased by up to half. We are suddenly scrambling to increase Caroline's Lamictal dose as fast as we can because she has slid into a bad depression since starting the Loestrin for her skin about a week ago, but we can only go up so much at a time since going up too fast can cause a potentially fatal rash, Stevens-Johnson Syndrome. So we have to go up by 25mg for one week, then another 25mg the second week, working up slowly to possibly 800 mg from her present dose of 400mg. Of course, we are doing this with the supervision of her psychiatrist. I guess we should have increased the Lamictal as soon as we introduced Loestrin, as the drug literature suggests. Oh well. We live and learn. So many things to keep track of all of the time!!
My husband is so weary of the job search thing. He is normally such a rock, a naturally cheerful, upbeat person, but lately he has been irritable, humorless, snapping at the kids and at me, and just plain down. I guess this is to be expected. Just doesn't help the general mood around here at all. I hope this joblessness ends soon. I want my old hubby back!
4 comments:
I am going to pray for you and your situation. It must be so stressful with everything else going on when your husband is out of work. There is a plan brewing, you just don't know about it yet!
Just wondering is you are taking any steps (if there is even any) to protect your daughters fertility. My daughter is now married but we found out when she was 15 that she has major fertility issues all caused from her epilepsy/bipolar meds. Now I have a 5 year old with epilepsy and I'm seeing a familiar behavior pattern emerging and feel we may be heading down not only the epilepsy road but perhaps BP. We have started meds to control the seizures and eplium is also a mood stabilizer. I know that saving their life is paramount and would not risk that for a moment but I wished I had of asked that question of the DR's back then because oneday these kids may have a 'normal' life and be in a place to start a family of their own. I realise you are still very much in the thick of it like I was when my daughter was that age so it might not even be on your radar yet but I thought I would ask you or perhaps another reader of your blog may have some ideas or faced this issue. the damage done is looking likely to be irreversible so this is a big deal for her. Can i do anything for my younger daughter. I'm not getting much of an idea from the dr's.
Donna, I didn't know about the connection between the epilepsy meds and fertility issues. Thanks for informing me and others out there. Like you, we feel that her mental health is more important than her future fertility, and we do feel like her life has been saved by these meds. The thought of her being unable to conceive makes me sad, but I have also been very concerned about the risks of her having her own children, from the impact of these life saving meds on unborn babies, and on the impact of not taking these meds if she is pregnant. And since bipolar disorder has a strong genetic component, I worry about her own kids being bipolar and how hard that would be to raise your own bp kids while being bipolar. We have kind of hinted to her that she may want to adopt in the future. Obviously, that will be her decision, but she needs to know all of the risks of being bipolar and pregnant and raising kids.
Thanks Sarah!
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