Anyone on psychiatric medication?

[kazine]

I'm taking 150mg Lamotrigine and 50mg Quetiapine a day for mood problems and personality disorder.

I am wondering about coming off or staying on medication. How did you make the decision to come off or stay on while TTC? I can end up an absolutely suicidal mess on medication and I was considering coming off when I found out I was pregnant but my GP just advised I come off before TTC. I know I would have to come off anyway as I plan to breastfeed.

Last time I was pregnant I wasn't on meds and I became even more unstable. It's pretty scary being off medication anyway nevermind being pregnant too?

Anyone have any stories?

 

[ricschick]

didn't want to read and run hun I have no experience with this but maybe just talk to your gp more and see what they think. xx

 

[Hoping4peanut]

I went off but was only on 10 mg of lexapro a day. I was too nervous about staying on.

I have a friend though who stayed on her whole pregnancy and breastfeeds while taking it. She just went on safer drugs for the baby. They just switched her to gentle meds.

Is it possible to play around with different meds that might be safer for the baby before getting pregnant? I feel like it's ultimately between you and your doc. Just make sure you are 100 percent honest with them about how being off meds makes you feel.

It has been an emotional adjustment for me ttc without being on them. I have a lot of bad emotional days.

It is a hard decision.

 

[Mrs Pidgey]

I'm on 50mg of Citalopram and i've found out that it would be more detrimental to come off of them especially if i did end up pregnant because of how much it would effect my mood etc.
Maybe speak to your doctor about it? Sometimes the positives of you being on your medication far out way the negative things that can happen.
Hope this helps

 

[DragonflyWing]

I was also on lamotrigine and quetiapine before TTC my twins...my doctor had me come off both medications before I got pregnant. I managed ok through the pregnancy, but I had to go on Lexapro a few months pospartum. I'm thinking I'll have to stick with Lexapro when I get pregnant again.

It's really a decision you and your doctor have to make together. You need to find the happy medium between risk to yourself and risk to the baby. There are several medications that have a long history of safety in pregnancy.

 

[Destiny08]

i was in a severe undiagnosed depression during my first pregnancy and was diagnosed when things got unbeearable when dd was 6 months old. i managed ok during my pregnancy, but it was tough. i was on fluoxetine for 13 months and had counselling and DH and i decided as soon as i could manage without the pills we'd start TTC. Ive been off them since april and doing well!

as PP said though, you do what works for you.

 

[wannabenewmum]

I was also on lamotrigine and quetiapine before TTC my twins...my doctor had me come off both medications before I got pregnant. I managed ok through the pregnancy, but I had to go on Lexapro a few months pospartum. I'm thinking I'll have to stick with Lexapro when I get pregnant again.

It's really a decision you and your doctor have to make together. You need to find the happy medium between risk to yourself and risk to the baby. There are several medications that have a long history of safety in pregnancy.

Sorry to butt in but I notice u said u managed through pregnancy how easily would u say u did that, my doc wants to put me on quetiapine soon and although I am managing I am beginning to struggle crazy thoughts over thinking everything, doing silly things just small things but I know can mean bigger things around the corner

 

[DragonflyWing]

I was lucky...my depression lessened quite a bit while I was pregnant. It wasn't until after the babies were born that it hit me full force and I had to go back on meds. I didn't really have any problems during the pregnancy.

 

[kazine]

Thanks ladies. Of course I would like to try coming off my meds... In my head i wanted to wait til I was pregnant to wean off... But the doctor seems to think weaning off first... Although im on 150mg and to get there I had to go up 25mg every two weeks. thats 12 weeks! I don't know if I can wait that long now that I'm TTC.

What about breastfeeding? Do you all know what the crack is with that? is it an absolute no-no? does it make weaning more difficult?

Just doing some research myself:

" Six nursing mothers who were 6.5 to 18.5 weeks postpartum were taking quetiapine in doses of 25 to 400 mg daily in addition to an antidepressant for major depression postpartum. Milk samples obtained at various times after the dose had undetectable (<11.5 mcg/L) levels of quetiapine in the 4 mothers taking 75 mg daily or less."

Well I'm only on 50mg so that looks promising.

Lamotrigine doesnt look too promosing though
https://www.drugs.com/breastfeeding/lamotrigine.html

 

[DragonflyWing]

My doctor told me that quetiapine was likely safe during breastfeeding with low doses, but lamotrigine doesn't have enough information to determine safety. I'm nursing now, and I take Lexapro as well as zolpidem and occasionally amitriptyline...so those are safe for nursing.

 

[kazine]

What are those meds for? mood stabilizers? I know that lexapro is an ssri

Update: never mind I looked them up. What's it like being on a tricyclic antidepressant? I've only ever tried SSRIs and they were useless for me

 

[DragonflyWing]

Amitriptyline is great for some things...I take it for chronic headaches and insomnia. The only downside for me is that it makes you REALLY tired, so you can only take it at night...and if you take it too late at night, it makes you super groggy in the morning. There's a limited window of time to take it so that I don't fall asleep too early, or feel crappy in the morning...so most nights I end up taking the zolpidem instead.

I started taking the zolpidem because I had to get up in the middle of the night to pump, and the amitriptyline made it impossible because I was so groggy. Now I dropped my night pumping session, so I can take the amitriptyline if I don't have to get up early. These days with two babies that's almost never

 

[kazine]

Haha. Quetiapine is like that for me. If I try to stay awake after taking it, it can be physically painful. if get up too early I feel absolutely ill and feel like I'm gonna throw up. Its a nightmare, though I used to be on 600mg and now I'm on 50 much better!

 

[SweetPotatoPi]

I was lucky...my depression lessened quite a bit while I was pregnant. It wasn't until after the babies were born that it hit me full force and I had to go back on meds. I didn't really have any problems during the pregnancy.

This has been my experience. Both times during the pregnancies that gave me my two boys I was a different person. It was amazing! Loved every...single...second (mostly lol) and I felt so, so good. About a year after each of their births the crazy ramped up again . I'm now figuring out that estrogen dominance/low progesterone has likely been my problem all these years. My depression and anxiety likely went away because of all that super sweet pregnancy progesterone .

 

[DragonflyWing]

I was lucky...my depression lessened quite a bit while I was pregnant. It wasn't until after the babies were born that it hit me full force and I had to go back on meds. I didn't really have any problems during the pregnancy.

This has been my experience. Both times during the pregnancies that gave me my two boys I was a different person. It was amazing! Loved every...single...second (mostly lol) and I felt so, so good. About a year after each of their births the crazy ramped up again . I'm now figuring out that estrogen dominance/low progesterone has likely been my problem all these years. My depression and anxiety likely went away because of all that super sweet pregnancy progesterone .

That's really interesting! How do you think that could be treated?

 

[kazine]

I was lucky...my depression lessened quite a bit while I was pregnant. It wasn't until after the babies were born that it hit me full force and I had to go back on meds. I didn't really have any problems during the pregnancy.

This has been my experience. Both times during the pregnancies that gave me my two boys I was a different person. It was amazing! Loved every...single...second (mostly lol) and I felt so, so good. About a year after each of their births the crazy ramped up again . I'm now figuring out that estrogen dominance/low progesterone has likely been my problem all these years. My depression and anxiety likely went away because of all that super sweet pregnancy progesterone .

That's pretty cool and gives me hope! Though when I was pg before my mc I was a total mess ahaha

 

[SweetPotatoPi]

I was lucky...my depression lessened quite a bit while I was pregnant. It wasn't until after the babies were born that it hit me full force and I had to go back on meds. I didn't really have any problems during the pregnancy.

This has been my experience. Both times during the pregnancies that gave me my two boys I was a different person. It was amazing! Loved every...single...second (mostly lol) and I felt so, so good. About a year after each of their births the crazy ramped up again . I'm now figuring out that estrogen dominance/low progesterone has likely been my problem all these years. My depression and anxiety likely went away because of all that super sweet pregnancy progesterone .

That's really interesting! How do you think that could be treated?

I've been doing some digging around for a minute because the depression, anxiety, extreme paranoia, etc. had gotten out of control again over this past year (I've never been on meds but a day hasn't gone by where I didn't wish I could figure out how to make every day feel like I felt during pregnancy). That, and a slew of other symptoms started making me wonder if this might not be my problem, sure made sense! Here's a post I made in TTCAL where I share just a little of what I've been looking at. I worship at the altar of Vitex . I will also be hitting the bio-identical/natural progesterone when the times come. I think hormonal imbalance has been at the center of various issues for me all these years, the latest symptom being secondary infertility. I feel fantastic right now, even under the kind of stress we're dealing with ATM, which would have made things so much worse before. This information might not help everyone but for me it's been like night and day and I could cry rivers of grateful tears. Hoping and watching for things to continue to improve.

I was lucky...my depression lessened quite a bit while I was pregnant. It wasn't until after the babies were born that it hit me full force and I had to go back on meds. I didn't really have any problems during the pregnancy.

This has been my experience. Both times during the pregnancies that gave me my two boys I was a different person. It was amazing! Loved every...single...second (mostly lol) and I felt so, so good. About a year after each of their births the crazy ramped up again . I'm now figuring out that estrogen dominance/low progesterone has likely been my problem all these years. My depression and anxiety likely went away because of all that super sweet pregnancy progesterone .

That's pretty cool and gives me hope! Though when I was pg before my mc I was a total mess ahaha

Yep, that has been my experience too. With my two pregnancies that ended in m/c's over the past year I felt completely out of control constantly. It was truly awful and I thought I was losing my mind (this was before I knew the pregnancies were going to end in m/c). This fits right into my theory that my progesterone was not up to snuff. Or even if my progesterone was "ok" estrogen was kicking its ass up and down the boardwalk. I even see a difference in my temps. Haven't had follicular phase temps that stable maybe ever and I haven't experienced an O shift like that in years. My temps are up too. There's other improvements I've noticed but feeling like I'm in my right mind is such a huge one for me. It's truly incredible and I'm so unbelievably grateful.

 

[kazine]

I want to try this although it does say " It is not recommended to pregnant women or who want to be pregnant because of the possibility of miscarriage. " :s

I'm a little concerned that I might have miscarried due to low progesterone now? Though my periods have always been regular... though they have lengthened recently and I didn't O until CD20 this month...

 

[SweetPotatoPi]

I want to try this although it does say " It is not recommended to pregnant women or who want to be pregnant because of the possibility of miscarriage. " :s

I'm a little concerned that I might have miscarried due to low progesterone now? Though my periods have always been regular... though they have lengthened recently and I didn't O until CD20 this month...

Yeah, the jury is still out on whether to take it during BF and PG. Did you check out the Jessica Godino and Susan Weed link? And I've looked for the anecdotes of women who have taken it through first tri. The best advice I can find is to research until it hurts and make the best decision you can. I still haven't decided if I will wean off of it before TTC as I don't want to go back to "before". If I'm taking bio-identical/natural progesterone I would hope that's enough but still, I know how I was w/o it and have no desire to play in that sandbox ever again. Also I will resume taking it sometime after birth.

I've always, always, always had regular periods (as in every 26-28 days, give or take). But my cycles have always been heavier than they should be and over the past year the menorrhagia got out of control (bleeding 700+ mL every period is not ok!) and the PMDD had left regular 123 CrazyAss Lane and leaped into a huge abyss of horror. But I'd been dealing with heavy periods my whole life as well as depression and so on. I thought it was normal to feel so whacked out all the time! Isn't that awful? Even after the first m/c my cycle resumed w/o skipping a beat. I never would have dreamed that hormonal imbalance would be where I was going to need to look.

I have also read some women say that the Vitex made their depression worse so I started off slowly and upped it every few days if I didn't see things going south. The exact opposite happened for me and each day I felt better and better.

Definitely not an herb for everyone but when it works for you it's like getting a golden ticket out of hell. Don't freak yourself out Kazine! It could have been any reason at all why the m/c occurred and even if you know this, still, it's not your fault . If you're interested in Vitex though, research, research, research and go with what feels right to you. You may even want to consult with a naturopath. I just went ahead and dove in though b/c the place I was in was unbearable for me.