MTHFR

[blessedmomma]

Anyone else have MTHFR and on baby aspirin, lovenox injections, and progesterone injections?

 

[MissMarpleFan]

Yes, tho the Lovenox is for my factor v, and they had me on progesterone suppositories not injections.

 

[blessedmomma]

Yes, tho the Lovenox is for my factor v, and they had me on progesterone suppositories not injections.

I'm on progesterone injections, suppositories, and oral pills! I'm wondering if you have any tips for the lovenox shots. I've heard horror stories and we pretty much have the progesterone shots down as good as can be. But I'll be doing the lovenox shots myself and I'm not exactly thrilled with that.

 

[MissMarpleFan]

I'm on progesterone injections, suppositories, and oral pills! I'm wondering if you have any tips for the lovenox shots. I've heard horror stories and we pretty much have the progesterone shots down as good as can be. But I'll be doing the lovenox shots myself and I'm not exactly thrilled with that.

Have you done a lovenox injection yet? Where do you inject the progesterone shots?

Here's my lovenox routine:

1) Mark calendar with time given (I try to do it around 7pm - be consistent with whatever time you choose, give or take an hour) and side of belly button injected (R or L)

2) Wash hands and use hand sanitizer

3) clean area to be injected with rubbing alcohol and cotton ball or little alcohol prep pads if they give you those at the pharmacy

4) open back of container holding shot

5) While standing in front of mirror, get a good healthy pinch of fat/skin with your non-injecting hand. Avoid being within one inch of your belly button because it will sting more if you are too close.

6) Using your dominant hand, insert needle into pinched skin at a 90 degree angle -- in other words straight in.

7) Plunge in the medicine. Some people say it stings less if you do it slowly, I like to get it over with quickly. It does burn/sting, but it doesn't really hurt that much once you're used to it.

8) Deposit the needle tip in one of those sharps containers for safe needle disposal (my pharmacy gave it to me) and throw the rest in the trash

9) Here's my secret weapon to handle the bruising, one intern who saw my belly couldn't believe how small and faint my bruises are -- ARNICA GEL. Rub arnica gel all over the prior bruised areas and the new injection site. It feels cool and soothing. You can use the arnica a few times a day if you want.

https://www.amazon.com/Boiron-Analgesic-Shoulder-Arthritis-Ingredient/dp/B00EEEFUZI

This is a natural over-the-counter medicine that heals bruises faster.

I am very used to doing this, it's old hat to me now. I won't say I ENJOY it, but no horror stories here. Sometimes I "mess up" an injection and I get a big bruise, other times I guess I get it perfect and there is almost no bruise. You will learn. Angle of entry and getting a good pinch of belly fat is key to a "perfect" injection.

I hope you found this helpful & I'm happy to answer any questions you may have!

 

[blessedmomma]

Those sound like awesome tips!

I haven't done the lovenox yet. They are getting my insurance to approve it. I just found out Friday I'll have to do them. They said if it takes too long to get it approved I'll have to do heparin for a while, but they want me to start out on lovenox and not have to switch. So I'm assuming if it's not approved at the beginning of the week I'll have to start with heparin. The progesterone shots are done at the top of my buttocks every 3 days. It's intramuscular so much deeper. I heard horror stories about it as well and so far it's not too bad. Hopefully with the tips this won't be bad either! Thanks so much!!!

 

[blessedmomma]

I have arnica on hand already so that's great to know!

 

[MissMarpleFan]

Re insurance: I had to pay about $180 per month from the regular pharmacy, but from the mail order pharmacy preferred by my insurance (Blue Cross & Alliance-Prime-Walgreens) I pay $15. The heparin I’m switching to next week costs $27 from mail order.

The $180 really hurt but felt worth it after 3 miscarriages.

Those progesterone shots sound painful! Are they supposed to be a lot more effective than the suppositories?

 

[blessedmomma]

Wow that's a huge difference in price. Thanks for letting me know. I'll check into the mail order pharmacy.

From the research I've read taking them orally works the least. Most of the medicine is filtered out by your liver and the rest leaves your system in about 6 hours. The shots increase the amount circulating in your blood much higher than any route, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are the best. It does stay in your system much longer which is why I only have to do them about twice a week. The suppositories dont raise your blood levels much, but they know they raise the amount in your uterus much better and stay in there for about 48 hours. The suppositories are seen by most drs as being the best because they are absorbed right where they are needed. My dr likes doing all 3 routes because it covers all bases.

 

[MissMarpleFan]

How much folate do you take?

I take a prenatal with 1mg of the methyl-l type and I’m also taking a 400mcg folic acid supplement per the doc. My reading on mthfr suggests I can’t metabolize that regular folic acid, and also that my metformin (for pcos) may be further inhibiting my absorption of B vitamins (great).

My doc doesn’t seem to take the MTHfR seriously, just talks about my factor V Leiden as the culprit.

 

[blessedmomma]

I take 1200 mcg or 1.2 mg. I wouldn't take any folic acid at all. With mthfr it can stop how much folate you're actually getting. I try to even make sure my diet doesn't have much in it.

It's sad drs don't take it seriously or even have much knowledge about it. I have just found a dr that knows everything about it and can give me accurate medical knowledge for it. I have been tested for most of the other clotting factors and they've all been negative. But I've lost 6 babies and almost lost many of my other children due to mthfr. If I don't use baby aspirin before conceiving I always have a blood clot by the placenta. And those clots have caused IUGR, PROM, placental abruption, pre-eclampsia, low amniotic fluid, and several other complications including miscarriage. This is the first dr I've ever had that has put me on lovenox.

Do you happen to know which mutation you have? I'm heterozygous A. It's supposed to be the one that causes the least amount of problems, but obviously it has caused a ton for me. My current dr has told me I'll be on baby aspirin for the rest of my life or I'll have increased risk of stroke, heart attack, and other blood clot related deaths.

 

[MissMarpleFan]

I’ve been told by at least 2 doctors that my Factor V is the real problem, and that I’m only at risk of blood clots while pregnant and can stop taking the baby aspirin after (but I can keep taking if I want). I do the expensive prenatal with the methyl version of the vitamins because of my own research.

I am compound heterozygous for MTHFR and also heterozygous for my Factor V.

I’ve been told during a couple failed pregnancies pre Lovenox of some clots near placenta but never had a clotting incident other than that — and I smoked cigarettes and took birth control for years! I don’t know if I’m lucky or the doctors are right.

 

[blessedmomma]

I've had 9 babies and 6 mc's and I've never had any problems except when pregnant. As we get older though the mthfr will impact health more and that's when we will be at risk for the bigger problems. I also smoked for many years, quit for the last 11 but I smoked for around 8-9 years. Do you use Ben Lynchs website? He is amazing! He would beg to differ from your drs. I have went through so many drs and heard this minimized so many times. I think we need to remember that drs are people too and form opinions sometimes even based on very little knowledge. I had an ob that seriously said I bled with every pregnancy because that's just normal for some women! She didn't offer to test for anything because she decided it was normal! And after I lost a healthy baby at 15 weeks and they found blood clots in his placenta which obviously killed him my maternal fetal medicine specialist told me he couldn't test me for clotting disorders because there were too many and they'd never get done... he is a freaking specialist!!! I just happened to be on baby aspirin to dissolve a blood clot in my arm from an iv while delivering my baby at 15 weeks when I got pregnant again and for the first time ever didn't bleed in pregnancy or have a blood clot by the placenta. The mfm specialist just said, "well maybe its helping so you could stay on it if you'd like." Say what??? Of course it was helping! I asked a dr after him to test me and he said it was a common genetic mutation and therefore wouldn't cause any problems. It wasn't until my last miscarriage (this last october) that my new dr suggested she run a panel of clotting disorders based on my history. I was blown away and said isn't there too many to test for? She laughed and said we will start with the ones that affect pregnancy the most. Wow, why didn't the specialist think of that??? I'm so thankful to have a dr that's knowledgable about mthfr I can't even describe how elated I am! Finally someone knows their stuff!

 

[blessedmomma]

Recurrent Miscarriage and MTHFR | Proof is Here - MTHFR.Net

I think this article from ben lynch would be beneficial to you if you haven't seen it before. He says factor v is associated with miscarriages the most and mthfr is the second most associated according to the cdc. And the research on mthfr has it's issues because they don't compare diet and environmental differences which would have a major impact. Since if someone was getting sufficient folate and other b vitamins in their diet instead of folic acid they would obviously not have the same health issues as someone who was not. And since mthfr causes our body to not be able to detox toxins as people without it do, that would cause a big difference if someone was exposed to more heavy metals, cleaning agents, etc. Their health would naturally be poorer than someone with mthfr who was not exposed to a heavy amount of toxins.

It's also important to know that blood clots are not the only way mthfr causes problems. Folate is needed in all of our cells and problems can be expressed in so many ways. And miscarriages are caused from an array of problems that could be related to mthfr besides having a blood clot.

Oh and I wanted to thank you immensely for your tips and your routine for lovenox! I had to start them on Monday and I think it's nowhere near as bad as I imagined it would be. I do have a couple bruises but it's not bad. My mind had it built up so much worse lol. Now maybe after a couple months I may change my tune, but it's ok for now.

 

[MissMarpleFan]

I did see that Dr. Lynch website, some of it seems really extreme to me, especially since I don't have any of my doctors that take MTHFR seriously. I could probably ask my GP to run some of the blood tests like homocystine level and if I have heavy metals in my blood, but it feels like Dr. Lynch is saying everybody with this gene mutation should have all of their dental fillings pulled out, avoid all kinds of food, etc. I'd at least want to know I was really experiencing problems or blood levels indicating such actions. I did use the provider finder, and the few in my area seemed kind of like "quacks" to me and were not MD's.

As we are both heterozygous, we should be able to process some folic acid, just not as well as people with no mutation at all.

I am planning to stay on on my prenatal with the methyl Folate and B12 even after I'm done breast feeding, unless I find a similar multivitamin, I don't see how it could hurt.

I'm really glad I was able to help with the injections! See the other lovenox thread for my latest on Heparin injections.

 

[blessedmomma]

I dont do anything to the extreme. I know that some of my food is fortified with folic acid and being that I'm heterozygous A I don't really pay much attention to what's in my food. If I was homozygous or heterozygous C I might pay more attention. But then I don't eat a lot of breads and cereal and that's the main ones. I won't ever add folic acid in my supplements though. I figure they add plenty in food and not knowing exactly how much my body can process without it blocking the real folate that I need I dont chance it.

I think ben lynch suggests all the things that could potentially cause problems for mthfr individuals, and being that so many people have it, there are many things in life that we dont think about. I haven't looked at his list, but being that I've dealt with several md's that have been wrong about this and many other things I've realized that they aren't as knowledgable as we would like them to be. For instance, when I breastfed my first baby I kept having pain and went to the dr who said I had thrush. She gave me several rounds of antifungal meds before researching myself and found out I have reynauds phenomenon. I've also had a dr that was intrigued that I hadn't started my cycles back while breastfeeding and ran blood work. Then called me back in and told me she was concerned with my low hormone level. When I asked if breastfeeding was what was causing that from prolactin suppressing them, she said perhaps. Lol. Or when I had mastitis the first time and my husband had to literally carry me in to a dr because I was so weak and my temp was so high and showed him the red lines on my breast and he decided I must have had the flu and reluctantly prescribed me antibiotics when I insisted. And after I had my first 2 kids I was told by several drs that I was infertile and would not be able to get pregnant again. I've had 7 since then not including my miscarriages. I'm thinking they dont know everything haha. I could go on and on. I guess at my age and having had to deal with drs enough, the md behind their name doesn't increase my trust in them. And medical error being the third leading cause of death in America doesn't help for me lol. I've personally never had an nd or a chiropractor, but I do know lots of people who use them and are very healthy people.

I'll definitely be staying on my methylfolate and b12 as well. If you do have high homocysteine levels that will lower it. I don't plan on testing for them or really anything else. Unless I have any additional problems of course.

I'll check out your other thread!

 

[blessedmomma]

Just saw how far along you are!!!! Baby will be here in no time. Are you beyond ready?

 

[MissMarpleFan]

Just saw how far along you are!!!! Baby will be here in no time. Are you beyond ready?

I'm pretty darn uncomfortable and tired, but I'm also scared!

I keep thinking of that quote from Gone with the Wind "I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies" (or taking care of them either!)

She's probably safer right in my belly!

 

[blessedmomma]

I'm sure you'll do amazing taking care of her!!! Those natural mama instincts will kick in. Do you have any plans for how you'd like the birth to go?

 

[MissMarpleFan]

I'm sure you'll do amazing taking care of her!!! Those natural mama instincts will kick in. Do you have any plans for how you'd like the birth to go?

Well it’s a planned induction, which seems very common for Lovenox mamas. I’d like to get my epidural and have it go fairly quickly and not tear!

My second cousin once removed (my dad’s cousin’s kid’s kid) was born recently and I saw on Facebook that his mom was in labor for 37 hours! We’re not close enough for me to ask why. Lol. Our kids will be third cousins.

 

[blessedmomma]

I hope it doesn't last long for you! My first was about 16 hours. The rest have all been shorter. My 6th was 39 minutes from first contraction to birth! He was in a hurry I guess. You'd think it would be nice, but it's actually a lot more painful and terrifying. I kept telling them to get me the epi and they were in no hurry. Think they already knew it was too late lol. My best without an epi was probably my 8th. Was about 2.5 hours. Usually it's about 6 hours for me if I'm induced and get the epi.