Cutting my Dose

Just a note - when I found out I was pregnant, on 5/28/11, I cut my dose in half; from 50mg bid to 25mg bid. Now I HAVE to get a neurologist.

I'm suddenly not so worried about seizures in pregnancy. My brain is bathed in progesterone, having an anticonvulsant effect (versus estrogen's pro-convulsant shenanigans), and I'm sleeping all the time. Like exhausted, nearly drove off the road tired. If anything is a risk to my pregnancy, it's pregnancy itself... and my epilepsy medication. It's one of those things that a mother will fret over until the end of her days, "What if he's behind? What if that poison I took during pregnancy affected her for life?"

I read on Mayo clinic (on their very general article on anticonvulsants, for which lamotrigine does not typically fit with biochemically) that some minor changes may occur such as a wider brow... you mean like in Downs and Fetal alcohol syndrome? That's fine, it's probably just cosmetic - continue taking your pills. If I had a baby inside me with Downs, I might add, I'd love him/her with all my heart... but I'd rather not be wondering if it was my decision to take a pill twice a day that lead to it.


Oh, and I thought about the argument for having a seizure or two off meds whilst pregnant. O.k., so hitting the floor would be bad, especially if you're far along & the trauma triggered a birth response (giving birth during a post-ictal state...hmmm), BUT the low oxygen piece is theoretical based on fear without logical analysis of the situation. Fetal blood optimizes his/her use of your oxygen via myoglobin, which has a huge advantage over our blood comprised of hemoglobin. If I stopped breathing for 2 minutes, I think the baby would grab on to all the oxygen possible with higher affinity... and I'd wake up with a worse headache. If you had 3 seizures a day all throughout pregnancy, that's an issue, but I'd argue even if I had 5 seizures throughout my pregnancy (when I'm awake enough to have one) it wouldn't instantly create the type of pathology taking my medication every day will. With the great advances that happened when babies of epileptic moms started dying and being born with major defects due to folic acid deficiency, sometimes I wonder if I'm not just a number in an unannounced experiment.