From: dsegelho@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Diane Segelhorst)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: Inderal, pregnancy, & migraine
Date: 17 Apr 92 12:42:09 GMT
Reply-To: dsegelho@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Diane Segelhorst)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Annapolis Detachment, CDNSWC


In misc.kids, connie@sushi.psych.nwu.edu (Constance Stillinger) writes:
>
>My doctors okay'ed Inderal during pregnancy, but said that the baby
>would have to be observed for a couple of days after birth for possible
>bradycardia (slow heartbeat) and slow breathing---I guess until the
>stuff works itself out of Lena/Isaac's system.
>
>Now that I'm pregnant, though, I feel a LOT less "migrainey." I hear
>that migraines can go away during pregnancy (I wonder if they come back
>after the birth?) I need to ask my doctor whether Inderal gets into
>breast milk, and if so, explore alternative migraine control
>medications after Lena/Isaac is born.

Well, I had the opposite side of the story, but some things I learned
from my neurologist may be of interest.  In my case, I was not a migraine
sufferer prepregnancy.  (I had had maybe 3 migraines on my life - plus
occasional bad headaches that I guess could be called milder forms of
migraines, but nothing that Tylenol and a nap wouldn't take care of.)
During my middle trimester, I had daily migraines.  They weren't crippling
go-to-bed or I'll vomit, migraines, but they made life miserable.  Finally
my OB sent me to a neurologist (actually I saw two different ones) and
they said, after numerous tests, that yes indeed my headaches were migraines.
However, they wouldn't give me anything!  They said if my migraines
were debilitating, they would try some medication.  Each said they had
had pregnant women on medication who delivered with no complications,
but no study had definitively proven any of the medications to be safe.
(Personally, I got the impression that there had been inadequate research
in this area, and neither of them knew of any patient who had had problems.)

In any case, here is the interesting info I learned from one of them.
Migraines are caused when the smooth muscle tissue surrounding the blood
vessels in your head (primarily) contracts, and then relaxes.  It is
the relaxing that causes the headaches.  I guess it is because the blood
vessels are no longer receiving the support of the muscle tissue that
they are used to.  Anyway, the uterus is made up of the same type of
muscle tissue.  The hormones which cause the uterus to relax so it can
enlarge as the fetus grows MAY cause the muscles surrounding the blood
vessels in the head to relax, which is apparently what was happening
in my case.  Too much of the hormone was being produced, and it "leaked"
over to other muscle tissue.  Another scenario, for regular prepregnancy
migraine sufferers, is that this hormone is regularly being produced.
In some cases, when this person becomes pregnant, there is no increase
in this hormone level; it is just redirected to the uterine muscles.
So their migraine incidence MAY decrease.

The good news, for those people who get middle trimester migraines,
is that in many cases, these migraines stop during the third trimester.
I know mine did!  I went from daily migraines, to only one a week, to
none, within the period of only 3 weeks (weeks 24-27).  In fact, when
I went to my OB for a regular checkup, he mentioned that for many
women, the third trimester was more uncomfortable, and not to worry
if I started feeling worse than in the previous months.  I was honestly
able to answer that I felt great, much better than I had felt for months!

Diane Segelhorst
dsegelho@oasys.dt.navy.mil
Mom to Brad, 20.5 months, and ???, -7 weeks




Diane Segelhorst
dsegelho@oasys.dt.navy.mil