Pregnancy and Tourrettes

[jennm8877]

Hi there!  I am almost 32, and have been on medication for Tourrette's for about 10 years now.  My husband and I are meeting with my neurologist in August to discuss our options for pregnancy.  Based on our past discussions, he would prefer that I am 100% off of my tourrette's medications before stopping our birth control to avoid any possible birth defects if we are to get pregnant quickly.  I am looking to hear from other women with Tourrette's that are pregnant, or have had children, to see how they dealth with it and the how their medication was monitored.  I am on pretty strong levels of Clonidine (0.2mg BID) and Celexa (40-mg BID) so I am fearful of how the tics will be when we start weining.

Any ideas, suggestions, articles, etc...are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jennifer

[vakitty2]

I was on Orap when I was 12 for Tourettes, I went off it 2 years later.  I followed suggestions to go to the bathroom in school or at work, somewhere where I could be alone.  Then, whatever twitch I may be having I would perform over and over until I physically tired that muscle/nerve group enough that I could go another 45 mins or so before I would twitch again.  
Recently, I'm now 33, my sons phychiatrist(ADHD) told me that tourettes is caused by a problem with neurotransmitters.  There is a urinalysis that one can get that tests for the neurotransmitter problem. The psychiatrists name is Dr. Charles Parker and he practices in Va Beach, Va.  He has alot of siminars on U-tube and so forth. I would suggest you look him up on U-tube and see what you can learn from that.  Maybe there is a way the nuerotransmitters can be stimulated without medicine to "cure" tourettes.  I just recently found out and I havent looked up the info myself yet.  I will be on vacation for a week so if you reply to this, I will get back to you then.      

[SueGre]

I have TS and my husband and I saw an OB who specializes in high risk pregnancies before we started to try to conceive. I take 4 mg Orap and 60 mg Celexa. On meds, my tics are very minimal or gone, and off meds, I'm a wreck. The doctor said there is very little data on pregnancy and Orap, so he just didn't know. With Celexa I think he said there can be some respiratory issues with the baby after it's born. Overall, the doctors decided the benefits of taking a low dose of my meds would be okay. Because my tics are so awful off meds, the docs agreed that the benefits of a low dose of my meds would outweigh the risks. I reduced the doses of both my meds. I took 2 mg of Orap and 20 mg of Celexa when I was pregnant. Sadly, we lost our baby at 20 weeks gestation, due to a rare chromosomal problem, so we don't know what, if any effects of the meds there might have been had the baby been born.

Hope this helps :0)

[Marte313]

You could have botox injected into the the muscles that tic instead. Since that works locally it wouldn't have an effect on the child.