Quote:
Originally Posted by tracy33
It decreases the effectiveness of birth control pills, too.
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Seriously?? Crap! Do you know about the Mirena IUD? I'll have to Google it. I didn't see that warning on the Topamax website, but I only read the "Important Safety Information" stuff, not the full patient insert. Maybe I need to read the whole thing.
I absolutely can NOT afford to get pregnant right now. For SOO many reasons.
Then again...haven't had sex in 5 months, so maybe I don't really need bc anymore...sigh. That's a whole other issue.
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Edited to add: Got this from the full prescribing info:
Oral Contraceptives:
In a pharmacokinetic interaction study in healthy volunteers with a concomitantly administered
combination oral contraceptive product containing 1 mg norethindrone (NET) plus 35 mcg ethinyl estradiol (EE), TOPAMAX®
given in the absence of other medications at doses of 50 to 200 mg/day was not associated with statistically significant
changes in mean exposure (AUC) to either component of the oral contraceptive. In another study, exposure to EE was
statistically significantly decreased at doses of 200, 400, and 800 mg/day (18%, 21%, and 30%, respectively) when given
as adjunctive therapy in patients taking valproic acid. In both studies, TOPAMAX
® (50 mg/day to 800 mg/day) did not
significantly affect exposure to NET. Although there was a dose dependent decrease in EE exposure for doses between
200-800 mg/day, there was no significant dose dependent change in EE exposure for doses of 50-200 mg/day. The clinical
significance of the changes observed is not known. The possibility of decreased contraceptive efficacy and increased
breakthrough bleeding should be considered in patients taking combination oral contraceptive products with TOPAMAX®.
Patients taking estrogen containing contraceptives should be asked to report any change in their bleeding patterns.
Contraceptive efficacy can be decreased even in the absence of breakthrough bleeding.
So if I'm reading it correctly, it has someting to do with the estrogen. I'm using the Mirena IUD which has progestin-only. Do you think I'm safe? How can I find out? Like I said...a baby is NOT an option at this point in my life!! I guess I can just ask my husband to start using condoms again.