Breastfeeding & migraine medication

[FluffyDonkey]

Went to see a migraine specialist today after years of migraines which are getting worse, and any migraine medication (propanolol, lopressor, nocertone...) I take is not working. To give you an idea, in 2010 I had 46 migraines...

Am currently 3 months pregnant so can't take any migraine medication. Specialist says my migraines should be less frequent during the 2nd and 3rd trimesters but that they will come back after the birth.

He said there are one or two migraine medications that can be taken whilst breastfeeding but that I may end up having to choose between breastfeeding and migraines...

I know that I may not be able to breastfeed etc. but ideally I would like to try.

So (finally) my questions :

1. have your migraines come back after birth?
2. are you able to take a treatment (ie. a daily preventative medecine) whilst breastfeeding?

bump

Hi there. I suffer from migraines and take imigran for them. I was very lucky in that I did not have any when pregnant and now my baby is five weeks old. I cannot take the imigran and have been told I would need to formula feed for eight hours after taking a pill and pump and dump the milk in-between. I have only had one migraine since giving birth and I just suffered through it. I will now do the pump and dump routine. I hope that is of some help.

My migraines got more frequent in my first trimester, but less painful (I used to always throw up with them, but I didn't when I was pregnant). Didnt get one after my first trimester until very recently (baby 7 months), and again, it was of the non pukey kind and I just gave baby to DH and slept it off (normally I would take imigran and codeine, then sleep it off).

I get migraines and hardly had any during pregnancy, and only 1 major one. Probably partly because I was far more careful about not getting dehydrated, letting my blood sugar drop, getting too stressed - and had more regular specialist massage!

They have returned since the birth though. I take Imigran for them (no preventatives other than specialist myofascial release massage) and have made the decision that the benefits outweigh the risks for me (my GP tends to take my input heavily into account, but this may be because I work in healthcare so understand how to evaluate the risks as far as is possible).

This may help:

Kellymom info on migraine meds
Treating a Migraine When Breastfeeding
Motherisk info on triptans

afterivf - the advice you were given is very flawed as you can see from the above links. If I were you, I would re-visit this topic with your doctor. Fwiw, the BNF (British docs book on meds) is notorious for being overly cautious and unhelpful in discussing meds for pregnancy and breastfeeding. It tends to follow manufacturers advice (which is always a long way on the side of over-cautious so you can't sue!) rather than provide evidence based information on the risks so that informed decisions can be made.

Thanks

Will look at the links

To add to japhrimel's excellent info - LactMed (the US drugs & lactation database has this info on Sumatriptan (imigran) and Thomas Hale* talks about Sumatriptan being prefered to eletriptan because sumatriptin has poorer bio-oral availability in infants here.

• Dr Thomas Hale is the author of the textbook on breastfeeding and drugs - Medications and Mother's Milk and runs the Infant Risk Center in the US which advises on drug interactions/contraindications/safety in pregnancy & breastfeeding.

This might also be useful.

Well help fellow suffer, I feel your pain before I had DD I was having upto 2 migraines a week.

Everyone is different but I can tell you what happened for me. My migraines got so much better when PG that I didn't need to take any medican and I didn't have any for a whole year after thanks to BF. Which is probably one of the things that spured me to carry on BF. They did return but not as bad or as frequent so I would just take paretamol and coden to get through them. I've now had DS and the same has happened with him. Hopeing they stay away for a long time this time round as well.

I have since discovered as japhrimel says that the main reasion why they don't recomned the drugs is because they wount test on PG and BF moms. Not that there is a real problem in taking them but that they are overcaitious. This time round I'm hopeing to preswaded my GP to piscibe them. And although I'll be as carefull as possible to leave as big a window after taking them, I wount be pumping and dumping as I think the benifits out way the risks.
I've also found certain types of hormonal birthcontrol realy help with my migrains to and you can take a lot of these while BF as well.

I think you have to take into account the risks off not BF as well.