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MG and Pregnacy

03/18/2011

Question:

Our 29 year old daughter was diagnoised with MG 4 years ago, has had a thymectomy (no remission to date) and desperately wants to get pregnant. Any suggestions in regards to diet, supplements, biolocical medicine, etc? She takes mestinon and prednisone, recently reduced to 5 mg every other day, however she is still symptomatic 🙁 Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Answer:

You pose a difficult set of questions. First of all, your daughter needs to have a neurologist who is experienced with caring for patients with MG and a gynecologist/obstetrician. Any treatment plan must be based on your daughter’s pattern of disease (risk for involving breathing, chewing and swallowing), risk of medications on fetal development. The neurologist and OB must be willing to work closely together and your daughter must be very informed of risks. Even after every option is well considered, it may determine that pregnancy is not a sound choice (carrying too great a risk for mother and baby). I don’t think there is any easy answer with diet or supplements that would solve this difficult problem. (Of course, a healthy diet and prenatal vitamins are always recommended for a pregnant woman.) Hope this helps.

For more information:

Go to the Myasthenia Gravis health topic.