April 2018 Moms
codingchildhood
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Mental Health Check In 12/30
codingchildhood
member
It's been a long while since we've had one of these, and I thought it might be needed with the chaos of the holidays, and just the general changes we're all going through mentally and physically. How is everyone doing? Any questions, concerns, or rants?
Re: Mental Health Check In 12/30
I haven't been feeling very well. The drop from 80mg of Prozac to 20mg has not been easy. My ptsd symptoms have worsened quite a bit, which has increased my anxiety, irritability, etc. I have an appointment with my midwife next week and plan on asking her to up my dosage to 40mg. Hopefully that will help. :-/ My hormones are also so much more out of control with this pregnancy, and I'm sure that's contributing a ton.
I am currently scaling back up my dose of effexor. I'm not in therapy right now which I'm sure they'll call me out on at my next appointment, but I'm just not up to leaving the house let alone start therapy with someone new.
However, I just wanted to let you know (and anyone on antidepressents during pregnancy) so as to not alarm you, after DS was born, he would have these two second shakes. Almost like a quick shiver. I kept asking the doctors if he was ok (or cold!). They repeatedly checked his levels and they were fine. They stopped after a few days. It wasn’t until a follow up pediatrician appointment that the doctor said it was most likely due to withdrawal from my Prozac. I was shocked that even on such a low dose he would experience withdrawal! Then fellow moms on my bump board started asking if others experienced it as well. With the post partum hormones it made me feel incredibly guilty. Not to mention, the multiple lactation consultants I saw blamed my low milk supply on it as well. (Is it any wonder so many moms experiences PPD?!) was that low dose of Prozac the cause for the shakes and low milk supply? I have no idea! I will say it haunted me for quite some time after.
But I made the conscious decision to stay on the same dose throughout this pregnancy as well because I firmly believe a mother needs to be mentally (and of course physically) healthy in order to care for their newborns. Im not telling this story in order to scare anyone or cause guilt. Lord knows we put that on ourselves without the help of anyone else! But it’s something I never really thought about until LO was born.
After my experience with my first pregnancy/birth, and how much I suffered because of my guilt over the idea of taking prozac while pregnant and my choice to ultimately stop my medication while pregnant (bad idea, for me anyway), I'm definitely going into this pregnancy with a completely different mindset.
I'm not sure if it's really doing much, but I'm going to give it another month before I change anything. This is such a stressful time of year so I'm hoping it's just the extra stress of the holiday that's keeping me down.
On a brighter note, I'm finally really feeling excited about the baby. I have so much going on with 2 other kids, work craziness, house renovations that I really haven't even had time to do anything baby related. I finally bought some clothes and things we'll need in the beginning. It feels good to be excited about the baby finally.
@fancybelmont are they open to increasing your dose?