My Pregnancy and Sjogrens

I didn’t have a chance to write much about my pregnancy and I wish that I had.  At the time, it seemed like things couldn’t get any busier with my constant array of medical appointments, moving, and getting ready for baby.  What I’ve come to realize is that having a baby is even busier than having three to four doctors’ appointments per week and managing a chronic health condition, but that’s a whole other discussion.   Pregnancy and autoimmune diseases are an extremely important topic especially because the majority of people who suffer from them are women.

It used to be that many women with autoimmune diseases were told to forgo pregnancy.  This is no longer true for many of us, which is a welcome change. (I do realize that getting pregnant can be a difficulty for autoimmune disease patients, but I’m going to stick with my experience with the pregnancy part for now.) With careful pre-pregnancy planning and monitoring during pregnancy, it’s possible for things to go well and to be blessed with a healthy baby.  Now of course that doesn’t mean the pregnancies are easy and without risk, but a good outcome is no longer a rarity. In fact, a study from last year, the largest of it’s kind found that pregnancy is safer for lupus patients than originally thought with a 81 percent having what is medically called an “uncomplicated pregnancy”.  Click here.

For me, pregnancy was a bit of double-edged sword.  In order to make sure my baby was healthy, I had weekly fetal echo cardiograms throughout most of the 2nd and 3rd trimester.  These were critical to determine if the baby’s heart was developing correctly and did not develop “fetal heart block”.  Heart block can be a consequence of the SSA/SSB antibodies found in some Sjogren’s and Lupus patients.   I also saw my high-risk OB quite often in addition to my regular array of autoimmune appointments including rheumatology, rheumatology infusions, and ophthalmology to name a few.  To make things a little more tricky, my OB and pediatric cardiologist  (she monitored my baby’s heart) were at least an hour away so I would wiped out by the time I got back home.

The good news was that my Sjogren’s was much better while I was pregnant.  Yes, I felt the best I had in years.  My fatigue was less intense and I had more energy.  My neurological Sjogren’s symptoms were more in check and we were able to lessen the “pregnancy safe” medical treatments I needed.   Dare I say I felt pretty normal.  And while, many pregnancy women complain about brain fog for me it was also the opposite.  I felt mentally sharp again.   I “knew” this new state was probably temporary, but I secretly hoped it would last well past my baby being born.  I imagined going back to work part-time and excelling at both home, career, and motherhood and managing my health. (While material for another post, this was definitely too ambitious).

And I am not alone in having this experience.  Some autoimmune diseases are thought to improve during pregnancy.  My doctors who are Sjogren’s experts told me there was a chance that I would feel better based on their clinical experience.  Some describe pregnancy as a natural imuno-suppressive, which can be a good thing for those of us with over-active immune systems that go around attacking the wrong things.

This raises a number of big questions, which I am not nearly smart enough to answer.  What exactly happens during pregnancy that puts some autoimmune diseases into a less or more active state?  What role do hormones play in this process? And more importantly is it possible to replicate some of this without pregnancy?  I’m hoping that some scientists and doctors might already be tackling these questions.  If you're familiar with anyone doing work here please let me know.  I do wonder whether some of the mystery around pregnancy and autoimmune conditions may be part of the the key to better treatments in the future. 

I would love to hear from other autoimmune moms who were diagnosed prior to getting pregnant. I haven't been able to find very many.  What was your experience with autoimmune disease and pregnancy?

Where in the World has Autoimmune Gal been?

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Some of you might have noticed that I haven't been blogging as much.  My twitter and Facebook presence has also dwindled.  But I promise there is good reason for my less frequent communication.

It also happens to be a very exciting and wonderful reason--my husband and I are expecting our first child.  Yes, Autoimmune Gal is pregnant.

We didn't know that having a family would be a possibility given my multiple autoimmune and health issues.  It took lots of communication and coordination with multiple doctors to just plan for the possibility of trying to get pregnant.

Important medical questions and issues had to be addressed.  What medications would I be able to stay on?  Did I need to change medications or lower doses before becoming pregnant or was it safe to wait until a pregnancy was actually confirmed?  How would we keep my autoimmune disease in check, while trying to protect the baby?  Would pregnancy make my autoimmune manifestations worse, the same, or better? And these were just the tip of the iceberg.

With pregnancy many of these questions do not have clear cut answers.  Medicines aren't regularly tested on pregnant women so there is less data than one would like on safety and fetal outcomes.  The doctors have constantly reminded me that if I'm not healthy, the baby won't be either, but this is really tough complicated stuff.  And we've certainly added another big and of course wonderful variable to the careful health balancing act.  

Beyond my autoimmune issues, my pregnancy is super high risk so I'm being monitored you might say within an inch of my life.  I guess you could say I'm super super high risk.   My doctors appointments have more than doubled and every health issue that comes up has to be thought through even more carefully and methodically.  Right now, we're trying to enjoy the pregnancy while keeping our fingers double and triple crossed that everything will be OK.  We know this is such an amazing blessing, but we still have a long way to go.  

So that's my update on where I've been.  I love writing and communicating with all of you and feel like something is missing when I'm not.  I'll keep writing as much as I can.  I know when the baby comes it will be a whole new kind of busy too!