The experience of using progesterone during pregnancy in women with epilepsy

Abstract

The article examines the dependence of the course of epilepsy on the concentration of progesterone in the blood serum during pregnancy. A case history of 36-year-old patient with symptomatic focal occipital epilepsy on the background of neoplasm of the brain is described. At 11 weeks of pregnancy, she was found to have a decrease in the level of progesterone to 21.7 nmol/l at a concentration of levetiracetam 31.2 μg/ml. The addition of progesterone to the therapy of 600 mg/day allowed to gradually increase the concentration of progesterone to a sufficient level of 440 nmol/l, which was accompanied by an increase in the concentration of levetiracetam in the blood to 49.8 μg/ml without increasing the dose of the anticonvulsant drug. As a practical conclusion, it is recommended to use during pregnancy correction of the level of progesterone in the blood as a measure to prevent the recurrence of epileptic seizures.

Keywords

• progesterone
• pregnancy
• epilepsy
• seizures