Epiphany...

By definition an epiphany is a moment of striking personal realization or insight OR a manifestation of the Christ to the Magi (for the definition of magi…see the movie The Mummy – one of my personal favorites). Ok, so I am obviously not a magi – then I guess that definition number one must apply in this situation. But I am really leaning towards divine intervention!!

Last Thursday night, I was at my uncle’s house saying bye to my cousin Bobby, his wife, Shawna, and their kids, Kylie and baby Eddie. You may remember me mentioning that they were visiting from California in my Seven Down…Two to Go post. While I was there, Shawna said that it sounded like I was about over the summer cold that I had been nursing and asked if I had taken anything for it. In fact, I had broken down after 3 nights of no sleep, and taken some Tylenol Cold and Sinus (which did nothing) and on the fourth night of no sleep Rick was almost slipping Nyquil into my drink – apparently, I get a bit cranky when I’m tired. Anyway… Shawna, being a nurse, said that was fine as long as I didn’t take any Ibuprofen or NSAIDs (Motrin, Naproxen, Advil), just in case I am pregnant now and don’t know it. I know that it is not a good idea to take Ibuprofen while pregnant because it is a blood thinner and studies have shown that it can cause some pretty serious birth defects during the 3rd trimester. But, I didn’t really think anything more about the comment at the time and moved on to a new topic and of course playing with the baby while Trystan was coerced into playing dolls with 4 year old Kylie. It was hilarious and I am fairly certain that my son has a weakness for blondes because he is a pretty big guys guy and he wilted like a leaf when she smiled, gave him a big hug, and “please, Tistan” …but that is a different story.

After saying our goodbyes, we came home and went to bed. I actually fell asleep without a problem that night and didn’t even wake up when Rick kissed me goodbye before he left for work…it was amazing, I never sleep like that. At around 7:30am I sat straight up in bed, wide awake, with what can only be explained as an epiphany. You see, I have been having some pain in my right knee and left heel especially after working out, and since medications from the Tylenol family do not really work for me, I have been taking Ibuprofen. Probably since last November, I have been taking it to help with the inflammation and pain, once to three times a week on average, no big deal right…

So here was the striking realization… IF Ibuprofen is bad for you during pregnancy, could it have a negative effect on a person who is trying to get pregnant? I had never been told anything by anyone about not taking it if you are trying to conceive. I even looked on the bottle label to see if anything was listed there and I found the warning to pregnant women about refraining from using the product during pregnancy and the dangers associated with it during the 3rd trimester. So, I looked it up… God bless the internet.

Behold the epiphany was right on the money, hence my feeling that this may be divine intervention. I found several studies where Ibuprofen was shown to increase the chances of miscarriage. One of the sites can be accessed here. A miscarriage is defined as child loss before the 20th week, by my calculation that is not the 3rd trimester. Normally, the chance of women miscarrying a healthy and viable “embryo” aka “child” is 10-15%. These studies showed that the chance of miscarriage while taking ibuprofen increased to …are you ready…80%. Seriously, 80 %, that is an increase of over 65%. Ok, so does anyone else think that this information is kind of important …because I do?

In the third study I found by Otis, the organization that does all of the research on pregnancy and drug interactions, went further and stated that some studies have found that Ibuprofen has been found to inhibit (stop) a fertilized egg from implanting into the uterine wall. Um…ding ding ding we have a winner…the two miscarriages that I have had have been very early in the pregnancy…like I was only 4 or 5 days late and the pregnancy test came back positive, but when I went in for the sonogram they didn’t see and implanted embryo YET, which I was told is normal for that early of a time frame. Then a few days later, I miscarried. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like an implantation problem to me.

To be fair to everyone, there were other studies that found that there was no link between Ibuprofen and miscarriages and if any of you are reading this thinking “uh Duh, how could you not know this?!” then forgive me, but I didn’t know, nor was I told any of this information before I decided to look it up for myself.

So, in my guilt ridden state that my own ignorance could be the root of my inability to; I looked up the time period that Ibuprofen remains in the human body after ingestion. The answer is 12 to 24 hours and the dosage has nothing to do with the time period. I can’t remember the exact day that I last took any ibuprofen, but I know that it was right around the time that I first saw Dr. M, which was August 5th, so it should be well out of my system by now. And you can bet that I will be talking to Dr. M about this when I go in on Friday.

Have a Blessed Day!!

April