Acyclovir pregnancy
Common Questions and Answers about Acyclovir pregnancy
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My daughter has been HSV2 positive for appx three years but has not had any outbreaks since the first year. She is in her last five weeks of pregnancy and her doctor has prescribed acyclovir 400mg once a day. My understanding has been that acyclovir is a twice a day medication. Is the medication going to benefit her at this dosage or does it need to be changed? Thank you!
no, 200mg 2x/day isn't ever effective for suppressive therapy , even when not pregnant.
Not in canada so I go by the ACOG recommendations as well as the extensive research by Dr Zane Brown who has done the majority of the research on herpes and pregnancy. The herpes handbook by Terri Warren, our herpes expert here in medhelp, also supports the dose I recommended.
you never, ever, EVER have to take acyclovir if you don't want to, even during pregnancy.
postmarketing experience with valacyclovir provides evidence of favorable safety and efficacy in herpes simplex virus (HSV) management. Valacyclovir enhances acyclovir bioavailability compared with orally administered acyclovir. Long-term use of acyclovir for up to 10 years for HSV suppression is effective and well tolerated.
I did suppressive therapy for remaining of pregnancy. She came feb 2011 healthy and illness free... Fast forward, we're now expecting #3 but seems like all through this pregnancy it's been outbreak after outbreak no matter what... I tried valtrex for a bit but when they up the dose due to no improvements CVS up it to a price that was unaffordable! Now I'm on acyclovir 400mg 3x day ... and after 4 days still no improvement.
I am 3 months pregnant.. Now I had chicken pox so Doctor advised to take acyclovir 200 mg , 3 times...
Anyone knows about it..
I stopped taking acyclovir in December 2011. I have had numerous outbreaks like once a month or every couple of months. I have had HSV2 four years and four months now. My last outbreak was maybe eight weeks ago. Shouldn't my outbreaks decrease since I have had the virus for some time.I would like to know is that too many outbreaks to be experiencing.
i started taking acyclovir a few days ago for the first time for a mild cold sore breakout. 2 days after i started, the cold sores got more intense, and 2 new huge cold sores came up out of nowhere. i have 3 more days left of the medication, and i'm going to keep taking it, but what should i do? these cold sores are not going away, and it seems like its getting worse! so done with these friggin things...
Like most I cannot afford Valtrex any more. I have switched to Acyclovir. I've used it effectively for the couple of outbreaks but it seems to be taking considerably longer. I am taking L-Lysene as a suppressor and only take the Acyclovir at the first sign of an outbreak. I was taking 1000mg Valtrex at onset and then 500mg twice a day and everything was clear in 3 days. To get the same effectiveness from Acyclovir how much should I be taking daily during out breaks?
Does Acyclovir make anyone else feel completely terrible? I get terrible headaches, dizzy, diarrhea and feel just awful. im not sure which is worse sometimes.
I've been taking acyclovir 400mg for 6 months and have noticed my hair thinning and I've googled the heck out of it finding yes and no relations to the two. Please help me know the truth and reality of this medication. Thank you.
My question is, is there any harm/risk involved in not treating this reoccurance with Acyclovir/meds? I plan to go on suppressive therapy towards the end of the pregnancy but I'd rather not take it otherwise. Do you think allowing this outbreak to run it's full course untreated, is dangerous? Is there any advantage for baby to cut it short with prescription meds? Albeit rare, could it possibly increase the chances of neo-natal transmission?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks!
should you have obvious lesions the week before you are due or when you are in labor, a C section will be performed. You can take acyclovir or valtrex for the last month of pregnancy in the pregnancy doses if you are interested in order to increase the odds of not having an obvious lesion present close to delivery.
if the "trauma" of a traumatic birthing or an episiotomy triggered a recurrence, it would happen after the baby was born so it wouldn't be an issue.
I don't wanna keep calling my doctor for every little thing. I've been on Acyclovir 400mg for about 10 days now. Had to take 2 a day for the first week and now down to 1 a day.
I'm currenty 28 weeks pregnant.
The pain down there has went down and I can finally wipe and pee without pain. I'm just a bit itchy down there and around my butthole (sorry tmi). I only get the occational sharp shooting pain that will last a few moments and feels like I am being ripped up down there.
Welcome to the forum. I'll try to help.
There are two reasons for anti-herpes therapy the last 3-4 weeks of pregnancy in women with histories of genital herpes. First is to prevent a recurrent outbreak that would increase the chance of HSV transmission to the baby and would force an otherwise unnecessary cesarean section. The second is to lower the chance of transmission of HSV to the baby.
But, recently they have been more and more frequent. I used the 200mg acyclovir at times when I felt I was getting an OB and it worked very well. Although, there have been times, once or twice, when it did not work and I experienced the worst OB's I've ever had. I have a pretty bad one now (ran out of meds) and I went to the Dr. yesterday and he said with the more frequent OB's he was going to prescribe me 400mg acyclovir to take twice daily for suppression.
We recommend the higher immunosuppression doses of valtrex and acyclovir during the last month of pregnancy. Your body is naturally immunosuppressed during pregnancy so it takes the higher doses to better control the virus.
since you were infected with hsv2 prior to pregnancy, the odds of transmission to your baby during birth are less than 1% as long as you don't have any obvious symptoms during delivery.
you can breast feed your child while on suppressive therapy. it's a non-issue. they get far less active acyclovir while breast feeding than they do if we gave them IV acyclovir to treat infection. Both la leche league and the american academy of pediatrics have ok'd it.
if you are going to bother to take suppressive therapy during pregnancy, make sure it is the 500mg twice a day dose. you need the higher doses during pregnancy because of the natural immunosuppression of the body.
I started suppressive therapy with Acyclovir early Dec. 08 and have not had my period since. Is this normal?
Acyclovir is always 2x/day for suppressive therapy. You can not take acyclovir just 800mg 1x/day. It's not effective that way. Call your provider up and question that dose. If they say that that dose works too -ask them to please cite the research that backs that. I guarantee you they can't provide any that shows that 800mg once a day is effective for acyclovir!!
do you have hsv1 or hsv2 genitally? How about orally - which one?
Greatly simplified - you swallow valtrex and your body converts it into acyclovir inside the body. You get more active acyclovir available to kick a little herpes butt by doing it this way. That's why you take valtrex less often. We don't have studies to confirm that acyclovir reduces transmission the same amount as valtrex does but we assume it does.
http://racoon.com/herpes/v_a_compare.htm this table comes directly from the valtrex full prescribing info.
I have had it for 10 years and am now 7 weeks pregnant. My doctor has said it is fine to take acyclovir (the anti-viral used to treat it) during pregnancy and that many times they will have the woman take it a couple weeks before her due date prophylacticly to decrease the chance of having an outbreak during labor and delivery. They will do a cesarean if you have active lesions during delivery because it can cause blindness in the baby.
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