I'm interested in this answer as well- experience with birth control and MG symtpoms. I'm sure beth will have the answer haha!

I was thinking the same - Beth always knows the answers....or the logic to the answers! I was going to title this just to the ladies but some of the men here are also very knowledgable on all areas of MG so I decided to leave it open!! :) x

I would love to know what others think, I only have bad symptoms when I have PMS, vision weird in my left eye, back weakness, hip weakness, extreme neck weakenss, arms etc., it gets 90% worse with PMS. I have always wanted to try to go on the pill that allows for one ovulation a year to see if it would lessen the myasthenia. I have to say that those with this disease are so extremely sensitive to medications, and we must listen and trust our bodies, trust your gut! Trust your self, trust what your body is telling you, if you see a pattern, discontinue the medication. I saw a pattern for years with an allergy medication, and it took 3 years of ER visits until a neuro finally understood what was happening. I can't wait to hear what others have to say about it, this group is great :)

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I thought I was done with contraception unless I lived long enough to discuss it with my grandchildren!

Endocrinology was never my strong suit, but the basics are that the body is efficient and usually responds to feedback mechanisms. Hormones are messengers and the same hormones or families of hormones are used for different purposes in more than one system, which is why treatment with prednisone can be such a problem as well as a miracle!

Our reproductive system is just one system influenced by hormonal messengers, and our immune systems most certainly are. We are snowflakey about our response to reproductive hormones too, but for most of us MG exacerbation occurs with the stress of changing body equilibrium and we tend to get infectious problems (and contraindicated antibiotics) during those times as well.

So I would agree with listening to your body and your "inner ear." I don't know of any other way to test your hypothesis than the one you have proposed, but do be aware that pregnancy has its own risks (as if you didn't already know) and that includes changes in the state of your MG--for some better, some worse, some healthy babies, some compromised by Mom's MG. b.

Before I was officially diagnosed I tried going off the birth control for about 2 months to see if that was suddenly causing a problem with my body.

I'd been on NuvaRing for about6 years and thought that maybe I was having a reaction to it, hence the sudden onset of double vision and balance loss.

Anyway, it actually ended up having no positive effects on me personally, as my symptoms continued to progress rapidly. I was basically ordered to get back on birth control because of the drugs I was given (my worst-case-scenario neuro at the time told me that pregnancy while on Imuran/Prednisone would most assuredly result in horribly deformed babies).

Now. With all that being said, NuvaRing is VERY low dosage. I do find that my symptoms tend to flare when I'm heading toward my cycle so I suggest that if you do test the waters of having things removed that you do it with caution.

I'm a little brain-foggy so I hope that something in there helped you at least a bit. Lord knows I tend to get off topic lol.

I wonder about this too! I don't really have anything else to add, except that, like many others, my symptoms are noticeably worse around my period. The last time I took birth control was years ago. The science-nerd part of me wants to perform an experiment in which I start taking birth control pills and see how I feel differently, but since I'm doing relatively well right now, I don't feel compelled to mess with that. I should ask my doctor about it and see what he says. I do remember him asking me if I was on BC when he prescribed Imuran, but that was because of the birth defect correlation, not because of how it might affect my symptoms.

I got the Mirena IUD two years ago. I did not need it for birth control but got it because I wanted to have "one less thing" with the MG symptoms. Not 100 percent sure if it made it better... but I do not have a cycle anymore and I do not get the extreme MG symptom flares with the cycle either. I think it helped me with mine ;)

Thanks everyone for you replies :)

I too find that before menstruation my symptoms get worse but then once it arrives I feel better? With my IUD I don't have periods very often and they are very unpredictable - it can be after 2 or 6months! So wondered if that was aggravating my problems and I was getting a flood of hormones at those times and that maybe smaller, more regular ones would ease it! Having said that, I know that technically your cycle doesn't stop and the absence of period is that there is no lining in the womb etc so that must mean the hormones are firing as usual....but the other hormones stop the body behaving as it should in response to those hormones.....it all go with those hormones!! haha!!

As you have all said - we are all different, (thanks Beth for the explanation - we are lucky to have you and your knowledge :) ) I suppose, as with most things, it's trial and error but I really appreciate your replies :)

Hope you all have a lovely weekend :) x