Trans: hormones, sex and epilepsy

3 minute read

There are many ways people express their gender and there are lots of terms that people use to describe their gender. If your gender expression is different from the sex you were assigned at birth the following information may be relevant for you.

As someone with epilepsy there are some particular issues to do with hormones and pregnancy to be aware of.

If you have any questions about how these issues apply to you, talk to your healthcare team.

Some types of epilepsy can start during puberty (the time when your body changes from a child to an adult)

It’s very rare to have a seizure triggered by sex

Some epilepsy medicine can cause you to have less interest in sex

Periods are more likely to be irregular in people with epilepsy

Some people have more seizures around the time of their periods

Your natural hormones or hormone drugs might affect your epilepsy

Some epilepsy medicines can affect how well hormonal contraception works

Top tips

Make sure your epilepsy healthcare team knows about your gender expression or identity and assigned sex at birth. They need to know your assigned sex at birth because this might impact your epilepsy treatment. Or how any hormone treatment you may be having could impact your epilepsy
If you have the support of a gender identity clinic, make sure they know you have epilepsy
Tell your epilepsy nurse or doctor if you think your hormones or hormone treatment affects your seizures
If you’re thinking about having children it’s best to plan this well in advance. Pre-conception counselling can help you with this
If you find yourself pregnant, don’t stop taking your epilepsy medicine. Talk to your doctor as soon as possible