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Re: Topamax: starting tonight » chloe

Posted by AKC on August 11, 2001, at 19:48:01

In reply to Re: Topamax: starting tonight, posted by chloe on August 10, 2001, at 17:04:49

Chloe,

I have been on a one-week break as Kingfish noted, but have decided to end my fast. I have now been on topamax for about 10 weeks. My biggest advice is to titrate up your dosage very, very slowly. The official literature from the pharmacy now says 25 to 50 mg per week, but everything I read on the net led me to believe that you should go no faster than 25 mg per week -- this is the rate I went up on it, and the side effects were minimal.

I had three main side effects. At first, and still from time to time, I would have some tingling in my feet. It has never been bad. The first couple of weeks, it would be a dozen times a day for a couple minutes, for three or four days after I increased a dose. Now it happens at most one or two times a week.

I had around the increase to 75 mg - 125 mg a little cognitive dulling. It lasted 1 to 3 days. It did not interfere too much with my job (I'm a lawyer, so that could have been really bad). I found it to be the worst if I had not got enough sleep the night before. I have not had any problems with that since the middle of July.

The only other problem I have had is that my menstrual cycle has been off since I have been on it. I use to be as regular as clock-work. For instance, I have been having pms symptoms for 5 days (mainly water retention) -- something I was lucky to really only experience for about a day all my life until now.

Now it appears I should have stopped increasing my dosage around 150 mg. I was doing very, very well at that level. My mood was very good, without being "high." I don't know if I had ever felt that level -- if so, it had been a long time since I have ever felt that way.

However,I wanted to keep going up to 200 mg for the hoped for better weight loss aspects of this medicine. Because it appears I am BPII, my doctor was worried if we kept increasing the topamax, we would trigger a mania, so she decreased my effexor as I continued increasing the topamax. About a week later (as I got up to 175 mg of topamax), I had a weekend where I was extremely anxious. I did not blame the meds -- I was under some stress at work, and thought it was "normal" anxiety. I realize now that it might not have been as "normal" as I thought it was.

Then last weekend, now up to 200 mg of topamax, out of the blue, I started crying uncontrollably. I don't cry. There was nothing going on - no triggers or anything. I preceded to sink into a very bad depression.

Are you doomed for that? In no way. I am very med sensitive -- I have learned this over the past two years. I should have known better than to try for a quick fix. Those always get you in trouble. Anyway, I am back down to 150 mg of topamax, and when my doc and I get things back leveled out, that is probably where I will be with that med. I was having a very good response to it, so I think it is a med I can be happy with -- just not a as high a dose as I was originally shooting for.

Good Luck.

AKC


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