Posted by headachequeen on May 10, 2004, at 15:34:58
In reply to Re: Has topomax helped » bridgey1128, posted by heathermom on May 10, 2004, at 13:35:24
> Hi. I stumbled upon this board in my quest for topamax info. ...
>>I am still just taking 25 mg.
good, keep increasing at slow increments and it will not be a problem... fast increases lead to problems with side effects as many of us learned the hard way... slow but steady and all those silly cliches actually mean something>>I guess my main question is...what does it feel like to not obsess over food? Does it really happen?
It REALLY HAPPENS and it is amazing...
Chocolate and potato chips lsoe their appeal... I can remember leaving the doctor's office after his reminders that chocolate was a migraine trigger and salt was bad for my blood pressure and heading for the nearest store that sold chocolate bars and potato chips on my way back to work. It was as if there were a direct drive in my system that drove me to buy and eat them...
food was something I had to have and often I would discover I was eating a sandwich or chips or candy or cake or whatever, or second helpings that I didn't really want, but finished anyway... even things I didn't particularly like or enjoy...
one such memory involves a goldfish bowl party at work, when all the staff had to be on display for advertisers and there was a vast array of food including what I thought was cherry cheesecake... it turned out to be an absolutely awful crab concoction that looked like a cheesecake with a seafood sauce drizzled over it that looked like cherries over the cheesecake. It tasted unbelievably awful but I ate it because it was there on my plate.
A buffet meal -- oh what a thought...
and now I have a hard time trying to finish a normal meal. Last evening we went out for dinner with friends, a steak with baked potato and cauliflower and baby carrots. I finished the steak because I do crave protein and I am convinced that is some connection of the topomax thing, and I ate some of the vegetables but only a mouthful of the baked potato...
unheard of in the pre-topomax days!
Didn't want roll or butter and didn't want dessert. (there was a chocolate mousse cake that looked good enough to die for as well as a variety of other incredibly wonderful and tempting desserts but they did not interest me at all.)
I should add that it was the only meal of the day for me. I did not even have any yoghurt...
something I usually have in the morning or at bedtime to provide the food to take with my meds...
I no longer want sweets at all and that is a huge change, no pun intended...
and no longer need three meals a day and three or four snacks to get me through the times between meals... not to overlook the bedtime snack and the chips or popcorn during the evening.
another thing I have abandoned is drinking pop and the juice-type beverages...>>When? At what dose?
I am presently back at 400 mg a day while I wait to find out if they are going to dump the wretched tegretol from my regime...
the neurologist instead of eliminating it and replacing it, prescribed something to eliminate the side effects (I was already on meds to eliminate the side effects and this med has similar side effects, so I am not sure what this is supposed to achieve...) and ordered another eeg,this time sleep-deprived...
in the meantime I have had three more seizures that I know of since my visit with him...
and have to wonder how many there would have been had the topomax not been modifying the effects of the tegretol... arrgghhh>>I know I am over thinking it. So much so, that I over analyze my need to eat. You know, I think, is it working yet? Is it not? Can anyone fill me in???
Relax and let things happen as they will...
I began to lose weight the first week I was on topomax... three pounds the first week but the change of attitude toward food came slowly -- perhaps around 200 mg a day??
and of late I notice it is really kicking in until I am able to stand in a Laura Secord shop, surrounded by the tantalising smell of chocolate and not want even one buttermallow bar...
that is incredible progress!!!Considering the fact that we were raised to eat everything that was put on our plates and remembering that chocolate and sweets were the reward factor in so many ways, it is an attitude that is hard to break, but seems to be disappearing...
so give it time. I would suspect that by the time you are on 100 mg evening and morning you will begin to feel a change...
kat
poster:headachequeen
thread:5053
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040510/msgs/345457.html