Quote:
Originally Posted by pinkflower17
I responded to another post of yours. The cognitive effects could be due to the perphenazine, as could the weight gain. Looking at your med list, I would guess the perphenazine the most likely cause of weight gain. Propranolol can cause a small amount of weight gain in some people as well, but the first gen antipsychotics are pretty well known for doing so. The rest of your meds are weight neutral or weight negative.
I think it's more likely the cognitive effects are due to the Topamax. That's a pretty good dose and it's very well known to cause cognitive dulling, memory issues, it's most common cognitive effect is issues with word recall.
I would only mess with one at a time, though. Is there any way you could up your Geodon? I don't know how well it's working for you, but it's definitely weight neutral, weight negative in a lot of pts and maybe upping it would provide the stability you need, while allowing you to at least reduce either the perphenazine or the Topamax.
Propranolol can also kind of slow down your thinking, but I would think that less likely than the perphenazine or Topamax.
If I had to put my money on the cognitive effects, I'd definitely guess Topamax. If I had to put money on cause of weight gain, I'd go with perphenazine. I guess you have to decide which side effect is worse to live with. Although in all honesty, 6 mg is a really low dose, you may be able to stop it without much difficulty and Geodon does basically the same thing, just with less side effects.
Good luck.
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The perphenazine is actually at 12 mg now I just haven't updated my signature. And a lot of the weight gain is from past meds like risperidone, zyprexa, saphris, latuda, and seroquel, but I want to be on the optimal weight loss regimen so I can lose the last 76 lbs of the 116 lbs that meds made me gain in the past two years. I'm not worried about the geodon, and I wouldn't mind that being upped, but my pdoc said 160 is the max dose.
I want to ditch the topamax AND the perphenazine honestly. Maybe I can keep the propranolol for now as is does kind of help my anxiety. And if it's fairly weight neutral then I guess it's okay. But the cognitive effects of the topamax and the weight gain from the perphenazine are just not acceptable. I'm already battling a new ADHD diagnosis and struggling massively in school and work right now and I don't need topamax messing that up even more (I've been on topamax for almost 3 years and my head has been unclear that whole time, and even worse when I was on lithium at the same time, same goes for the weight gain).
I'm going to ask my pdoc to take me off of the topamax and the perphenezine asap. I'm not really unstable right now. I did just have a manic episode due to the lead up to finals week last term, but that's over and done with and predictably happens most terms. If only he would believe me that that's what caused it and not the meds, the meds didn't change, he didn't need to double the perphenazine or take away my wellbutrin (i'm back at the baby dose of 75mg, which does nothing for me, especially for my focus). I'll see him on thursday. Now I just hope he doesn't double book me again and push me out the door after 15 minutes and getting nothing done. I have a lot I need to say to him, like I want to try strattera, and slim down my meds so I can slim down my body and get some concentration in my life. He also has completely failed to turn in my reasonable accommodation forms for my school's student disability department and I have a midterm on wednesday before I even see him (I gave him the form two weeks ago!). So no reasonable accommodations for me. I probably won't even finish the test.