Topamax has arrived

Only trying it will reveal what side effects it will have in YOU. I will most likely discontinue it because I do not need another orgasm-killer. Plus, it makes me sit at work because I am dizzy, and before I started taking it, I was standing at my standing desk for 8 hours at a stretch. Prolonged sitting reduces our life expectancy by two years, so it is a "costly" drug in my case.

The reason I am still on it? I have been told that dizziness and sexual side effects might go away with time... so I will give it some time.

It might also have to do with age. You are 20 years older, so your side effects might have more to do with age.

If you must stay on Zyprexa, I would see an endocrinologist and talk about Metformin, an old antidiabetic drug. You are awfully young, but still, Zyprexa CAN mess up your blood sugar, and Metformin will counteract that. Plus, Metformin helps some people lose weight.

My blood sugar is fine, and like you said I shouldn't be starting more than one drug at a time.

Don't know. Just know the ravenous hunger is gone.

It is probably too early to say - you just started.

DrSkipper - I am glad your p-doc monitors your blood glucose.

Yup. Depakote was my first drug for bipolar. Nice.

Mine, too. And did not do anything for it either. Just lots of weight gain.

I just went to the gym so we'll see if that will have any effect over time.

Starting tomorrow, I will take half the dose. Hoping that the dizziness will go away and the orgasms will come back.

No ofgasm problems here. Hope that stays!

Good for you! Well, you are part of the lucky 98%.

Until I started on this med, I was very healthy, physically. Now, I feel unwell.

I will give it some time but if this feeling does not go away, I will discontinue because I cannot live all my life like that.

Nausea and stomach upset at half the dose. What a nasty thing! Without it, I never get stomach upset.

It was burning my stomach so much I started overeating to stop the gnawing pain that seemed like hunger. That was educational then the pdoc recommended Cimetidine which has a whole other set of interactions. But once I stopped seeing my mother and the stress stopped, so did the stomach problems and my sensitivity to the topamax, except occasionally.

So I saw my pdoc today. She thinks I should stay on the topomax for various reasons. Yay! That is much better than the Saphris or Zyprexa alone.

She also says that she talked with my therapist and they agreed that I do not have borderline personality disorder. Whew! Glad they both agree. She said the drs in the hospital had only known me a week and you have to know someone years to be able to accurately diagnose BPD.

So on half the dose - 25 mg, tiny, really - I have some of the appetite back.

Weighed myself - complete plateau, no downward movement.

I don't know how often you've lost weight, but the books say that you might hit a plateau and stay at it for s while when you reach a weight you stayed at for a long while in the past. Ie we have more than one setpoint.

I have my chart in Livestrong.com - I will see if I might be at one of the set points.

So I have been on 25 mg daily, the tiniest possible dose, and I am finally, finally not dizzy and I am not feeling so unwell and I am actually quite ecstatic to have regained some semblance of normalcy.

Need to check about orgasms.

I suspect that Topamax raises sleep requirements and if I confirm that suspicion, I will discontinue the trial, because those higher sleep requirements mean no more morning swimming for me - I wake up too late. I definitely did not want a drug that would make me exercsise less!

It also makes me drink much less which I am sure will have all sorts of negative long-term consequences starting with not looking good - radiant skin needs lots of fluids. And not drinking enough causes low grade headaches that do not rise to the level of migraines but are still unpleasant. An anti-migraine medication that is CAUSING headaches?

So I will give it some more time at this smallest possible dose and them make a call.

Glad you are not feeling as dizzy.

Topamax can make you drowsy, but I've never heard of it increasing anyone's sleep requirements, especially at such a very, very small dosage as you are on.

As for drinking water, I've seen some folks put lines around their large water bottles and mark off 10 am, noon, 2 pm, 4 pm, 6 pm, etc. (Am I making sense? Have you seen folks do that?) They know they need to drink down to the next line by that time to stay on track. If they do that, it will push them to get in the full amount of water that they know they want to drink even when they don't feel like drinking. It can be easy to forget to drink for all sorts of reasons, but sometimes little reminders like that can get us back on track. ++

^^ That's a great idea for anyone! I hardly ever drink water, and that's a great way to drink more.

I used to like tea. I would drink this tea, then that tea, rotating through a number of teas throughout the day. It was fun. With milk and without milk. It did not feel so much like work, but this approach with marking the water bottle sure feels like work. I am not sure I can settle for something as basic as meeting my body's fluid requirements being hard work. But I will try that approach before giving up altogether.

I am making an effort to stand at work today. Using the fact that I am not dizzy. Hopefully I will go back to my routine of standing. I stood all day Saturday making Christmas gifts, and was pretty happy about my regained ability to stand for hours at a stretch.

I cannot stand this drug, literally! I was not able to stand - I am not fully well and I have to sit down. Sitting down for long periods of time will lead to early death (early by two years only, but still), obesity, bad posture, and back pain. Right now, I would rather suffer through migraines occasionally but feel great outside of migraine attacks. It does work for migraines, sure, but I feel crappy all the time - who needs such medicine? I stopped climbing stairs - I feel unwell and need to take an elevator. Like a sick person.

Will wait for now - they say those side effects might go way if I persevere. I just do not know how long to wait - weeks? months?