[Seethestars]

My daughter and I both have bipolar disorder She wants to be on Topamax because it is known to promote weight loss. She is not overweight but thinks she is. I know it is no longer considered a good mood stabilizer and it can be be sedating Does anyone have any experience with topamax

[ImNotHere]

I take 200mg of Topamax daily (100mg in the morning and 100mg at night), I take it for my anxiety and my repetitive intrusive thoughts. It has been somewhat helpful in the past. I am not overweight either but I wanted a medication for my anxiety that would not make me gain weight, weight loss is a possible side effect and it may not work for everyone, the higher the dose the more suppressed the appetite or the more weight lost usually. I lost about 6lbs and I have been on it for a few months (again not overweight, for someone who is overweight they might have lost more). I had read online that people who are very over weight have lost a lot on topamax, it does make you feel not very hungry.

As for other effects, well expect the first few weeks to be tough, like trouble focusing, losing your thoughts, feeling foggy, slowed down thinking (this part went a way after a few weeks once I completed increasing my dose), tingling fingers and toes, and forget about drinking soda because it will change the way you taste certain things, like for example soda will now taste strange. But my topamax did work for my anxiety so it was worth it.

I didn't really mention much about sedating, it never really felt like it sedated me.While it may calm me a little it is nothing like other calming drugs out there. I never got too tired or anything like that. The negative parts were the brain fog or not thinking clearly, some people say that never goes away, for me it only lasted a few weeks or until my dose stabilized and I stopped raising it, it is hard to think straight when that is happening and when your brain is adjusting. Sometimes it does feel like you can't think straight but I still maintained my job and things like that so it isn't like it was impossible to function, more difficult of course, but Topamax did help me atleast a little.

Originally Posted by Seethestars

My daughter and I both have bipolar disorder She wants to be on Topamax because it is known to promote weight loss. She is not overweight but thinks she is. I know it is no longer considered a good mood stabilizer and it can be be sedating Does anyone have any experience with topamax

Hi, Seethestars:

I have been on Topamax [topiramate] for over a decade now. Initially we started it for mood stability as an add-on after Depakote and Neurontin and [something else, can't remember] were epic failures. There was some reason we were holding off on the lithium, but I don't remember why at this point.

I started on Lamictal [lamotrigine] and then we added the Topamax. I didn't really have many problems with either, the exception being when we wanted to lower the Topamax and did it too quickly- went immediately from 300mg to 200mg and I forgot how to spell and also started using a lot of synonyms interchangeably whether they were the precise word I intended or not.

Other minor issues were tingling when increasing or decreasing dosage- often on the tip of my nose, on my cheeks, on my shins. This goes away eventually. Also the flavor of chocolate changed and i was convinced that nothing retained carbonation for longer than about 3 minutes.

Also, oddly enough, my pitch perception and adaptation changed about a quarter to a half step. And yes, it was the topiramate. We happened to discover it was a rare side effect associated with the medication around the time i realized I had no idea how to sight read and match pitch anymore. [So I had to figure that out again]

Potential serious side effects that I didn't get [yet] but should absolutely be considered:
Kidney stones. These are not terribly uncommon. It is really important to drink a lot of water. By some bizarre trick, I've managed to not develop even one [I started taking it around 2001], but that is kind of uncommon.

Higher risk for glaucoma. Need to make eye doctor aware of this potential issue and keep regular eye check ups.

Cognitive side effects. The extent of cognitive side effects for a lot of medications tends to be over exaggerated at times. For Topamax, it's not usually an exaggeration. People can get REALLY REALLY STUPID. I fortunately only had that spelling thing when we tried to drop the dose too fast. For some people there is a "sweet spot" in which your brain will be ok with the med and cognitive effects aren't an issue. Some people have the perpetual duh however.

Other interesting stuff:
I've noticed that I heal faster with topiramate and my nails and hair grow much faster. My appetite is supressed, and this has been true even though I've changed the dose numerous times. However, the appetite change only is really noticeable for about quarter to a third of people, sometimes it goes away, and if you stop it and then start it again, it's likely to not return.

Topiramate also sometimes can make it easier to stop smoking.

So why am I still taking it?

Art this point it is mainly for seizures, secondary for migraines, tertiary for mood.
It really was never considered a first line for mood stabilization, but is used as an addon or when first line or typical mood stabilizers have been exhausted or only have some effect or as an addon to counter weight gain.

What I have found very helpful is that it does seem to have an effect on impulsiveness for me and this weird kind of anger/frustration tolerance thing that some other people with bipolar that I've talked to seem to share. Many that I've known who can relate to those type of experiences have also found topiramate very helpful.

So I mean, overall, I wouldn't say it's something to run to. If other things haven't helped [like lithium, which I highly recommend- I was on it for quite a while in conjunction with the topamax but it agitated seizure activity] it could help, but it's not for everyone.

Keep in mind a lot of this is either my personal experience, or stuff i've gathered from various prescribing sheets- but I didn't look it up right now so you should still consider that my experience and not like, official gobbledy gook of professionalness.


Josie

[roads]

I was on Topamax for six years with excellent results, until I developed an allergy to it when we increased the dose from 300mg to 400.

I got an all-over, constant itch. I cut back 50mg/day till I was off it, with no withdrawal problems. Nothing we've tried since has worked as well.

[thickntired]

My pdoc said it has an average 4 lb loss and can cause mental impairment

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

[thickntired]

By impairment I mean forgetting things or being kind of air headed

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk