Topamax?

Has anyone felt persistent fatigue on Topamax? I just increased from 50 mg to 75 mg several days ago and still feel more tired than usual . . . am really hoping this goes away obviously. I'm supposed to increase even more and certainly don't want to feel even more tired than I do now.

Thanks.

Yes definitely I took it a while back for my migraines it made me slow and tired especially when increasing the dosage. It helped the migraines and the slow and tired eventual went away but the memory problems I experienced forced me off it. I was on 100mg a day a believe. Also the tingling of the hands killed me at work (worked as a chef and couldn't feel my knife not good) I would say if it helps stick with it and that side effect should dissipate. I'm not a doctor though I speak from personal experience. Also go up slow it should help with the fatigue. Hope this helps

I take it for myoclonus and a seizure disorder and I can't go above 100 mg/day or it just makes me too stupid to function.

Yeah, I already have a problem with memory from having ECT so really can't afford a whole lot more of an effect on my memory. But, I really need the migraines to stop, so we'll see. Thanks for your input. By the way, no tingling of the hands here.

Yeah, my doc wants me to go up to 50 mg at night (which I'm already taking) and 50 mg in the morning (I'm on 25 mg in the morning so far). Thanks for your input.

Didn't know you were taking it for migraines I've suffered daily ones since I was 10 years old. Then went away for a while but they came back at 18. I've been on every drug under the sun for them. All the old drugs, the new drugs, all the triptans etc.... Nothing worked. Let me know if you want advice or my opinions on any of the drugs they can or want to give you I can tell you what's up. What ended up working for me was propranolol, diet and nutrition, and cefaly. Cefaly is an electrode stimulation device that you stick an electrode On your forehand over your trigeminal nerve and it stimulates it. The result is it lowers the threshold that will give you a migraine. This along with the others I mentioned reduced my migraines by 80 percent. It was expensive device 350 I think....but they let you sample it for a month first. Worth looking into especially since it's drug free and side defect free. Just my 2cents on my struggle and where I ended up.

Captinbipolar, as far as the migraines go, either the increase in Topamax or going off the oxycodone seems to have helped ease the pain somewhat over the past couple of days. I REALLY am not liking this fatigue I'm feeling from the Topamax increase though and sure as heck hope it subsides, otherwise I may have to ask my neurologist if we can try something else. Glad you seem to have found a combo that helps you!

I'm glad to hear things looking up. Side effect are never fun! Hang in there, there are tones of migraine drugs and there are expected to be a lot more on the market soon that are actually migraine specific my doctor told me. The problem I've seen is all preventatives were developed for something else and by chance we stumbled upon them helping migraines. Medicine is improving and hopefully a better low side effect drug will come out soon. I'm waiting for that as I don't like my propranolol. But hey what works works. Good luck with everything!

I felt that way too when I increased doses. Have you checked your blood pressure? I've noticed mine dropped while taking it. ER Dr blamed it on anxiety, but I believe Topamax played a part in it.

Alone & confused, how long did your fatigue last after you increased the dosage? I had my blood pressure checked yesterday, and I'm pretty sure it was normal.

I took myself off of it to see if that was what caused it, and in a few days after I noticed a big difference. After that I stayed on the lower dose. Before, I was up to 100 mg a day, and that was when I bottomed out on energy and had low blood pressure problems. (93/37)

I never had fatigue on topamax but most meds that are supposedly sedating don't make me tired, like all the atypical antipsychotics for instance.

The issue I had with topamax was it caused cognitive dulling to the point where I couldn't think of words and my memory was shot. Really not good when you're in school and working a fulltime job that requires a lot of communication skills.

Well, after increasing the Topamax dose to 75 mg for exactly 8 days today, I'm starting to feel more human again: energy is back up, head doesn't seem so foggy, thinking is clearer. I'm so glad.

I'm gonna carefully time my next (and final/target) increase though. I was thinking of doing it next weekend, but since I have a job interview the following Wednesday I'm gonna hold off until 2 weekends from now. That'll give me the week of the 17th to be a zombie. Dreading it, but I gotta do what I gotta do. Should pay off in the end.

Glad to hear that and good planning! I hate to see anyone suffer with migraines.

The studies all show that the cognitive dulling most significant at levels above 100 mg/day and fairly negligible at levels below that, but it differs for every person. When I'm messed around with my dosages, I've only had a couple days of fatigue, so hopefully the next time will go smoother...

I use it for cluster headaches and I struggled with continuing to use this med. I had the tingling and felt confused with it. With persistence the side effects did go away. 150mg aday

Good luck with this pinkflower17

Is it helpful for your headaches? Glad your side effects finally went away

yes Newgal.... thank god it did help the cluster headaches when so many other meds failed. I had actually stopped this for a while initially because the side affects were so bad but I was stuck because nothing else worked on the headaches so I went back on them and stuck it out.