r/Topamax

I. Hate. This. Medication

More than any other med I’ve ever taken in my life. And my body is a trash can

I think I experienced nearly every single side effect. Except weight loss of course 🫠 food has been weird

- I will never forget the term carbonic dysgeusia. Because it’s fun to say. But it also took root beer from me. ROOT BEER 😭
- it made me forget just about everything else though. I thought I had memory problems before. ha
- I thought I felt like a blundering dumba** before 🤣
- paresthesia. So often. Pins and needles all over your face feels so weird
- dry mouth. All the time
- unclear if it’s made my kidney stones worse or if those just decided to be worse lately
- dizziness, drowsiness, increased anxiety
- completely out of control depression. Went down to a baby dose. Moderately out of control depression
- adhd meds stopped working yaaaay
- ….i think it regulated my period? I’ve never been regular in my life. I hate it. Birth control had taken my period away. Then I started topamax and had a nearly 6 WEEK PERIOD
- etc etc etc

Oh. And to top it all off. It made my migraines worse. I had 21 migraine days in April.

My doctor finally started weaning me off of it yesterday. Of course my body isn’t handling that well either, because why would it. But I’m so so so so so excited to not be going through neurological warfare anymore and needed to share with people who’d understand 😭💜

I’m 19F, I got diagnosed with epilepsy when I was 12 and got prescribed with topiramate(topamax), everything has gone downhill since

After starting it when I was 12 my mood changed and my grades started to slip and as I started to up my dosage it worsened, my memory became foggy, I was doing terrible in school like never before, I was depressed. And I suppose you could chalk all this up to hormones and being a teenager which is how my family saw it but I was never like this before I started topamax like I just hate it.
And I’m still on it and I still act the same way today, I still struggle so much with school and memory and focusing and my mood.
At this point I feel like it’s been so many years that I don’t even know if it’s the topamax anymore but whatever

Long story short I just hate topamax

I want to preface this by saying I’m not trying to fear monger but I genuinely don’t know what to do

I’m on 75mg of Topomax and I developed the worst cough that makes it really hard to breath/causes me to throw up, makes eating impossible (either can’t eat due to the pain or throwing up the food) and I sleep basically 20hrs a day. I don’t know what to do and my neurologist isn’t answering the phone. These are only the worst of the worst not mentioning the tingling, total hand/feet numbness, stutter, hot/cold flashes, etc

I don’t know if I should skip neuro and go to the er or keep trying neuro. I’m at a loss and honestly just ready to go back to sleep

anyone here with migraines that take topamax? I just started going to a neurologist, and she prescribed this for my headaches and joint pain, I also have eds, but I'm pretty reactive to medications, and I always worry starting a new medication. I know everyone is different, and reacts differently, but is this medicine worth it?

hi 22f, recently diagnosed w chronic migraines and new daily persistent headaches. i was put on 10mg of rizatriptan (only taken 1 time so far and didnt help) 25mg of topamax (1st week, increase to 50 2nd week, 75 3rd week, 100 4th week), and i’ve only taken 3 doses of it so far. prior to starting it i’ve had pretty constant headaches and occasional migraines, but no nausea or visual disturbances to accompany it - basically i could still function and go throughout my day (albeit in pain).

since starting topamax, the good thing is that i do notice total relief from pain and pressure at some points, but it’s only lasted about an hour max. now whenever i do have a headache/migraine (most, if not all of the day), the pain is worse and fluctuates more on the pain scale and in location quicker than usual (like going from 2 to 6 back down to 2 to 4 within like 30 minutes). i also have nausea now and very slight visual disturbances such as color changes and just shaky(?) or blurry(?) vision. also increased neck and back pain.

i have an mri schedules for june 1st but i’m just reading so many different opinions and results of people on topamax and have a lot of health anxiety so i’m just wondering if this is common/if i should be concerned/someone else has experienced something similar. thank you!!

Hi all
I had great success
On amitriptyline for migraines but started having some pretty bad side effects …
Including weight gain ( which didn’t help since I already have BED) so a couple weeks ago my doctor switched me to Topamax . I am on 50mg in the morning and 50mg at night. The transition has been pretty easy for the headaches and feels like it was successful . I am wondering if anyone had any luck with the “modest weight loss” my doctor mentioned and when that may kick in ? Thanks so much