Posted 5/5/2014 8:03 PM (GMT 0)
I have been on it twice. I took it before and after my pregnancy. Topamax is the only drug that has taken away my fibro symptoms. There was still a little pain, but I had no need for pain meds. The stiffness was gone. No severe pain unless I overdid it. I had no headaches taking it. I also have asthma, and I could breathe really well taking the Topamax. Since I could move around, I lost weight, but not a lot like some people do. I lost the weight that I gained while I could not move around. BUT and here comes the BUT, the side-effects can be nasty. Some food does not taste right, but who cares about that if it works, right? When you start taking it, you may be sick for about a week to two weeks, depending on what dosage your doctor starts you at. I said it felt like the flu or morning sickness. I took 50 mg a day, which is a pretty small dose, and after about 4 months, I really started getting the bad side-effects. First, I did forget a lot of simple things. It did fog up my memory pretty well, and that did not take long to start happening. Also, I had numbness and tingling in my hands and feet, but I could ignore that pretty well. The memory though bothered me. It was like you knew something, but just could not grab the word out of your head. My eyes started to get blurry. I noticed at first that I was blinking a lot, and I did not think much about it until I read more on Topamax side-effects. I thought maybe it will stop, but it did not. Finally, my sweat started turning orange, yes orange, and my hair started falling out. Topamax can dehydrate you so you need to drink more, but you just don't feel like it at the same time so that is probably why my sweat was orange because I was not keeping up on all the water I needed. A little hair falling out is okay, but my hair is still falling out after being off the medication for 3 months. It was coming out in what I would call globs. After six months I stopped taking it. I hate NOT taking it because I have a 21 month-old son, and I could play and do everything with him - now I am stiff as a board and not able to do things with him that I want to. I am not saying that you will have these same side-effects; I am just letting you know how it went with me, and how fast it happened. The first time I took Topamax, I was only on it for about 3 months so I did not experience all of these. Another thing, once you get the pills, more than likely you will get generic, you should keep getting them from the same pharmacy. I had an issue where I got sick when I got my generic pills from another pharmacy; they were another brand. It felt like I was starting all over on Topamax. This is because some pills can have different dosages in them from different manufacturers. I had one pharmacist tell me that is the case, yet another told me that the difference is not enough to cause a problem. Well, I was sick, and I did not know why. It took me a week to figure it out, and when I went back to my original pharmacy, where I had to pay out-of-pocket since I already filled my prescription for the month, and took those original generic pills, I was no longer sick. So as far as I am concerned there is a difference. I have never had a problem with any other type of medication from different pharmacies before. Don't let me scare you off because the pills did work for me.