TOPAMAX Reviews (TOPIRAMATE)Average Rating: 3.0 (1824 Ratings)Filter ResultsCompare TOPAMAX with similar:
Type: Rx Drug
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Results are sorted by length of time drug was taken longest to shortest. Key to Ratings: 1=LOW (I would not recommend taking this medicine.) Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 |
More on TOPAMAX: Reviews Summary | Drug Safety Information
| RATING | REASON | SIDE EFFECTS FOR TOPAMAX | COMMENTS | SEX | AGE | DURATION/ DOSAGE | DATE ADDED |
| 3 | Eating Disorder & Depression & Pain | At first, (25 mg) only mild taste problems, and what felt like an eternal stomach ache and bloating. Over 6 weeks, up to 150 mg now, stomach ache and bloating have worsened, sleep pattern is irregular, now taking slight doses of trazadone as a sleep aid (not helping, working out alternatives with my doctor currently), as well as irritability has worsened to the point of having to look at medication for management of that as well. Other than that, weight loss (29lbs in less than 2 months), only because I no longer even remember to eat, or when it is mealtime. Thank god that my roommate remembers when it's time to eat! | This drug is not for the light of heart, make sure you understand ALL of the possible effects before deciding to take it. Based on where it works in the brain and what it does, some of the more severe, but acceptable side effects, are to be expected. I have had more than one instance of completely being at a loss for words (and I am a 35 year old college grad that has worked in the PR sector for years!) | M | 35 | 5 months | 9/30/2007 | 3 | Migraines | First time I took topomax had terrible side effects - felt as if bugs were crawling all over my body. Immediately went off it! Went to another MD, and after many other drugs tried titrating it slowly. I am now up to 90mg daily along with 150 mg effexor. Side effects include terrible thirst, major cognitive impairments (loss of words, cloudiness, stupor), constipation, severe hair loss, fatigue (but had this prior, so I am not sure if it is a true side effect of the drug or not) some depression, some irritability, some nervousness | I am having a difficult time in trying to decide whether or not to stay on this drug. It has helped. I have gone from daily migraines (and missing 40+ days of work last year) to 3 a week. However, the side effects are considerable. My job is not one that allows for much latitude in performance and I am just not able to keep up. HOWEVER I DID WANT TO NOTE THAT FOR THE HAIR LOSS I WAS TOLD TO USE A SELENIUM BASED SHAMPOO, AND IT WORKED WONDERS!! IF YOU COLOR YOUR HAIR, BE SURE TO USE AN ORGANIC ONE, OTHERWISE YOUR HAIR WILL TURN BLUE. GOOD LUCK TO ALL. | F | 39 | 5 months | 5/22/2007 | 3 | headaches/migraines | Itching...UNBELIEVABLE itching! Tingling/numbness in fingers and hands/feet, hair just beginning to pull out but thought it was me....now I read this and wonder....sleepless nights, constipation. | I started on 25mg a day and was increased to 50mg a day. I am now taking 100mg a day. I do 50 in the morning and 50 at night per doctor's orders. I have lost 37 pounds (the only good news) but only give partial credit to the drug. Once I began the higher dose of Topamax, I began itching in the back of my scalp area. Sometimes it would be on my stomach, my sides, my arms or legs and now on my lower back, but for the most part, it's remained in the back of my scalp. For 3 months, I have gone through every shampoo, conditioner, over the counter product out there to treat what I thought was sceriosis. A week ago, it dawned on me that it could be this drug. After speaking to the nurse and going to our local drugstore, our pharmacist was able to determine that it was in fact Topamax causing this adverse reaction to my nerve endings. I was to the point of cutting my own head off!!! The doctor said the drug is still too new to know all the side effects, and this is just one of mine. | F | 37 | 5 months | 11/1/2007 | 3 | addition to an existing medication | Weight loss, cannot concentrate, anxiety attacks, palpitations, leg twitching at night, forgetfulness, | I was told about this site by a nurse. I am on other meds,( Trileptol,Lamictal,Adavan,Lexapro). I cannot tell for sure that my side effects are from topomax but I was on it once before for 6 months. I fired my Doctor since I couldn't function. The new one has me feeling normal again day by day. It is nice to have a place to interact with people who have experienced this drug. This dr. wants to keep me on topomax and off lamictal. I also have had a libido that won't quit. I've had my "friend for 14 months" that has now stopped. I would like to just keep in touch. | F | 42 | 5 months | 3/12/2007 | 3 | depression, mood stabalizing | increased tingling (meaning pins and needles) in feet/legs/arms if i sat weird for periods of time (i became more aware of my posture to prevent it). soda=flat taste, weight= lost 15 pounds, appetite = slowed at same rate my thinking did. Had to increase prozac to fight INCREASE in depression at 200mg/topamax | Now that I'm one week off of topamax, all the prozac "figit-ness" is back full force at night now that topomax isn't there to muffle it any longer. I like having a "quieter" body from the topomax - meaning taking down the - i gotta jiggle my leg,can't stop moving motor-movements - i didn't realize i got so used to with just prozac alone. however, topomax also muffled my intellect. After discontinuing the drug 5 days ago I've noticed,coinciding with my bodies rise in activity and motion and restlessnes, which I didn't miss at all, came a rise in speed-of-thought, word-recall, anetdotes and stories. They all seem like they flow instantly from my mind to my mouth unlike the gradual softening and slowing and quieting I had experienced the past 5 months I've been on topomax 100 (about 2 months at that dose), then 200mg/day. Now off of it my old "personality" is shining thru again, and I hadn't even realized it was so gone until i started coming OFF the topomax and saw it return. A night and day difference there, really. Overall though, to be honest, I didn't really mind being slower, less funny, less energetic, because I felt more "comfortable" ... like the topomax made me ride like a cushy Cadillac (no gunning it at a green-light or fast corners can be taken!), while back to my old self again feels like a sports car (quick throttle, can turn on a dime, but the ride is rough as hell - not made for cruising and you're tired after drivi | M | 30 | 5 months 200 mg 1X day | 5/31/2010 | 3 | migraines | tingling in hands and toes, loss of appetite, things taste weird, thirsty all the time, breathing problems, sleepiness, constant fatigue, garbled speech, confused at times, loss of memory, very moody, | helped my migraines, made me lose 18 lbs, still working on adjusting the dosage b/c obviously haven't found the right dosage, too many side effects! | F | 21 | 5 months | 11/5/2005 | 2 | Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, Migraine | Tingling in hands & feet, decreased libido, acne, fatigue & lethargy, some weight loss | I was originally on Tegretol, but wanted to try Topamax for weight loss. While I did lose about 9 lbs. when I first went on it, the continued side effects made me miserable: the tingling in my hands and feet; no sex drive; bad acne on my back, chest, and face; always feeling tired and no energy to do anything. | F | 38 | 5 months | 3/31/2006 | 2 | Chronic Migraines | The first few weeks I felt mentally very slow. Also had problems finding the words that I wanted to use. I experienced a weird thing I read someone else experienced where I felt as if my body was sideways but it wasn't. Tingling in my hands and feet the entire time like everyone else, strong in my feet at times but not painful. Total change in taste perception of certain foods the first 3-4 months while on drug. Soda was horrible, doritos were terrible, other foods just didn't taste that great and I only wanted 2-3 bites of any food I ate. Therefore, I lost lots of weight the first month, about 7 lbs which is alot for me starting out at 104. All the side effects except tingling stopped by the 4th month. | This drug pretty much did nothing for the frequency of my headaches. It may have decreased the intensity a little bit, but that is questionable. I still got headaches everyday for several months while on it. I did not get better until getting off the drug and seeing a trigger point massage therapist, accupuncturist, chiropractor and getting an NTI (FDA approved night guard from a dentist for people who clench/grind their teeth) and also taking many supplements known to help migraines such as Omega 3 Fish Oil, CoQ10, Magnesium, Riboflavin, Feverfew. If your health is normal other than your headaches, see a Neuromuscular Dentist, they may have the answers no one else could give you. Drugs do not solve the problem in most cases, they only control the symptoms. My headaches (an other various pains & problems) ended up being caused by TMJD (Tendomandibular Joint Disorder). I wish I knew about Neuromuscular Dentists a year ago and I wouldn't have suffered so long and spent so much | F | 37 | 5 months | 3/23/2006 | 2 | migraines | Tingling in fingers & toes, weird taste in mouth, confusion at times, trouble with conservations, tired, just a sense of not feeling all there. I did lose 8 lbs with it. | I had noticed that my fingers and toes were tingling and feeling numb on and off all the time. I have nerve damage in one of my legs and foot and was really scared it was spreading to other areas. This also just felt different from my normal tingling that I usually have in my foot and leg. On my last visit to my Dr. that was went I found out that was a side effect of this medicine. I also have had a weird taste in my mouth all the time that I have blamed on some dental work that I had gotten done not long after starting medicine. My headaches have started again so it seems as if it is not even working on that anymore also. So I am working my way off of this and hopefully the tingling will go away from my fingers and toes. This is a medicine I will be very happy to be off of. | F | 45 | 5 months 200 mg 1X day | 7/20/2010 | 2 | Bipolar disorder | Memory loss, serious cognitive impairment, speech problems | The brief period of weight loss on this medication was not worth the other side effects. And it did nothing to help with the bipolar disorder. | F | 51 | 5 months | 5/19/2004 | 2 | Neuropathy | Confusion, dizziness | Topamax did nothing for neuropathy. Side effects subsided to a tolerable level in under a month. Withdrawing HARD due to doctor refusal to taper (from 400mg/day!), so I had to cobble together my own taper schedule with leftover meds. Saw no problems with soda, but during withdrawal period coffee tasted like fried rice. | F | 22 | 5 months 200 mg 2X day | 11/9/2015 | 1 | migranes | brief weight loss, then some weight gain. Sexual sensation loss. extreme thirst with extreme body dryness and incredible, insane itching. extreme hair loss. extreme memory loss. increased head aches, with still having migraines and still having to take other medications to help mitigate the migraines. loss of motivation. loss of thought process in the middle of the thought. | Just keep with it, the doctor says, it will get better....it has never gotten better! in fact I read all of these other people and wonder if we are all not some huge laboratory experiment! I have been suffering through this waiting for the day that the promise of no migraines actually happen! BULL POKEY! I a stopping this stuff today and going natural because at least natural I am not going to itch and thirst all the dang time!!!! | F | 45 | 5 months 100 mg 1X day | 2/24/2015 | 1 | Intercranial Hypertension Headaches | Terrible pins and needles,made my moods very bad,felt like harming my loved ones!Turned me in a zombie,sickness and stomache pains. | Was put on these after taking Diamox for IIH,Diamox is a bad drug as well but had got rid of the tingles ages ago,after 3 days my hands and feet felt like I could shoot electric out of them,I was like a zombie and I felt angry all the time,added to that I couldn`t eat anything as I`d eat and then throw up within a few hours.It did help my daily headaches down from a 8 to about 4 but the side effects are not worth it,I thought Diamox was a bad drug until my neuro tried me on these,oh and I can`t spell or talk properly thanks to these,they should be banned! | M | 42 | 5 months | 4/20/2009 | 1 | Epilepsy | Weight loss,cognitive and speech problems,mood swings,depression,short term memory loss | I was diagnosed with epilepsy in August or 2007. I was given Topamax to help control my seizures. At firt for about 2 weeks I felt great I had a ton of energy and so forth. After that I started noticing I was having trouble writing (i'd write things over and over again by mistake or even write things backwards and I couldn't spell worth anything.) I became very depressed and even suidcidal at one point this drug completley changed me I became VERY distant from my family, friends, and boyfriend. Worst of all at 400mg my seizures still were not controlled infact they were worse. The only upside to the medication was that it curved my appetite so much I lost 50 pounds. | F | 20 | 5 months | 7/13/2008 | 1 | Migraines | Lots of dizziness, lethargy, lots of stomach upset, as it would feel like it was severely ruining my digestive system the longer I used it, and it gave me stones in my gallbladder which resulted in my having to have my gallbladder removed and I also had to have surgery to have a stone removed from my bile duct as well. This stuff is absolute poison. It does more to ruin your body than it does to help it., | Avoid at all costs! | F | 44 | 5 months 50mg | 2/16/2020 | 1 | migraine prevention | From a dosage of 25mg to 150mg/day: it increased the number of migraines I get per week/month; affected my taste in food (everything tasted bland, soda tasted flat); saw minor hallucinations (trails, things in the corner of my eye); drowsy all the time; severely affected my memory, ability to do math, read a book, vocabulary-I could never find the right word for anything; and mild heartburn. | I get migraine headaches 15-20+ times a month (so it's almost an everyday thing for me), but when I started Topamax, it was an EVERYDAY occurence. There was no doubt I would get a migraine, it was just at what point in the day would it hit me. I'm dissatisfied, but I can't not recommend it, if you have bad migraines, it may work for you. | M | 29 | 5 months | 4/20/2006 | 1 | Migraine | Decreased appitite, weight loss, tingling in fingers and toes, nausia, trouble finding words, confusion, took longer to figure out things at work, argumentative anger, became a mad person, got mad a little things and would argue for at least 30 minutes, would do this to boyfriend, magazine articles, tv, movies, and checkout clerks when things went wrong. My patience went to zero - so not like me. | I started out on the free trial plan to get started, then moved to 50mg twice a day. My migraines were at 4-5 a month. They increased to 7-8 a month. The sevierity of the pain was the same. After taking this horrible drug for 5 months, my dr agreed to take me off. I didn't mind the weight loss (13 pounds) or tingling sensations. But the rest of the side effects were too much. I was eating too much Zofran for nausia, I could barely function at work, and my relationship with my boyfriend was suffering. | F | 31 | 5 months | 8/22/2007 | 1 | migrains and weight loss | HAIR LOSS, tingling in my feet and hands, inability to recover the correct words when forming sentences, attention span. Soda tasted funny | first of all I was on topamax for 5 months and only lost 7 pounds which I put back on while still on the drug. my feet and hands kept falling asleep every day ALL THE TIME. I didnt think anything of it until I stopped the drug and now it doenst happen at all. I have always had a very thick full head of hair. it is also curly so it was natural to loose some hair daily. I always shed. But looking back, I realize that on a daily basis while conditioning my hair, my hands were covered in strands, COVERED! I had to snake my drain once a month since starting topamax. When I went to the hair dressers this past weekend they found three spots missing hair, two were small no bigger than a quarter, the other is almost the size of a fist! I didnt notice because it was the back of my head and under the firt layer of hair THANKFULLY! I stopped taking the drug Immediately, that was saturday. Today is wednesday and I already notice when I wash my hair that there is virtually no hair on my hands | F | 31 | 5 months | 1/18/2006 | 4 | migraine | Severe tingling in feet, tingling in hands, tingling in face and mouth. Extreme short term memory loss. Extreme difficulty with word recall. Language difficulties. Inability to concentrate. Visual disturbances. EVERYTHING tastes bad...including water. Constant bitter metallic taste in mouth. Thirsty all the time. Dry mouth. Loss of sex drive. Lethargy. Dizziness. "Detatched" feelings. Loss of appetite. | Current dosage is 100 mg 2x per day. Started taking after a car accident for constant migraines...literally 24-7...ranging in pain from just extremely annoying to completely debilitating. Was taking Zomig an average of 5x per week, sometimes with an additional prescription narcotic pain reliever. Migraines are still basically constant, but they now range from just barely noticeable most of the time to debilitating only two or three times a month and needing Zomig once or twice a week. I don't want to increase the dosage because I don't want worse side effects. | F | 39 | 4.5 months | 9/23/2005 | 5 | Partial Seizures, severe migraines | Extreme tingling in feet and calves, weight loss of 25 lbs, initial nausea and sickness while upping mg, soda tastes like sewer waste, decreased appetite, apathy. | I have been on many different seizure medications since 1989 and Topamax is by far the best and works the best. The soda pop tasting horrible starting immediatly first tasting flat then horrible within two days. Decrease of appetite was also combined with disinterest in food. Appetite suppression has lasted for the four months I have taken Topamax. Most weight loss occured in first month. First month was roughest with no energy and being sick a great deal from upping the medication. Apathy- at first I thought it might be depression but it felt different. I was depressed I just didn't really care about food or have an opinion about anything. That did pass. Food sensitivity also prevelant could not eat any strong smelling foods such as BBQ. Also have not had a desire for alcholic drinks. I stopped driving due to dizziness it felt like I had two drinks under my belt when I drove my friends to the airport like I couldn't focus completely. Still don't feel completely comfortable. | F | 37 | 4 months | 11/20/2006 |