Posted by Sharon J. on October 21, 2000, at 15:09:50
In reply to Re: topamax » Gabrielle, posted by tdaneen on October 20, 2000, at 11:01:18
Hi. I am "nosey" about Topomax, too, and admit that I do not know about Depakote/Topomax and getting off it safely. I can tell you that I was on Depakote for a long time, along with other meds that had "weight gain" side effects, and I gained 178# in about 16 months. When I got off the old meds (got a new doc) and he put me on Topomax, I lost a great deal of weight from both eliminating so many weight gaining drugs, and from adding Topomax. In late January, while on all my "old" meds, I topped the scale at 299#. Late March, I changed docs and meds, and since then I have been losing weight successfully. Last week, I weighed in at 243#. But I do want to say that I had a very hard time with 25 mg increases, and had some other awful complications while taking it (which may or may not have anything to do with Topomax at all, which I need more information about and will carefully reconsider before I let my doc put me back on it), and if I were ever to agree to take it again, I am going to talk to my Doc about my cutting the 25's in half as the last writer suggested. I got to 150 mg and the side effects were awful, and the 25 mg steps up to reaching that 150 mg mark were harder and harder and took me more and more time to "adjust" to each new dose. Bottom line for me is that once I got to 150 mg, it was more than I could handle from side effect aspect at the rate he was increasing it, and when other complication arised at the same time I was taking it, I asked him to take me off it for now so that I could get "stabilized" again.
poster:Sharon J.
thread:46869
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20001012/msgs/47005.html