Topamax and diarrhea

I have been on topamax for about 8 months. I started with 25, upped to 50, upped to 100 a day, then went to 300. now i have a raging diarrhea that I cannot control. I can't eat anything anymore. I have had seizures and at this point don't care anymore. So yesterday I simply stopped taking it. I am done. I just want to eat something and stop sitting on the stool. My poo has gone completely green at times....that is stomach bile. This medication is terrible stuff and should be removed from the market!

In August I started taking Topamax and every week i am to up the dosage now I am taking 50mg in the morning and and 50 mg at night because my headaches was so bad that I had to quit my job because I couldn't serve food and vomit at the same time. Now that my headaches have gone from everyday to about every other day I have noticed the indigestion. Because I had because sick so long the doctor suggested I had a reflux and it would correct itself.I started looking at all the medication I was on and the list from the pharmacy never indicated indigestion on as a side effect for Topamax.My appetite is non.Weight lost about 20 lbs but I could afford that and then some. I try not to use the upstairs of my home if no one is there because of the dizziness.And simple chores around the house go undone.I have bounce $130 in bank fees this month and can't figure out how and gave the finances over to my husband to keep up with and I am a math major in college this semester.This is how bad things have gotten some simple words i can't recall how to spell . I have to use the dictionary. It's bad.

I have been taking Topomax for migraines for about 3 years now. Staying at the 75mg at night dosage. Going to 100mg just does not work for me. GI disturbances too severe. Diarrhea mostly. Early on same as a lot of the other reports, tingling in hands, bad tasting soda, some hair loss, and intermittent upset stomach and diarrhea. Memory not as good as without the med and balance a little off. All of these have diminished in intensity and frequency. Up side, weekly headaches that forced me to go to bed gone. Being an irritable wretch because my head hurt, was about to begin to hurt, or just got over hurting gone. At this point in my life the pros still outweigh the cons and as long as that is true I will continue with the regimine.

Hello All,
I"m a 50 year old Mother and Grandma who takes Topamax as a Mood Stabilizer for Bipolar Disorder. I took it about 5 years ago and about 6 months after I started taking it I was struck down with debilitating diarrhea, nausea, loss of appetite, extreme weight loss ( 26 pounds in one month ). No one knew what was wrong with me. My psychiatrist actually upped my Topamax dose because I was becoming depressed and having severe mood swings. I was sick for 8 months. I saw a new psychiatrist and he stopped the Topamax because it just was too over medicating at that time and started a different mood stabilizer.

I didn't put 2 and 2 together. I just was happy that the diarrhea and nausea for the most part was gone. I still have nausea frequently but that is from a totally different cause.

In December we discussed that the new mood stabilizer was no longer working so we went back on the Topamax. In April the diarrhea and nausea this time accompanied by vomiting started. I was ready when it started tho even tho I didn't know the cause. I got hooked up with a GI doctor, started probiotics immediately, started eating organic yogurt with as many live active cultures in it as i could find. I would only eat plain boiled rice, boiled macaroni, toast, ripened organic bananas and drink lots of fluid. No gatorade but pedialyte because gatorade has citric acid in it which can be irritating. Pedialyte doesn't. I also drank decaf ice tea with small amounts of sugar.

Now today I read that Topamax can give you diarrhea and if you have a history of diarrhea tell your doctor. Great, just great. Trade my mental health for my physical health but having diarrhea at the most unopertune times does affect my mental health. What am I going to do?

I refuse to take a weight positive mood stabilizer and that is all I'm left with. Like Lithium, Depakote. they will make me as big as a cow. I'd rather have diarrhea to tell you the truth. I don't think I'm gonna tell him.

Missyk10atx

headaches,nausea,fatigue,irritability,blurred vision,terrible loss of memory,inability to eat,depression,diarrhea

I've been taking Topamax for a couple of months now to help with my lifelong (I'm 47) migraines. I had been taking at least 10 Axerts each month, using Amyltriptyline about twice a month, and had completed one lifetime's supply of Aleve (my belly revolted so it's only Tylenol for me from now on). I'm on 100mg and have very mild tingling, which I tell myself is a message that I don't have a migraine (hooray!). For me, this is a wonder drug - it nearly completely prevents my suffering. The problem is that I have absolutely raging diarrhea. I've spent weeks on the BRATTY diet & using probiotics to no avail so I've begun dropping my dosage to 75 mg to see if that helps. I would do nearly anything to continue taking Topamax.

Interestingly, I had more fuzzy brain problems taking excess Axert & Amiylriptyline than I do now on Topamax. I feel much less like I have ADD now. Amazing how differently meds affect different people.

I have been on Topamax for a little over a year. I've had most of the side effects; tingling, numbness in the fingers, dry mouth, forgetfulness, and weight loss - love the weight loss. All the side effects have sort of slowed down as I've been on the medication longer. The weight loss has slowed and I've even began to get my appetite back- I'm afraid I'm going to start gaining weight now! I've lost about 40 pounds and I needed to lose it, so that was wonderful. I've had a very hard time losing weight all my life so this was wonderful.

I was addicted to Coca Cola and this med also helped me kick that habit because I lost my taste for the carbonation.

Does anyone know if the weight loss usually evens out after about a year or a year and a half? I need to lose about 30 more pounds and was hoping that I would continue losing weight!

Anyway, I was on the Topamax for headaches and it has completely helped that! It has truly been a God-send for me. Other than monthly hormone headaches, I don't get migraines hardly at all!

I am wondering about having my doc up my dosage for the weight loss aspect????

Haven't seen anyone mention any sexual SE's but I know I'm not imagining this. It's not a lack of libido but, it's as if my wiring has been disconnected.
A lack of sensation. Major bummer. I can live without sodas but not this!
That was my major reason for getting off the Topamax. My doctor was very incredulous about this being a SE of the Topamax but he didn't argue with me. I came across this site just looking to see if anyone else had experienced this. After getting here I can not believe all the things I have been brushing aside as due to something else. Stomach pain and diarrhea, severe GERD, depression and morbid thinking, oh and my gosh the trouble searching for words and connecting thoughts--I thought I was loosing it, shortness of breath and weakness that I was attributing to weight gain! I have only been on 25 mg a day for 6 months. The migraines did improve and the paresthesia in my hands subsided over time. But all this other crap that has slipped in and I have been passing off as aging or just wondering what else was up with my body and mind. Sheese! Thank goodness for this site! I am tapering off this crap-- and I feel like crap. Weakness and fatigue and a weird pain in the side of my head that is not a headache exactly. I hope I'm back to normal soon, this is awful!

Hi All, I am a 37 year old mother of 4, with a history of severe Hemiplegic migraines (up to 14 a month). I've been on Verapamil and Topamax for 7-8 months with a gradual increase of the Topamax to 150 mg a day. Before I start writing this I have to preface it with two things: First, Before Topamax I was one of those women my friends refer to as a "Supermom", I home school my kids and used to love it, we normally have a lot of fun and I have a successful, happy marriage. Second, on Topamax, I went from 14 migraines a month to 0. It didn't happen over night, they went away as we ramped up the dosage, but for the last few months I have had no migraines, I can feel it occasionally when my head is fighting one off, but nothing an Advil won't stop, and for those of us who've lived with trying to care for kids while having migraines (especially Hemiplegic) you may understand why I initially put up with the following: I started out with the tingling in my hands and feet (that went away in a couple of months), word finding difficulties (which never really went away, I just learned to accept it),occasional blurred vision which never lasts very long but which has been an issue the entire time I've been on the med, and weight loss ...I am 5'4" and was only 118 lbs to start with, and have nearly "disappeared" into a size 0 and 105 lbs, and it doesn't matter how much I eat, I've been trying 3 meals, snacks, cookies, candy, you name it, I can't gain weight. I was never nauseous, no diarrhea, I just don't get hungry... I had to start wearing a watch at one point to remind myself to feed the kids, because if they didn't ask, they weren't getting lunch until 2:00 because I wasn't getting hungry! Soda does taste like metal (fortunately I don't drink it normally anyway), and you do get loopy with one glass of anything alcoholic.
Then to add to the lovely appearance of skin and bones, my hair is falling out. Before Topamax I worked out regularly, I am even on commercials for my gym (recorded a year ago), since Topamax, I was so tired, depressed, and so afraid of losing weight that I stopped working out. Now a woman who has always made it a goal to set a good example for my daughters that a fit body is the goal, not a thin body, has her mother in law telling her that she looks "bulimic"! In August I noticed I was crying a lot, then I thought well, maybe it's the Topamax, so I started drinking more water and it went away... so I've been very careful to drink A LOT of water and only decaf tea while on this med, but apparently that wasn't enough, because a few weeks ago my husband pointed out that I stopped showering every day. I have been crying at the drop of a hat for a couple of months again, and I have never been someone to cry in public, I have even started crying in front of my daughters friends' mothers and near tears in front of her teacher over the littlest things... then last weekend I found myself with four hours to myself in my house for the first time in months and I was thinking about how I might be able to use it for unspeakable things like running away, or worse... if those aren't signs of a pretty severe depression I don't know what are, fortunately I recognized them and put them together with the memory problems, etc. As for the memory loss, there have been problems with that for months as well, my daughter has been telling me I "have a bad rememberer" , This weekend everything culminated and other people were recognizing the memory issues that I had been keeping private until now (including my husband). Before that, I would be in the kitchen cooking and forget what I was doing, I went to drive to a party this weekend and forgot where I was going, so I called a friends husband and he had to tell me four times where to go before I could retain it (at first he thought I was joking) and then I still couldn't remember the name of the place, only the # and street, I haven't been able to remember routes to places I used to drive... I'll find myself sitting at a light not sure where to go, and making mistakes with our money because I forgot whether I did or didn't pay a bill (something I've never done, we have always had excellent credit). On Topamax I went from feeling like an attractive, successful, good mom,with a happy family... to constantly stressed, even by things I had previously enjoyed doing, and a completely depressed failure... but I had no migraines. I have now been weaning off the Topamax for a few days. I was playing phone tag with my neurologist... so due to the urgency of the problem I took myself down to 100 mg a day. I have since spoken with my neurologist and I am going off of it completely... by the way don't ever discontinue this med without ramping off of it, doing so can cause a seizure. I am unbelievably grateful that I put 2 and 2 together the weekend I had time to myself and got lost going to the party and I already feel more awake, less tearful and depressed... I know that things will be ok anyway. I hope that anyone reading this who is having memory or emotional issues on Topamax and just brushing them aside (because they don't want to risk going back to the migraines or whatever), will get off this med. Please realize that this med could have cost me, my kids and my husband a lot more than my migraines ever will. I have never experienced depression before Topamax, and I can't say that I'm completely back to myself yet, but I hope that when I am off this med I will find normal again, and I pray it will be without migraines, but I know that I wouldn't wish these past few months that I've put myself and my family through on anyone. Now, I need to go take a shower :) , then I'm going to my neurologist to pick up some 25 mg samples to continue ramping off! Good luck to you all!

I am a 32 y/o female that was put on Topamax 10 days ago for migraines. I am taking 25mg twice a day so far, and the side effects I have experienced are all carbonated drinks taste flat; including beer, and if I take it close to bed time, I cannot sleep. The medication actually revs me up! Nothing i cannot handle. I have not had any problems with loss of appetite, nausea or diarrhea. Sure, sometimes I feel a little spacey, but I did that even before I started the medication. My doctor did tell me that you do need to drink plenty of water and eat plenty of protein. Also, when I start to feel a little spacey, eating a small amount of sugar seems to help with that... I have had a few headaches since starting the medication, but I haven't had a full blown migraine!!! I will continue to keep you posted. So far, I haven't had any side effects that i can't live with and by reading the posts and talking with several other people on the medication, it seems like the side effects are temporary and improve as your body "adjusts" to the medication. I am a nurse and I guess I am at at advantage because I am educating people on daily basis about this very issue!

I've been on Topamax for over a year for hormonal migraines, and it's working great for the headaches. I started out at 25mg twice a day and now I'm up to 100mg twice a day. I've lost 40lb (mostly due to the drug -- but my appetite is starting to come back) and have just recently started experiencing the anxiety and tingling in the extremities. I've always felt I've had trouble concentrating and "finding the word", but I attributed it to lack of sleep because I have two small children. My most recent side effect, however, is most worrisome, which is the reason for my visit to this website. I am experiencing severe abdominal pain, almost constant, and it seems to be increasing. I had abdominal pain and diarrhea when I first started Topamax last year, but it stopped after the first month or so. I'm just wondering if maybe long term use can cause ulcers or other stomach problems. Anyone have any experience with this? I know from experience that Topamax dosages have to gradually weaned up and down, so I'm considering decreasing my dosage to see if my stomach problems will stop. I'm just in so much pain, yet my migraines have almost stopped now with 200mg a day, that I'm reluctant to change my dose.

I have been on Topomax for 2 years now at 200 mg. for mood stabilization. I was recently hospitalized for my depression and they upped my Topomax dose to 400mg saying it was the "therapeutic dosage". I went into the hospital weighing 116 pounds and I am 5' 6" tall. I started having diarrhea within a couple days. By the tiime I left 2 weeks later I had gone from a size 4 to a size 2. A month and 1/2 later I had lost 15 pounds, had severe abdominal pain everytime I ate, diarrhea every morning, nausea, and had absolutely no appetite.

My psychiatrist insisted it was not the medication and I went to a gastroenterologist for the full workup- ultrosound, colonoscopy, endoscopy and surprise surprise they found nothing. My Gastro doctor concluded it must be the meds so I started backing down on the Topomax and already the diarrhea has stopped. I am at 250 and up to 101 pounds now. I am taking in over 1200 calories a day but I still can't seem to gain weight. My doctor still doesn't believe it's the Topomax but it all points in that direction. Instead they insist I'm just not eating enough But I make sure to force myself to get down 3 meals plus 2 ensures and some snacks. I still am waiting to get some appetite back. I know some women would love to be in my place to have to try to gain weight but I feel like I'm dying all the time. I have no energy, I can't even get up in the morning to take care of my kids. My fiance left me because he got so fed up with my "sickness" and thought it was all in my head. I have my mother living with me now just to help me take care of my own children and it breaks my heart that I don't have the enery to play with them. I can't see my psychiatrist for 2 more weeks so I am taking my level of medication into my own hands which I know you are not supposed to do but at this point it's that or lie in bed feeling like I'm just wasting away.

Topamax has made my life a living hell for the last few weeks. I only started it three or four weeks ago but as of a week and a half ago (when I reached the dosage of 75/mg/day), I started getting anxiety attacks that lasted all day long. I've experienced mild anxiety before and this is nothing like it. I'm in college, and my parents finally got sick of the hours-long crying phone calls and drove in last night from 10 hours away to get me. Under this medicine, I get confused and have too much memory loss to take myself to the doctor. I'd rather have the daily pain of the headaches than the constant panic from this medicine. Did I mention that I weigh only a little more than 100 lbs before I started and I've been steadily losing weight from the alternating lack of appetite, nausea, and diarrhea?

My doctor put me on Topamax for migraines, but I can not handle the effects. I just started the 75 mg dose just as I was moving into a new college apartment with new roommates, and I felt like I was going crazy! I couldn't eat anything without feeling completely ill, I was spacing out, and I couldn't remember words.. for three whole days I couldn't remember the word 'tapestry.' I finally had to look it up in the dictionary.. not a good sign for a college student. The worst, though, was the overwhelming sense of panic that was getting worse by the day. I was no longer myself! The last straw was a panic attack, complete with hypernentilating. I have never felt so scared in my life. I actually had to go the ER to get something to calm myself down.

So, I decided to stop taking it. My parents talked to my pharmacist, and she told them that Topamax IS the type of drug you can stop "cold turkey." But after a week, I feel almost as bad as I did when I was on the drug! I still can't eat anything. Also, I wake up hours before my alarm goes off, completely sick at my stomach. I feel panicky and nervous. I have several bouts of diarrhea and this morning I almost didn't make it. I share a bathroom with three (normal!) girls, and it is getting to be embarrasing and annoying. Please, can anyone tell me.. when do the side effects go away?? I want to be a normal 19 year old again!

this is my third week on topamax, second week at 50mg. am and 50mg. pm. I am taking this for bi-polar mood disorder. I made the switch after 5 years of neurotonin and a 40 pound weight gain. I am doing fine except for the horrible morning diarrhea, I don't even make it to the bathroom in time. I am a 54 yr. old female in menopause and am hoping that the morning bombings over Tokyo will eventually go away. I am very tolerant with side effects since I know that once my body becomes accustomed to the new meds they will go away but this one has me freaked a bit. Can anyone shed some light?? Thanks!
Margie

I am taking Topomax for migraines. I always start everything at a really LOW dose since I have a lot of probs with side effects. Started at 15 mg and went right away to 30mg (15mg twice daily) the second week because I was dying from headaches. The other antidepressants prescribed for constant daily headache prevention all of a sudden weren't working. I didn't want to take my abortive med for migraines every day (Amerge) so I was curious if Topomax might help my daily headache pain. Possibly my daily headaches had become migraines... so hard to tell one from the other anymore. I teach exercise for a living and so much of my headache pain is exercise induced. I found that while on topomax, all of a sudden 2 Advil would take away a headache I would get after exercising which never happened before. I would take two Advil before doing some of my hardest exercise to prevent a headache and for the most part that worked too... and that never worked before. I had tried all kinds of NSAID's before and after exercise at the advice of my neurologist to no avail. I did have one diffuse headache yesterday that might have been a true migraine and I took Amerge because Advil didn't help. I have been on the 30 mg two week now. But, now the downside. Since on the 30mg I feel like my chest is heavy a lot of time when I do water exercise... I am exhausted a lot doing my usual routines... I feel edgy, can't sleep well at night. I HAVE to have a two hour nap after teaching in the morning or I can't function mentally or physically. I sleep well for that nap time. Seems like I have thermoregulation problems. I teach water exercise and if the water is a little cold it bothers me and it never used to. Then in the pool awhile I feel hot. Same when I sleep.. I need a lot of covers, then I throw them off. Then they are on again. No I am not menopausal yet. My brain is hazy on topomax as well. I take bellydance lessons and sometimes I realize I can't remember what my teacher just told me. Now people reading this, don't think that just because this happens to me, it will happen to you. I know people who LOVE topomax with zero side effects. They don't tend to write in to posting boards. Also, sometimes side effects go away. Be patient if you want to give topomax a shot. I am thinking I am going to go back to 15 mg again... and see how I tolerate that. Because I teach exercise, the hardest thing is to feel the heaviness in the chest and the lack of ambition. This is not me. It is great not to have the headache pain, but I don't know if this is the drug for me. I was excited about the "losing weight " side effect , and I could see how skinny people who lose their appetite easily might be affected, but it takes a lot to stop me from eating LOL darn! I did read in another chat some poor chap had sinisitis for months and took TONS of antibiotics before finding out Topomax gives sinisitis type side effects in a small amount of people. So if you get sinisitis, don't take antibiotics before checking out if topomax is the culprit.

My heart goes out to every person out there trying to find the magic bullet for their headache, siezures, whatever... ADVICE.. .start with SMALL doses... you may be able to get used to side effects if you work up slowly in ALL drugs. In many drugs that didn't come in small doses, I took out 3/4 of what was inside just to get a mini dose. Ask your doc if you can mix one capsule or one pounded up tab of your med with juice and store it in the referigerator. You can drink say 1/8 cup a day of the juice to get 1/8 of a capsule. It is a lot easier than chopping up a tab into eighths. Also ask your doc about childrens doses that come in liquids with droppers. Topomax makes taking smaller doses easy with the sprinkles.. you are encouraged to open the capsule and sprinkle as little as you want on food. Good luck all. L.

I'm only on 25mg of Topamax per day right now. Over an 8 week period I will gradually go to 200mg per day. Anyway, since about the 3rd day on 25mg's, I've had diarrhea & bad stomach cramps everytime I eat. I can't keep anything in my stomach other than liquids. Has anyone else experienced this? If so, how long did it last? Should I expect it to get worse with increased doses?

I have been taking topamax for about 5 years. I was off for about 18 mos. to have a child and nurse, and have been back on for 3 years now. I have been prescribed for bipolar II disorder. My main symptom has always been irritability, they say it is mixed episodes. I have no mania, really. My doctor believes that topamax is most effective at high doses, so I had been taking 1200 mg/day, and he only took me down when I complained about the confusion, word-finding, (general abscence of a brain), so now I am at 600 mg/day and have been for some time.

The tingling hands/feet does go away. The diarrhea does go away. Even the weight loss will stabilize. However, I have been in a severe depression for at least a year. I have incredible fatigue (I sleep 15 hours a day), I am very moody, and I have aggressive irritability. I am incredibly ditzy, and numbers confound me (can't add 2+2). I have chronic back and neck pain and have now developed chronic headaches. I sit and think, something is majorly wrong with me, I'm dying. I even have constantly plugged ears, ringing in the ears, excessive sweating (I never used to sweat and now no anti-persperant works) and body odor.

I have felt like a hypocondriac going back to my Dr. reporting these things to have him go hmmmm, I have no idea. Until I started to research Topamax and saw all of these things listed on the side effects, and realized exactly how high my dose was. Looks like I need to find a new Dr.