Topamax and difficulty breathing

I've been on Topamax about a month now for nerve pain. It really hasn't helped my pain much, but the side effects have been incredible. I've worked up to 150mg and have had side effects from the beginning. Unfortunately, I haven't lost weight, which I need to do and the Doctor said it was probably because I don't drink sodas.

Here are the side effects I've had:
memory loss, "can't find the right word", confusion, difficulty breathing, eyes burning when looking at computer and tv, trouble reading & spelling, slower movements, dry mouth and ears vibrating.

I forgot to fill my prescription and it's a Sunday morning, so I am cutting my dosage in half. I hope decreasing so rapidly doesn't cause any kind of reaction and I will have to see how I feel as to whether or not I continue at the lower dose. I probably will. My husband does not like me on this drug. It makes me quite stupid and slow, and it doesn't even help my pain.

The eye pain is what worries me the most. My Doctor warned me about glaucoma. I don't want to take a chance and over the last week or so my eyes have started hurting more and more.

Good luck to everyone.

I just found this and wanted to put a warning on here to new topamax users. If you experience difficulty breathing, please consult with your doctor immediately! I havent even been on this for two weeks and this week I upped to 50mg @ bedtime, and within 1hr of taking the first 50mg dose of this, I started having swelling and tingling of my hands and face, difficulty breathing, and a lot of problems concentrating. Second day, same thing, third day same thing, and today, I went in and demanded to see my dr (who wasnt in the office today) and they wanted me to wait until next week to be seen, and I knew something wasnt right, I wanted seen now. They kept insisting "its not a common side effect of the drug" and I kept asking if it was a side effect at all... seriously, it took me several hours to be heard, and finally, the ARNP that I was seeing in place of the practitioner I normally see looked it up and its a severe side effect. Needless to say, I am not taking this drug anymore, and will continue my quest for a migraine relief. *They* said it should only be in my system 21hrs (we're on 25now) and the effects should be gone by then, which makes sense because each day, the effects seemed to subside shortly before I took the next bedtime dose, but today, they're persistant... I can't breathe, my fingers wont cooperate with me due to the numbness and tingling, and my lips are numb, swollen and tingling which makes it difficult to drink anything...

Anyway... PLEASE... be proactive with this medication... if something doesnt feel right, talk to your dr, and make them listen to you... Im waiting for blood and urine tests to come back to be sure the drug hasn't had any other effects on me... they said that the topamax allows (as a severe side effect) the blood to absorb high amounts of carbon monoxide (great, huh?) which is what causes the difficulty breathing (which she was originally trying to brush off as my athsma, which I KNEW wasnt the issue... I KNOW when my athsma is bothering me, and what an athsma attack is... I've been athsmatic for the greater part of my 26yrs of being...)

I was given topamax to treat headaches and cyclical mood disorder. I was not given any info about side effects or that, at the time(April of 2006), the drug was not FDA approved for treating mood disorders. I took about 3 25mg tablets a day for 6 weeks and started noticing pain in my chest, stomach, back, and neck, my heart felt irregular as well. Towards the end of the 6 weeks, I felt so bad that at times that I had to crawl to the bathroom at home because my body and heart felt so weak. I weighed 135 pounds before starting the drug and 117 after, lot of weight to lose for me in such a short period of time(my weight very rarely fluctuates at all). I started noticing that when I would eat a large meal, I would then be hungry with an empty stomach an hour later, and about 15-20 minutes after taking my 2nd pill for the day I would feel shooting chest pains and become slightly dizzy, I would take my third pill at home a couple before bed and the symptoms were even worse. I called the on-line nurse late at night a few times and they would say it was just anxiety, my friends and family that knew about all this would also say that I was just worrying too much. I decided to take matters in my own hands and started doing research on the drug. I found all the information I needed, that was not given to me, decided I was experiencing some of the specific side effects people had noticed. I finally decided on my own to stop taking the drug after my doctor told me that all this was because I wasn't taking a high enough dosage, I still can't believe that she said that!!

Now that I've had some time to look back and gather myself a little, I know that I also experienced side effects such as dizziness, loss of taste, decreased sex-drive, Loss of wittiness, feeling like being in slow-motion, slurring speech, heartbeat going from 64bpm sitting on the couch to 128bpm after walking to the bathroom to pea, difficulty breathing, basically felt like crap but was too drugged up to really notice.

It did stop my headaches and stabalized my mood but I think the improvements in mood were primarily due to the fact that I wasn't all there. DEFINETLY NOT WORTH ALL THE SIDE EFFECTS!!!

As soon as I stopped taking this, I felt much better in the head, noticing that I was probably running on about 70% for the past few weeks. Also gained back all the weight very quicky. I felt like myself again and was rejuvanized in my life!! Primarily all the side effects disappeared and I moved on with my life. Unfortunately the chest pains slowed down but did not disappear. I felt like, and still feel like, I had a broken Sternum. I went to the same clinic and had numerous tests done(EKG, blood tests, X-rays), everything came up clear. I have had to tell some of my friends, numerous times in the past year, not to restle with me or hug me too hard because it hurts.

I have not been taking any perscription drugs for the past 14 months because of all of this and now have recently started feeling increased pain in my chest(the chest pains never completely went away) . I do not have health insurance but am going to get this all checked out ASAP, I will post again once I find out what's going on.