Topamax and heart

Nov 5 2008
I have been taking topamax since april of 2008, about 6 months now. Just recently I was increased from 50mg to 75mg for my migraines. I have short term memory loss, nausea, no appetite at all, shortness of breath, trouble sleeping, and all of a sudden terrible anxiety and panic attacks which started out of no where. I feel like my heart is beating out of my chest and I am going to die. It is horrible I cant stand it. I went to the ER and got the standard tests and they said my heart was fine and to follow up with my regular Doctor. No matter what I do I cant calm my self down it is just aweful. I am not sure I can live with these side effects, its too muc

I am almost 41, and have had migraine headaches most of my life which I could manage with 800mg of Naproxen Sodium, or a Norgesic Forte, and when Imitrex came out, I could just administer that. Six months ago, my headaches got so frequent that I had to start taking my Relpax (similar to Imitrex) and/or Fioricet more than 2X per week. According to my neurologist, this is a no no, as both of those meds can couse rebound headaches. He started me on Topamax, 50mg per day. It did nothing. He bumped it to a 100, nothing. Now I'm a 200 mgs, I am still have a migraine in left temple as I write this. I have the tingling, the daytime sleepiness, but my mind is fine, and my appetite is just swell (regretfully). What the hell am I going to do now? Ask him to bump me up to 400 mg? Now I have these headaches every "F"ing day, and I can't take anything. I just have to suffer.

Topamax is NOT working!!!!!

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????

I had been dealing with numbness in my hands and feet for about a month (I've been on Topamax for maybe 2 months now, maybe 1.5 months...) and I am happy to deal with that. Anything is better than the migraines that I had, and anything is better than waiting for the next migraine to start.

But for the past few days, I have been dealing with a total shortness of breath. It's like I can't catch my breath, in a way... or, as my mom put it, can't really get a "fulfilling" breath. I am constantly yawning, but that's how I am getting to that deep breath, although it takes me 3 or 4 tries to get there. It's frustrating, and SCARY!

I called the Topamax number today, and the nurse said that the side effects should only last 3 months total, but 1.5 more months of this?! I can barely imagine 1.5 more hours!!!!!

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.

My 56 year old son. Jim, is Bipolar. He was taking three medications, one of them being Topamax. The Dr. that prescribed this medication died and the new Drs. thought Jim was doing fine so they continued on with the same medication. Jim became fecal incontinent. We did numerous medical tests to see if this had any basis. None was found. Over a years period (Jim's third year using Topamax) Jim began losing his memory. This doesn't sound too horrific unless you know that Jim has 160 IQ and total recall memory. He never had to read anything more than once and he could quote verbatim almost anything from any page. Total recall of phone numbers and names, etc. At first the Drs said this was early onset of Alzheimer’s. He was being cared for by this time with a battery of Drs. Neurologists, medical, psychiatrists and doing some very extensive testing. Finally it was judged that no, Jim does not have Alzheimer’s. However he continued to quickly decline. He by now was both urinary and fecal incontinent. His speech was slurred and he was unable to bath himself. He required around the clock help. He would ask me questions like, did I go to school? Did we live as so and so town? Then he asked, is my name Jim? This was hard to hear but then he quit talking altogether, was staggering and would respond to telling him walk this way or sit here but little else. Finally the Neurologist told me he was almost certain that Jim had a rare brain disease and it was always fatal within a year. He determined that Jim was in the advanced stages and probably had 2 to 6 weeks to live. I was devastated! Jim was sitting in the office when the Dr. said this and he made no recognition that he heard or understood anything.

I started talking to friends about this and one of them said call her friend a paralegal nurse practioner. I did and she asked me "Why is Jim taking Topamax"? My answer I consider rather stupid now but then it was the truth, I answered "because the Dr. prescribed it". She said, titrate him off Topamax and then call me. I went to his Dr. at the time and the Dr. was most reluctant to take Jim off this medication. He accused me of "playing Dr" and was most insulting. I persisted and said if he wouldn't I would change Drs. Later I understand he took Jim off much too fast and we did have really serious side affects. We halved his dosage every two days and in 6 days he was off Topamax. Jim went into a catatonic state for several hours at a time about four times. There was about 4 days and nights that neither of us got any sleep. He had repetitive thoughts that nearly drove him crazy (His words). The sixth day Jim started talking but then would go into these catatonic states for hours. When he came out of them he would talk and explain some things, then he would quit talking again and he later explained the thoughts were going so fast in his head this was the only way he could preserve his sanity was to just "blank out".
After about two weeks of this intense illness and no help from his Dr. and Jim refused to go into the hospital, in his talking moments he said they would just fill him with sedative drugs and he wanted to get as clear as possible from these. To make a very long story short this was one year ago, three Doctors ago and Jim was relieved from his repetitive thoughts by Fluvoxamine, but that spiked him into a manic phase and eventually he went into the hospital. He is on a complete new regime of meds now but we always research any new med BEFORE taking it. It will never be just "because the Dr. prescribed it" again. By the way, Jim was taking lithium at the time Topamax was originally prescribed and gaining a lot of weight. His original RX was for weight control~! It didn't work but it nearly killed him. I called the paralegal back to thank her but she had left the law firm and no one can locate her. Our Guardian Angel????