Topamax and severe depression

Hi! I was on I had chronic daily migraines for about seven years I am now thirty. I have tried everything in the book. I was on Elavil and became headache free for about five years and went off of it an was fine for about two. the cam back and nothing has worked since not even the Elavil. I took Topamax for about three weeks 25mg. a day and my husband thought I was insane!! I could not eat because my stomach was so nauseas and i developed severe depression. Al thought I was almost immediately headache free. But my husband and I could not handle it. Nothing worked for the next year so I am back on it. I have been on it for a month. I am relatively headache free. I am at 75mg twice a day. Lost weight not depressed but extremely nauseas so we will see. Good luck to those our there. I feel your pain and connection. If you have a similar experience and information on the Longevity of Topamax side effect that would me great. Happy holidays!

It appears that this drug played havoc with me psychologically. It caused severe depression to the point of suicidal tendencies, mood swings, crying fits and severe anger and rages. It messed up my sleep so much that I am now severely sleep deprived. And all this has been building up for like 6-9 months. I have lost sao much in the past two-three months, what I feel is the peek of the build up of this med in my system, and I believe it is due to this med. I lost my job that until recently I loved so very much, a very important person in my life and all my support systems. Everyone said I was going crazy and I believed them. I stopped taking the med for two days and already am starting to feel a bit clearer.
I found some websites, including medical ones, that say pschological side effects, though not very common, are known to happen. The very ones that occured to me.

I have been having temporal lobe partial complex seizures since I was 5. Was put on Topamax as solo therapy for use also for migraines in 1999. Controlled both well. Gradually I developed severe depression. It was so subtle I was not aware it was my medicine. I did tell my neuro. and he added different antidepressents to the regime to no avail. My life continued to deteriorate. I also had the tingling fingers, toes, twitches on my face, confusion, could not remember anything. I finally became suicidal and a regular MD decided told me to switch neuro and get off the meds in 2005. 1 month after coming off the med I was my old self again. My memory everything came back. I felt like i had lost all those years.

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.