Topamax Side Effects Poll and Discussion
July 29, 2008 · Filed Under Health Polls
Have you experienced Topamax side effects?
| Yes, Severe |  38% |
| Yes, Mild | 48% |
| Yes, Minor | 13% |
| No | 3% |
Use this link to participate in Topamax Side Effects Poll or use this link to Submit a more detailed side effect report.
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4 Responses to “Topamax Side Effects Poll and Discussion”
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I experienced a severe allergic reaction to Topamax on week 5 of taking it when I increased my dosage from 50 mg to 75 mg. I was taking Topamax for migraine prevention. Though I had been experiencing side effects as of the second day I took it, including numbness in my feet and tingling in my hands, altered taste of carbonated beverages, difficulty concentrating, and some associated word loss issues, I was assured that these side effects could eventually wear off once I became used to the medication. Because I was achieving relief from my daily migraines (I went from daily migraines, to every other day, and had worked my way to going three days without a migraine in a row which was a tremendous achievement for me), I stayed on Topamax for the hope it was giving me as a chronic migraine sufferer. The disaster hit week 5 when I increased the dosage to 75 mg at 10 p.m. before going to sleep. I woke up at 5:30 a.m. the next morning with hives all over the back of my legs, buttocks, stomach area, head, severe itching and very red and swollen ears. I took some Benadryl and by 4 p.m. the hives had spread to my arms and my face and lips started swelling. I had to seek emergency treatment to counter the adverse reaction.
During week 4 started to have drooping of my eyelids. My eyes were bulging so bad that I felt the nerves pulling in my eyes(exophthalmos.My eyes were so painful that I could not look directly at the light.I could not sleep because it was hard to close my eyes from the swelling. The worst day it got so bad I could not see through my left eye and thought I was going blind. I was very disoriented and felt confused.I had a hard time even speaking I was so out of it. I saw a Dr at the urgent care who said it was an allergic reaction and should wear off in 24-48 hours. He was concerned more about me being so uncoordinated and not being able to do a few hand and eye coordination exercises. I did not take another Topamax dose and every hour that passed I felt better and better and more normal. My eyes went back to normal(bulging) besides the permanent near-sightedness that I now suffer.I used to have 20/20 vision and now I need glasses thanks to Topamax! Also I suffered a miscarriage not knowing I was pregnant when I took this drug. The cause of the miscarriage is unknown but it may be associated with the Topamax.
I started taking Topamax for the treatment of migraines hoping that the only side effect if any (I wasn’t prone to normally have side effects from any drugs) was a loss of weight due to decreased appetite. Needless to say that wasn’t the one I got… I have 20/20 vision and noticed one day when I was at work that everything in the distance was out of focus. About a half hour later I only could focus on things thirty feet in front of me…an hour into it i could only see five feet in front of me. As any person would do I started to freak out and called my doctors office. They told me go to and instacare a.s.a.p. The doctors there told me it could be tumor or bleeding on the brain…by this time I could only focus on things a few inches away from my face. They doctors sent me up to the local E.R. for a C.T. The doctors there told me after my C.T scan came back normal that I may be having a diabeties attack. They did blood work and it all came back normal. They decided to haul me up tho the eye doctor that was on call. He checked my eyes out and told me that i had so much pressure on my iris they were getting pushed up and over. He had his partner come in and look at me. They were both baffled…they said it looks like i have glaucoma but my eyes weren’t red or sore. He scheduled me to come back in the morning. When i woke up the next morning i could barely open my eyes they hurt so ungodly bad and they were bright bright red…my exact thought was… shit…went back to the doc and sure enough i had glaucoma and was leagally blind. I couldn’t focus on anything no matter how close it was to me. I mentioned to him that the night before this all started i bumped up the dose on my Topamax like i was perscribed to. The light clicked you could see it on his face. He was so happy to tell me that is what was wrong. Topamax gave me acute angle glaucoma. He told me that the amount of pressure i developed in two days was what you see in patients that have had glaucoma for 10 plus years. I stopped taking Topamax that day and slowly after a week my eyes were back to normal. Actue Angle Glaucoma is a side effect that happens 1 in 40,000. My doctor had only heard (in a seminar) about one other person this happening to…lucky me and i all i wanted to do was lose weight =)
This was the second time I took Topamax. I had hallucinations and delusions starting the first day on the relatively low dose of 25 mg in AM and 25 mg in PM. This did not happen to me when I was taking Topamax the first time (150 mg qd- divided dose)- I discontinued due to word retrieval problems (I am in graduate school, eye pain, and severe pins and needles that persisted). I hallucinated voices mocking me outside of my closed windows dissecting my conservations with my family, the voices were of ex-boyfriends and their drinking buddies that I had not thought of in over ten years. I thought I overheard my neighbors saying how sad it was that my ex-boyfriends had rejected me and were peering at me from their garages. I was checking the yard and area around my fence for footprints and had gone completely off the deep end. I have lowered my dose to 25mg. The first time it did really help with mood stabilizing, but this time, oof, it is something else entirely.