Posted by iris2 on October 17, 2004, at 18:46:58
In reply to Re:dogs and Prozac, posted by rainy on October 17, 2004, at 12:32:56
Are you going off of Topamax because it is not helping your mood?
I cannot remember how much I was on when I first took it. I took it for several months and it did not help me. In fact I thought I felt more depressed. I am bulimic and with that many times binge eat. I took it for a mood stabilizer. I am, after 30 years of being bulimic, not symptomatic with it much of the time anymore. Baring that in mind I am saying that I do not think it had any effect on my eating disorder good or bad. I also did not loose any weight on it, in fact I believe I might have gained a little.HOWEVER when I went off of it, which I tapered slowly, I gained about 30 pounds. I do not remember how much exactly I was on but I do recall knowing that I had to taper off of it slowly so I most likely adjusted the dose every few days. That would have been what I would have done, I do not need to remember that specifically. I went off of it without my doctor’s knowledge. When I told him of my weight gain he asked if I was still taking it and I told him no. He told me then that it has or could have an effect on weight and no doubt that is why I gained so much weight so quickly. I generally do not gain or loose more than 10 pounds ever because of my intense problem with too much thought about weight and body image. I was hysterical. He told me to go back on the Topamax. I went back on a small amount. Please forgive me for not remembering (I keep telling myself to keep a journal of this stuff). It was probably 50 to 100mg a day. I lost the 30 pounds immediately but not more. Once on it for a couple of months I then tapered off of it again. I probably took at least two months or longer to go off of it this time. I recall in the end after getting to the lowest dose of 25mg or perhaps I even cut it in half I started taking it every other day, then every two day then three. I took each successive dose for about two weeks. I was very worried about gaining all that weight again.
I did not gain any weight this time. From my experience I would say unless you are having a very bad time with taking it to taper off of it very very slowly. If you are going too fast you will most likely start to see a gain in weight so I would keep track of my weight over every few days. As long as you are not gaining weight then I would continue to slowly taper off of it. Thing is I gained probably most of it after I was off of it. So if you taper very gradually then you might not have the same problem as me.
Of course everyone is different, but given that you lost weight on it I would think it even more likely than I was that you might at the very least gain what you had lost. According to my pdoc it is common to gain weight when going off of it.That is my story at least what I remember of it. I hope it helps. I would not want you to go through what I did.
Irene
poster:iris2
thread:5053
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041012/msgs/404232.html