Hi Joe,

I'm sorry to hear that the Prednisone and Topomax caused you to be worse.

I tried Topomax and it was really awful - it may have caused nausea but what was worse for me was that it made me function worse cognitively than I was doing before taking it. I forgot more words and had more trouble speaking and thinking while on it.

After I stopped taking it, it probably took about 4-6 weeks to stop affecting me so drastically.

I'm sorry to report I don't think anything can really help you to abate the symptoms - I do remember trying to get it out of my system at the time too - I felt like it was poisoning me. I drank green drinks and took epsom salt baths to try to cleanse my body - like a detox regimen. I was under the care of a very good acupuncturist who recommended a recipe for detoxing and he made house calls. If you would like, I can PM you his contact information - he is located on the West Side.

After I finally got over having it in my system I felt MUCH better and I'm hopeful that you will too.

You have to be careful with ALL medications now. I saw a psychiatrist who told me that tbi patients are VERY sensitive to medications; I think it's because of the brain chemistry that is trying to find equilibrium after being thrown out of it. My neuro wasn't aware or didn't consider this even though I had bad reaction after bad reaction to so many medications.

The biggest problem is that each and every tbi is so vastly different that one patient might do very well on a medication and the other might react very poorly to it.

And I think that a lot of neuro's like to throw drugs at a problem just to see if it works... they only see you once a month or every few months, so they are unaware of the severe discomfort and agony that theses mistrials cause.

I do recommend that if you suspect you are having trouble with a medication to figure out whether you need to titrate off of it instead of just stopping it cold turkey - because some meds can be problematic when you're taking them but quickly turn into a nightmarish, symptomatic-inducing situation if stopped cold turkey.

(I stopped several medications cold turkey that were supposed to be titrated down and it was not good.)

Anyway, there is also a great website called askapatient.com where you can read reviews about some medications that other patients have posted about it. askaptient has helped me to figure out that some symptoms I had were not just randomly occurring but were attributed to something I was taking.