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In Remembrance
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,002
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The Topamax weight loss effect is early and temporary. This is both MY experience, and THREE other specific people I know. (I don't want to list them here.) So don't assume the weight loss will last forever, or, even that it actually turns to a weight gain drug!!!
From my reading, (and I'm not God here, haha), Topomax stops having that weight loss side effect when your system corrects itself and battles the Topomax and goes towards weight gain. This is common with a lot of antidepressants - what starts off helping you lose weight then turns into a weight gain problem, which makes sense if you think about the body trying to work to correct itself and battle a new drug in its system. (I read a LOT on these things, folks, more than the average person, and I read stuff from the pharmacies themselves, articles from accepted medical periodicals only. I'm not talking about NET message boards.)
Also, be very wary on your doseage - we've all discussed that some people (like me) have had manic episodes where I've felt like I'm "ok" and can't sleep and then I CRASH, can't breathe, walk, move, don't remember the last couple of days, talked weird or slurred words, and suffer a huge impact depression. This happened three times while I was trying to get my dose to 125, which my body just said NO. The best I managed was 50 mg.s a day...and that was really no effect on my disease. OCgirl saved my life by noticing my emails were weird / spelling was off, and she visited me when I had such a bad crash. Thank God for her doing that.
As for Lyrica - well, I am a BIG hater of that drug. I had 47 years of perfect blood sugar and within 3 months my blood sugar was 500 (over 100 is bad.)
The work comp docs IGNORED this result so I walked around with 500 blood sugar as my eyesight went almost totally blind with blurry vision - I couldn't even see the t.v. anymore...and my weight went up another 40 lbs. or so, from the gain I'd already had from TOS and Topamax. (Topamax took off 30 then put on 40 quickly when it turned on me.) (And that's without eating hardly anything, drinking skim milk basically.) At the end, I was gaining like 2 lbs, EACH DAY! Without eating anything but skim milk. I was so shocked. My pictures then showed my face all bloated.
So finally one doc and I talked about the Lyrica because I brought it up, and the blood sugar, and I'd ended up in ER. So I went off of the Lyrica, (which had NO effect on pain btw.) BUT the diabetes II was still there!
It's been about 7 months now off of Lyrica, and I've had to take Metformin every day, which then caused it's own set of side effects. Now, with meticulous diabetes dieting, (and still gaining weight cuz of Metformin), I am now trying to get off of Metformin as I get rashes, have those breathing difficulties which could be exacerbated by Metformin, and Metformin causes weight gain and/or difficulty in any weight loss. I also went off of Cymbalta, and I never took the seroquel hardly ever, because the side effects on that "antipsychotic" are so strong - it was not something I was willing to risk!
I try to swim once per day (our pool is now kept warm after I bugged the association relentlessly) and I take a short walk, (which I then freeze up and can't move / walk until I get into the pool again.) Every day, and almost every hour, I am trying to push myself to get into that pool and move my legs. I use a swimming board to keep my upper half from moving. But like I've said before, when I used to use a stationary bike, with NO movement at ALL on top, at minute 6 every time my upper right body just swells with fluid, I get all red and patchy on my chest / face, etc. So it has something to do with circulation, even if I am not moving my upper body.
So Lyrica DOES say on the side effects (as does Seroquel if anyone has been prescribed that) that it can "interfere with blood sugar control." or "diabetes blood sugar control." This is the language I have seen from the company inserts I've gotten from the pharmacies. Well, I'll go one step further based upon my own actual experience, and say, I believe it CAUSED my diabetes II situation.
I can also say, which my fiance used to say and be bewildered by, I eat very, very carefully. I eat organic meats / chicken / fish, all fresh - my aides go and get me organic vegetables, which they prepare and steam. My only "cheat" was if my fiance made me homemade ice cream. We didn't (don't) ever eat like frozen stuff, or drive-thru at all - even our Thai delivery was told "no extra oil" and I just wasn't indulging in carbs (bread, white stuff) because that's how I've always eaten. We use the extra virgin olive oil, etc. I mean, I don't know how anyone could eat any more perfectly than we always did - and yet, this diabetes II came, and I really, really see it as being from the medication, despite being bedridden a lot. I know exercise is an important component, but even being bedridden, like I said, when I COULD move, I made myself try to do the bike or swim or walk with someone.
Sorry to write so much, but this Lyrica situation really bothers me as we've already got TOS, so I am mad about being a guinea pig for a new med that didn't do poop for me. I feel that some of these "new" meds are being given / used, and not being monitored by the doctors at all! How else could MONTHS have gone by with that incredibly high blood sugar being unnoticed?
If you've got work comp docs, or even just TOS docs who don't really LOOK at our blood results, be aware that we MUST get our blood work done, regularly, and READ the results ourselves - looking for anything out of line, and ASK the doc, what IS THIS? We're at risk for low thyroid, (which doesn't always go with the bloodwork by the way, it can be symptom-diagnosed only), liver disease, kidney disease, hormones being off mark, anemia, and then the blood sugar issue. Most of us are on meds. You'd think the pain mgt. doc would be ON TOP of this - well, in my case, not a bit.
Get your blood work and READ it, post here as many here have knowledge about the itemized codes.
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