Thursday, January 3, 2013

What about a little Topamax?

I'm currently on 50mg of Zonisamide that I take each night along with from two to three 800mg tablets of Gabapentin. I like to have a 100mg capsule of Zonisamide Friday night to help my neck feel a little better.  The 50mg of Zonisamide is good, but if I stick to that for four or five days I start to feel neck stiffness and can feel my neck crack when I move it around.

If I have a 100mg capsule two nights in a row I have breathing problems the third night; and don't feel great when I wake up the day following the second dose.

I read somewhere that Zonisamide is also used off-label for treatment for bipolar and personality disorder.    I feel so marvelously treated.

I've noticed that I have a bit more patience and if I have 100mg dosages over the course of several days I feel just extraordinarily high when I start taking 50mg each night.  It takes several days to feel normal.

Topamax was offered as an option when I had breathing problems at 100mg per day. Technically, I can get by on 50mg per day with the occasional Friday night depth charge of 100mg.   But really wouldn't it be nice to take a drug with the same dosage each day?

Topamax is in the same class as Zonisamide in that it is an anticonvulsant.     

Sometimes Zonisamide is described as treating partial epileptic conditions primarily while Topamax treats full blown epilepsy (among other things).

Just like Zonisamide, shortness of breath is a side effect.

After reading the drug descriptions and WIKI pages, I don't really understand the difference between the two drugs.  Possibly Topamax wouldn't cause a breathing problem for me because they are two different drugs and I could react to it differently, but I can't tell unless I switch drugs.
 
I don't like switching drugs because it could be involved.  The new drug would need time to take effect, and I have a sleep study planned for January 24th.   I don't want to be in the middle of something when I go to that.
 
Perhaps I could just bump my Zonisamide by 25 mg per day.  That might be low enough to avoid the breathing problems and high enough to avoid the pain and neck stiffness.


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