Question:
Numb feet from topamax?
Hi, I was put on topamax the fall of 2010. I am taking 75mg in the morning and at night. I started getting numb toes in September, which is a common side effect. I saw my doctor on the 22nd of December and told him about it and so he lowered me down to 50mg in the morning and at night but since then my feet have been getting worse. On my right foot it is just my toes but on my left foot is about half my foot. Is this something I should tell my doctor to lower me more? I am just worried about keep lowering my medicine because I thought I had finally found the right dosages of both my medicines and they worked perfectly and I find it weird that I am randomly getting side effects (I am also loosing my hair) when I have been on the medicine for a while, but I am also but a doctor! Please post if you have any clues of what I should do. Thanks.
Answers:
Numbness on topamax usually is associated with STARTING topamax, and does not often "appear out of nowhere". A dose of 100mg a day is the bottom of therapeutic, and anything lower would pretty definitely be useless.
Talk to your doctor and ask them to first run testing to ensure there is not another cause of the numbness. Then, if it is, discuss what you can do to treat it (like taking an additional medication, like neurontin, or tapering off the topamax and onto another epilepsy medication) if it is caused by the topmax.
Personally, I wasn't able to stay on topamax, WAY too many side effects. I take keppra and gtabapentin now.