convoluted story, but here it goes. and am also completely new to the bi-polar treatment arena so please clue me in on any terms i'm not using correctly.
i live in a very under-served medical community so access to psychiatrists is almost impossible. have been working with my primary care doc for years about my depressive swings. have recently been aware of "up days" and "depressive" stages. doc rx'd seroquel to start for 2 months, starting at 25mg each night for 2 weeks, then to increase to 50mg per night. concept was also to use as prophalatic for migraines which i have regularly.
at the 2 week point into this therapy, was also dx'd with carpal tunnel syndrome by PPC and referred to neurologist. the neurologist did not like seroquel, and considering i am also overweight, took me off seroquel and put me on topamax at 25 mg to start. i am only on my 3rd day of topamax.
(by the way, my primary doc let the neurologist change the meds, but still prefers the seroquel).
MY ISSUE is about SLEEP. before taking seroquel, i never realized that i NEVER slept an entire night through - even when i took antianxiety meds before bed. i slept wonderfully on seroquel, had a deep sleep, and felt great in the mornings.
i've only been on topamax for two nights and my sleep pattern is right back to where it was before seroquel - waking every 2-3 hours.
has anyone else experienced this?
has anyone found that topamax actually DID help them sleep at a certain dosage?
I have never slept with topamax. I also used to be on seroquel, but hated the weight gain. Now I am on topamax for bipolar disorder. I had previously used seroquel to treat insomnia and bipolar disorder. Now I am also having to take a sleeping medication with topamax. Hope this helps. -Mary Claire
Hi....i was put on topomax strickly for weight loss purposes and along with my obsessive compulsive disorder. I loved the weight loss effect but i was up at 4:30am in the morning wide awake. I had mild insomnia probably due to the anxiety that i experienced with topamax. I also felt weird in the head......confused and i was only on 25mg. I had to take antianxiety meds with topomax that made my condition worse...they made me manic! I loved topomax but hated the anxiety. im at peace now that i off topomax....i really want to get back on it because it was helping with my food obsession but i guess the anxiety free me outweighs the other stuff that came along with it. hope that helps..............P.S topomax acted like a diet pill for me....i was very speedy on it.
Hi Butterflygirl, I see a highly respected addiction specialist who put me on topomax to help me sleep. I started at 100mg and then increased to 200mg when I still wasn't getting the desired effect. He also discussed that topomax should help my headaches. This doctor prescribe some medicines based on their anticipated side effects. Perhaps your dosage needs to be increased.
Kimi1964, I see your post is from March, but I'll reply anyway. 200 mgs. of Topomax helps me sleep but I still wake up to go to the restroom about 3 times per night (physical not insomnia). Just recently my doctor gave me Seroquel 200mg. for sleep in addition to that. The reason is because I have a bulging disc all of a sudden and I cannot take any pain medicine other than Subuxone which doesn't work well for me. I took one Seroquel and it knocked me out for the night and kept me groggy most of the next day. I hated it. Won't take it again. But it sure made me sleep. I guess I'll keep it in case I ever have insomnia and can afford to be brain dead the next day. Now that I've read about weight gain, it's a big no-no for that reason also.
I hope this e-mail finds you both feeling better. God bless.
Just like the trance song, "I can’t get no sleep". That is how I feel every night when I get home from work. I do customer service and after 8 hours of listening to idiots scream at me; I usually go home eat watch spike tv and try to go to bed. Well, that does not work to well. So I Tried G- Monster (http://www.narcomundo.com/legal-drugs/anti-anxiety-drugs/g-monster/) from narcomundo.com. I took one serving; and some time after I was out like a light. I really worked.
TOPAMAX vs. SEROQUEL for sleep
Posted - 03/30/2006 : 11:04:02
