Monday, October 9, 2017

Adapting...?

It's been a month since we started increasing the Topamax from 200mg to 300mg. It was a 25mg increase each week for 4 weeks, so the increase just finished a little over a week ago. Overall it went well. I didn't feel all loopy and stoned like when I first went on the Topamax back in March. However, I still haven't been feeling well and I'm not really sure whether it's because of the meds or not. I think it must be.

The first few weeks I was really busy with work so I didn't have time to really pay attention to what was going on. It's only in the past two weeks that I've really noticed. Most of the time I feel pretty normal, but then I have these random times (a few hours each day, or just random times each day) where I just feel off. Like I need to go lay down, or I feel like I'm getting sick, or I feel like my partials are coming back, or something just feels wrong and I can't identify it. Last week I had one partial and I had 3 in September, but that's it since increasing the med so that is ok.

The biggest thing has been when I try to go for a run. I will feel ok for a bit and then I'll start to feel woozy/dizzy/off and I'll have to walk for a bit, or I'll feel like I'm going to have a partial so I'll walk until it passes, or I'll feel like I'm going to pass out and have to walk it off until it passes. It's got to be the med because this med is known to mess with body temperature, electrolytes, and make you stop sweating and overheat, etc... you're supposed to be careful with activity while taking it. So I've been paying attention to that while running. I've been making sure that I'm hydrated, paying attention to breathing, sweating, heat, etc. But even so, even with gentle, easy runs, I'm still feeling like crap.

I'm going to keep focusing on hydration and electrolytes and hope that it improves over the next few weeks as I continue to adapt to the new dose... it's still new. If it doesn't get better I'll talk to my neuro about it when I see him next (he's a runner too so that's helpful!).