meds advice needed please
 

basically tomorrow I have to choose between Topiramate, levetiracetam or valproate. anyone got personal experience of these good or bad? researching them just brings up a lot of pros and cons as always. need first hand experience please.

thanks

Nope nope and nope.

You're in the same boat as me, I'm on my second med and unfortunately I seem to be having the same side effect as the first. only way to know if a med works for you is to try it.

have tried nearly every med and every combo of med over last 4 years. only found one combo that suited me - lamotrigine and duloxetine. however one increase in dose and it tipped me over and made me physically very unwell. had to cold turkey off all my meds over 4 days - and that puts me off starting again. however, im now left with no choice - except which next. psych tells me to research them, then let her know which I want to try.

I think you will have more luck posting in the Mental Health Support Board as members who frequent there have more experience.

I know only what I have googled and I'm interested into why they're all anti-convulsants? You mentioned psych in your first post suggesting it's for mental health, in which case lamotrogine has very few side effects and, if another combination could be found, I imagine that woud be ideal. If it's for a convulsant illness, gabapentin is also an option with few side effects.

topirimate wins. saw psych this morning and got prescription. its primarily as a mood stabiliser. If you see my last post, you will see I was on lamotrigine but it made me really ill.

anti convulsants are also used as mood stabilisers.

Topiramate (I took it for migraines) gave me horrendous cognitive dysfunction which is the reason I am repeating a year at uni.

what dose was that at steel maiden? my psych has started me at an extremely low dose to build up very slowly. I get really bad migraines too, so hoping it will help for that as well. though its not the med my neurologist recommended.

I was on only 75mg when my brain failed somewhat, but I must be very sensitive to it as the clinical trials I've read say that cognitive dysfunction trends to occur at higher doses (200mg?)

ive only started on 15mg

I doubt you'd get cognitive dysfunction on that dose.