I was recently prescribed TOPAMAX by my therapist for weight loss. I have NOT taken it because I am afraid to. I have been having a lot of anxiety and when he wanted to put my on antidepressants I told him that I wouldn't take them because they made me gain 25lbs in the past. I know that the side effect of TOPAMAX is weight loss but I'm not sure if they are safe and I worry about side effects.

I'm taking it for migraines. It has a lot of side effects and if my migraines weren't so bad, and all the time, and I hadn't tried everything else, there's no way I'd take it. (Don't quote me) but weight loss is only like 25% of people experience like a 14% drop. Nothing you can't do on your own!! You can find the study online or in the pamphlet they give you.

My side effects--sore throat all the time, dry eyes, foggy vision, tingling in my legs/arms, I forget words for things, can't remember what I was going to say. Can't remember how to spell things. My IQ dropped like 50 points, me teeth are really sensitive. etc.

I really don't recommend this to lose a few pounds. Now if you were morbidly obese and trying to avoid surgery, that's a different story. In your case, the side effects do not justify dropping the few pounds you have to lose ( if your stats are accurate).

Did she also tell you about the possibility you could get blinded the first month by glaucoma ( water can build up behind your eye) and it can cause kidney stones?

What about Effexor? I've heard from many people that is weight neutral And can be good for anxiety at 75mg, which is Lower than what's used for depression

Jemma I was prescribed Topomax for weight loss after a near-lethal car accident in 2009 where I had about a 40 lb weight gain in two months due to being immobilized and also eating more crap from stress and upset and change (full on ice cream and potato chips type craziness) that I hadn't been eating before. I lost the 40 lbs in two months and I do think the Topomax helped with that, I stopped eating the crap and went back to my usual healthier food - it made my blood sugar swings and resulting mood swings stabilize, and thus I felt less hungry and overall better. Also it's not so hard to quickly lose weight that you put on so quickly. My doctor wanted me to be having about 900 calories a day at that time which I did, and I think the Topomax helped with the very low calories.

I was already quite overweight before the 40 lbs. Once I got back down to the "overweight" weight that I had been for a few years, the Topomax didn't help make it go lower (even on the 900 calories believe it or not), though I did feel better.
The one side effect for me that ended up not being worth it is just tons and tons of hair loss. Others that I know that have taken it have had the same experience, and I ended up deciding that the mild helpful effects the Topomax had wasn't worth the hair loss.

I do think it was a good short term thing for me - I was in such a bad state overall after that accident, even if there was a placebo effect involved it did help me get that sudden weight gain off. I felt better pretty quickly after starting it and it gave me something to kind of hold onto that made me feel like I could heal.

The hair loss wasn't permanent by the way - it stopped pretty much right after I stopped taking the med.