In my case, I tried one of them to prevent migraines, and stopped them after two weeks because I thought they made me feel worse ... spacey, weaker, zero appetite. (I'd taken them after migraines so severe that they left me with stroke-like symptoms for quite awhile.) I'm posting here on this forum because I know some of these meds are given for a variety of reasons. Just wondered what side effects you got if you took them? Topamax is the one I tried. Thanks!

You're definitely not alone in your side effects.

My husband tried Topamax for cluster headaches http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headaches and had serious issues with it. On top of the lethargy, it just made him stupid, which is really bad anyway but even more so as a student in college. He couldn't take notes, focus or remember anything. He'd walk into the kitchen and forget why, he'd go back to the car to get something and didn't know what, he just didn't know what he was doing or how he got where he was most of the time. It was a scary loss of control of mental facilities, which thankfully was temporary.

I take an anti-seizure medication for pain control (gapapentin/Neurontin) for my shoulder/neck injury. I haven't noticed any side effects except a slight increase in hand clumsiness (I drop things more...then again, I've always been clumsy, so I'm not quite sure how to quantify it).

I was given anti seizure drugs when i was pregnant and in labor..it did nothing for me that i could tell...

I get the same kind of migraines - I take a beta blocker daily and that does a good job for me for preventng/minimizing them so I mostly only get "just" regular migraines now, and not that often.

I do know people who have been on Topamax - someone I know called it Dope-amax, because it left her feeling so spaced out. She was on it for appetite suppression so it definitely has that side effect too.

Let's see - I was diagnosed with epilepsy as a teenager and I've been on the following: phenobarbital, depakote, lamictal, zonegran, and now keppra. In my experience most have had challenging side effects: weight gain/loss, appetite increase/decrease, and fatigue - sometimes quite extreme. Lucky for me most have also been very good at seizure control, which is of course my primary concern. I don't know if keppra is ever used for other diagnoses, but the side effects have been relatively mild and I'm grateful

I take a cocktail of Topamax and a beta-blocker for migraines. At higher doses the Topamax both suppressed my appetite and made me stupid. Fortunately, when combined with 40 mg of Inderal, 25 mg of Topamax prevents my migraines and doesn't have any side effects.

Once a current crisis calms down, I'm going to be tried on gabapentin (Neurontin) for pain. I'm not precisely looking forward to it, as the anti-epileptics have quite the reputation for side-effects. In terms of things that will cause trouble long-term, I'm worried about weight gain since that's something I can't undo once I stop the drug, and I also realise there's a reasonable chance of the stuff just being unlivable while I'm on it due to cognitive dysfunction side effects. On the other hand, I'm already severely disabled with cognitive dysfunction, it's not as if I'm working and need to worry about safety or what have you, nor that it'll be new and frightening.

I have Bipolar and a lot of drugs for seizures are often used for Bipolar too, I think. I tried Depakote, it helped but I gained a lot of weight, I tried Neurontin, no noticeable difference, and now I am on Topamax which I really like.