Why does topamax cause taste changes

Topamax may be associated with dementia and should be used with caution in older patients. Still, it has not been well established that Topamax can cause permanent memory loss. Topamax may cause an excessive amount of acid in the bloodstream, called metabolic acidosis. When this occurs, the body produces acid too quickly, and the kidneys cannot keep up with filtering it out. For this reason, patients with impaired kidney function or kidney disease should be monitored closely when taking Topamax.

In extreme cases, metabolic acidosis can lead to kidney damage, shock, or even death. This condition can also cause soft or brittle bones and kidney stones, slow the growth rate in children, and harm a baby during pregnancy. Common metabolic acidosis symptoms include rapid breathing, low blood pressure, lethargy and confusion, and loss of appetite.

Topamax can cause severe eye conditions that may result in blindness. Acute myopia, which causes nearsightedness, can cause headaches or blurred vision because of increased pressure in the eye. Patients also reported several instances of secondary angle closure glaucoma, which, if left untreated, can lead to vision loss.

Patients taking Topamax should seek medical advice if they ever experience eye pain or discomfort. As an anticonvulsant, Topamax has a direct influence on brain activity.

About 1 in patients taking antiepileptic drugs like Topamax have reported that they experienced suicidal thoughts and tendencies, especially when starting treatment or changing dosage levels. Due to these predispositions, patients should be continually monitored and seek medical attention if they experience anxiety, panic attacks, onset of or increased depression.

Though rare, Topamax can also cause mood or behavior changes, like aggression or violence, agitation, apathy, mania, or irritability. Tell a healthcare professional about any of these changes. If you are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, you should inform your doctor as soon as possible. Topamax increases the risk of oral cleft birth defects like cleft lip and cleft palate by 16 times.

Using Topamax during pregnancy can also cause heart, lung, skull, and skeletal abnormalities like malformed limbs. Other birth defects may include persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn PPHN , spina bifida, and other neural tube defects, which can be life-threatening.

Topamax should only be used to treat conditions that could be life-threatening in pregnant patients. I have been off for 3 weeks now and still having mouth issues! I've started to feel the lump in the throat. It feels like a marble is going up and down my thorat when I swallow. I was on Topamax for literally less than 24 hours and could not taste my Seltzer water bubbles :.

After being on it for about 3 weeks went to have a beer and it tasted like i was drinking out of a salt shaker Luckily I'm not a soda drinker, but do like an occasional good beer ; I have found that Nitro beers are a bit better more Nitrogen bubbles, lot less carbon bubbles , might be of some help to some, can actually taste the beer! It's to do with your tongue. No idea why, but since REstarting on the topamax, I constantly have a foul taste in my mouth.

I have to scrub hail outta my mouth, especially my tongue, then rinse several times before eating or drinking anything I actually like, or I'll never be able to separate the real taste, and enjoy it, from the one I'm currently experiencing. Or some god awful melding of the two!

I don't remember having THIS side effect last time, just the blurred vision and hives, but blissfully headache free before the pharmacist recognized the rash as NOTbeing simply mosquito bites and yanked me off the prescription.

Now, a decade later, the headaches were bad enough, again, that my neurologist is willing to "risk" another trial if I'm promising to be honest about any side effects. Losing the headaches is enough reason for me to deny anything else. Problem is, he knows that too.

I prepare whatever I'm going to eat or drink first, go brush my teeth, pay particular attention to my tongue and rinse several times until I can swish someWater, and swallow without the awful taste, or aftertaste. THEN I eat or drink whatever, and follow it up with a good rinsing too, plain water is fine, I just don't want "good taste", and "bad taste" to start intermingling I'm very taste and texture averse, my neuro has always been concerned most with the possibilities of anorexia with the Topomax, I just don't have much to spare.

Frankly, being older than I was last time we tried, I'm less concerned than he is, but then again, he's also aware of the previous adverse reactions so is taking the upwards titration very cautiously. We both know if an allergic response gets triggered again there will be no next time. And the headaches ARE that bad! Well, I'm with u on this but there is a silver lining. I took it for headaches and I lost 12 lbs in 49 days. I went thru a terrible abuse problem with beer around 10 years ago.

Its terrible on yr joints. It puts lactic acid in yr muscles as well. If anyone has any suggestions on how to get off them I'd love the help. I need to stop this 6 cans a day!!!! I I can lose 10 lbs a month when I quit Ive never had a problem with fizzy drink befor but i started this new tablet and i was finking why is every drink i drink is flat so i keeped going to different shops to get my drinks but there still flat it was bugging me so i tryed to look online why this is and i see this im glad u put this up im so glad a person like u have done this for a person like me fanx u agan and i will try the straw fing.

I thought I was losing it. I'm on 50 mg twice daily right now for severe tremor, and soda is FLAT in the front of my mouth!! Thank you, thank you, thank you for your post!

Glad to know I'm not imagining things. I just googled "can medicine make soda taste flat" and it brought me here. What a relief! I am about five days in with Topamax and keep opening up my beloved Diet Mtn Dew from different batches, only to find that all of it tastes flat.

I am so happy that I am not losing my mind! Omg I was about ready to give up these 25mg no lie lol I love my Pepsi as well and every pop I drank was flat and it was so frustrating I wanted to throw it I just wanted the eye watering symptom of drinking pop again to come back but drinking out of a straw totally makes sense because I would I drink and mid way the soda gets strong so a straw may do the trick thank you for saving our additions to caffeine.

It'll be two weeks starting Tuesday since I've been taking this medication, but I've been taking it for Bipolar. I thought I was getting sick. My throat has been sore, my mouth has been dry. I don't particularly drink soda. I drink Sprite or Gingerale to calm nausea, but I was surprised to find the thief to where my lovely taste went. The sourness is not what I expected. Does anyone else have appetite with this medication as well? Currently 50MG once a day. No appetite whatsoever Thank you so much for sharing this.

Precisely how topiramate prevents migraine is unclear, but, generally speaking, it appears to reduce the genetically derived brain hyperexcitability that provokes migraine attacks in susceptible individuals.

Early in therapy topiramate may cause nausea or other gastrointestinal distresses. Topiramate not uncommonly causes weight loss, and the degree of weight reduction tends to correlate with dose and duration of therapy. Fifty milligrams twice daily was the dose proven to be the most effective and best tolerated in the clinical research trials conducted.

In the individual patient, however, a lower or higher dose may be more appropriate.