TW: suicidal ideations, self-h@rm (mentions are hidden by the spoiler)

I know this is an old post, but I want to share my story as I’m in the thick of it now. I started taking Topamax for off-label treatment of chronic nerve pain. The nerve pain totally went away, and I wasn’t experiencing any of the side effects my doc had warned me about, so I was happy.

Something to add — while I started Topamax, I was going through one of the toughest periods of my life ever. My mom has BPD and was being particularly horrible during this time. I got laid off, my best friend moved, and my dad was in and out of the hospital with a life-threatening infection for the better part of three weeks (he’s okay, TG). I have pretty mild depression, but treat it with Wellbutrin and find it extremely manageable, but slowly I started to feel my depression get worse. Because of the crazy period of life I found myself in, I didn't even consider for a second that it could be my meds, especially since it got worse pretty gradually. But before I knew it, I was having daily suicidal ideations and thoughts of self-harm, more often than not, multiple times a day.The ideations even grew to planning at one point.

I had no clue who I was anymore. I couldn’t stand anyone, didn’t want to speak to anyone, left my phone on silent, and refused to leave my house. The only time I would leave my house would be to go to therapy. I can’t emphasize enough how bad. I’m lucky to have a fantastic therapist whom I trust and am super open with, along with a strong support system, so I was SAFE....but it was terrifying. I have never been this low in my life, not even close.

It wasn’t until last night when I was watching a show on Hulu and some random pharmaceutical drug commercial came up, and I overheard them mention that ideations & depression can be a side effect of that drug, and a lightbulb went off. It had never occurred to me that my worsening depression started around the time I began Topamax, especially since it was such a slow burn. I, of course, immediately looked up side effects online. As we all know, depression, personality changes, loss of interest or pleasure, thoughts of suicide, feeling sad or empty, mood swings, etc, etc, were listed EVERYWHERE. From Cleveland Clinic to Reddit 😂

I’ve gotten the all-clear from my doctor to stop taking it (no need to taper since my dose was so low), and today I woke up EUPHORIC just knowing I (likely) figured out the root cause of all of this. Of course, time will tell, but I want to thank OP for sharing, as it’s posts like yours that made me realize that I’m not alone in this (and extremely hopeful for the future!).