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Topamax Weight Loss Timeline
Topamax Weight Loss Timeline: Topamax (Topiramate) is an anti-seizure medication primarily used for treating epilepsy but has also been approved for migraine prevention and as an adjunct to phentermine for weight loss.
It is also commonly used as an unapproved medication to treat bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, but there is inconclusive evidence to support its effectiveness in these conditions.
Although the drug effectively reduces the prevalence of seizures, its mechanism of action leading to therapeutic effects is unknown. Some speculate that it alters voltage-gated sodium channels and various calcium channels within the brain. Others believe it may affect GABA receptors, AMPA receptors, and carbonic anhydrase isoenzymes.
How Topamax Works for Weight Loss?
Addiction centers of the brain:
- It is speculated that Topamax may be targeting the brain’s addiction centers with its mechanism of action.
- People who used to seek pleasure-provoking substances like food, alcohol, and drugs no longer do. It is because Topamax can change the neural pathways within the brain’s addiction control center.
- It can also reduce overexcited nerves within this region.
Appetite reduction:
- Many people who take this medication experience reduced or suppressed appetite as a side effect. Precisely how this drug can suppress appetite is unknown, but some believe it is related to the brain’s reward center.
- The medication can numb or alter the way rewards are processed, causing people to feel less hungry or experience fewer food cravings.
Hormone alterations:
- Different school of thought suggests that the drug may alter hormone levels like cortisol and leptin.
- Specifically, the medicine may decrease the amount of leptin found in cortisol and cortisol itself. Leptin is a hormone that regulates appetite, and people tend to feel less hungry when it is reduced.
- Also, when cortisol (the stress hormone) is reduced, the body stores less fat, leading to weight loss.
Disorientation:
- Those taking Topamax may feel so disoriented due to their treatment that they may have difficulty functioning and remembering to eat.
- Though this may sound silly, this drug can have powerful effects on memory, making some people dizzy and profoundly disoriented.
- As a result, those who feel disoriented due to treatment may forget to eat or not want to eat as much.
Ketosis:
- This medication may also affect blood glucose levels and insulin, which could promote ketosis, a state in which the body uses its own fat for fuel.
- Once in ketosis, your body uses fat stores for energy, resulting in significant weight loss. It is how people on “low carb” diets lose weight. Some speculate that Topamax can artificially induce ketosis.
Loss of taste sensation:
- Many people find that food loses its pleasant taste and the “yum factor” seems absent while taking medication. It usually leads people to eat smaller portions and less food overall.
- Some have complained that Topamax makes food taste bland, “grey,” bland, and in some cases just “bad.” If you feel like your taste buds have been hijacked, it’s a result of the drug.
Metabolism changes:
- While many people don’t believe that Topamax speeds up metabolism, some do.
- If you’ve been on the same diet before the drug as you were during treatment and you’re not doing anything noticeably different but losing weight, it could result in a faster metabolism.
- This theory is less likely to be true because this is not a psychostimulant medication but one that should be considered.
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