Later that night he was doing up his pill box and asked "what is this pill?" I looked at the bottle and said it was the Topiramate. He said, "it doesn't look like the pill I was taking." I looked at them and agreed. We contacted the pharmacy and asked them why the pills looked different. They said that they had switched suppliers. Both were generic for Topamax but one worked fine and the other didn't.
So watch out for when they switch you from one generic to another. Treat it like a whole new medicine. Because it is.
Two of the worst pills I ever took were mentioned on this thread. Both off label for nerve pain. Neither worked and both caused issues that still affect me years after I stopped them.
The first was Topamax. Within minutes of taking the first pill the pins and needles started in both feet and moved up. Finger tips and up and my personal favorite was when my face went numb from right below my eyes to my chin. And my right ear was numb inside and left eye lid would twitch and droop. Vision and taste bud issues among others. That was mid July to mid August 2011. I still have the pins and needles thing happen every so often and I know it goes back to the Topamax because of the way it starts and moves up my body.
About three years later the doctor treating my sleep apnea and trying to help with my nerve damage (unlike my primary) put me on name brand Cymbalta. I did have some side effects but I could tolerate them. Wasn’t working so she upped the dose.
Still tolerable until my primary doctor decided I didn’t need to be taking two of the name brand pills and switched me to one larger dose of the new generic pills.
That is when the less pleasant side effects started. The nightmares were horrible and this is before I had the BiPap and rarely actually slept.
I took the generic for about a month. By this time it was November 2014 and I had to get iron infusions. My last was a week before Christmas and I had a sleep study done the night before in the same building so I just made the appointment for early next morning so I didn’t have to wait around for hours.
Well I guess I got dehydrated (5 tries to get the IV in) and probably already started to get an UTI, so a few days later it hit me hard. I had already stopped taking my metformin and other meds but still tried to take the knock off Cymbalta. Well on Monday I guess it didn’t stay down long enough because by early Tuesday I was in withdrawal hell.
Brain zaps. Nothing like a pin ball game in your brain with electrical zaps that when sitting hit my spinal cord like a small bomb in the area of my L5 S1 degenerative discs and if I tried to stand or walk it hit the back of both knees. Oh and I had super hearing which was fun with young very loud kids in the house. My taste buds were off too and if it wasn’t salty, fatty, sweet or sour, everything I ate was bitter. I do not like bitter or spicy. By this time the fever/chills had ended and I was able to keep water and food down. I lived on hard salami, bbq pork and sweet foods for several days. Which is probably why I had a gall bladder attack right after.
The ironic thing is they put me on these pills from hell to avoid pain killers. I have very little reactions to pain killers. They make me able to sleep for 2-6 hours and some times they actually work and block some of the pain. I have never gotten a “high” feeling from any that I took as pills or in IV’s when in the hospital.