I was put on Topiramate for migraines recently and picked up the prescription today. While they are daily headaches and some can be pretty stout, requiring 800mg Motrin and a long nap to kick, I was just concerned about starting this and doing endurance sports.
I have searched online and through PubMed but cannot find any definitive articles where it has an adverse effect, but I thought I would ask here. If I google it, then I get a bunch of message boards with folks taking this but they have lots of co-morbidities that I do not have (i.e. mental illness, morbid obesity).
My doctor recommended physical therapy for headaches because my shoulders were tense. It helped a lot, they teach you some incredible stretches and it really helps your swim form, your form in the time trial position on the bike, and your form on the run. It forced me to straighten out my back and use a bunch of my back muscles that I never use.
have you tried supplementing with magnesium and baby aspirin? I used to get weekly migraines (they type where I’m vomiting and sweating) and tried all sorts of things, taking magnesium supplement with a baby aspirin every day curbs them drastically. Now they happen 3-4 times a year and I have a prescription (imitrex) for that.
I tried topirimate for my migraines, but had to stop it because of the tingling side effects, particularly on my hands and feet. I tried a few other daily maintenance drugs to no avail. I also tried supplementing with magnesium, which seems to help some. Mostly I just wait until I feel one coming on and take Maxalt (I’ve tried Imitrex as well, but it makes me nauseous). Maxalt is the best thing in the world for me. Knocks it out in about 30 minutes and I’m good to go. Dealing with migraines is zero fun. Best of luck.
Thanks for the responses…you can just contact me here.
I have gone to PT and massage therapy for neck issues and that helped with neck pain but I have had a chronic daily headache for probably most of my adult life and just attributed it to allergies or whatever at the time was the issue.
I do know that the patients we have on it will talk about the tingling effects at the 100 mg dose that seem to subside after about a month. Those folks aren’t exactly training for an IM which was why I wanted an athletes perspective on if it impacted performance.
I respond pretty well to caffeine and aspirin… So I rarely need anything stronger.
But the post race migraine can be a hard one, and hard to treat because the digestive system is not really working a usual.
The preventive magic bullet for me is to add one pill of “GranPa headache tablets” in the last water bottle of the bike leg (drunk in the last 40km) . It’s just 227mg of aspirin, 162mg of paracetamol and 32mg of caffeine. Nothing that could constitute doping or improve performance and less than what I would take (500mg aspirin + very strong coffee) in case of a migraine. Yet it is sufficient, especially if I drink Coke on the run, to not have a debilitating migraine 1 hour after the finish
The only problem is that I don’t know where to get these tablets outside of South Africa… So when I run out, I have to beg for someone to bring me some.
I am/was a life long migraine sufferer. The debilitating kind that I could feel coming on and if I did not immediatley go to a dark room and lay down and take some Excedrin or something I would be in a world of hurt. Sweating, sensitivity to light/sound, always followed by nausea. I’d be pretty much laid up for 5-6 hrs until I got some sound sleep, then would wake up with slight headache afterwards that would go away a few hours later. Really bad pain, and up to a few years ago I’d get maybe 4-5 a year and at least one of those would be so bad I’d end up in the ER and the only thing that would make it stop/make me stop vomiting was an IV concoction of what though I don’t remember (other than I did not respond to Imotrex).
I tried tons of stuff going back to my school aged years. Diet restrictions, sleep, caffeine, no caffeine etc…
Then in 2006 I decided to get back into shape (I was 34 at the time and about 180lbs). Since then, and the better shape I’ve gotten in over the last few years the less and less I’ve had migraines. If fact sitting here, knock on wood, I can’t think of having had one in the last year or more. I can probably count on one hand the number of bad headaches I’ve had since 2008, vs before that it was several doozies a year. (Save for one, EXTREMELY ill timed migraine that hit me about 10pm the night befor Ironman Lake Placid in 2010 forcing me to blow months of training, a ton of money for registration, hotel room, hotel room/travel from going up and volunteering the year before etc… and where I never even got out of bed until 6pm on race day.)
I didn’t really make any major changes to my diet, I still eat chocolate which can be known to be a trigger, still take caffeine etc… I do notice in the fall/early winter after a season of racing/training when I take some time off/down time I usually get one, or feel like ones about to come on, but nothing like I used to have before I got in shape/started training more seriously.
So in my experience endurance training has been a positive and has severely cut down on if not almost eliminated migraines for me. Hope the same is/may be true for you!
my experience is very close to baxnelly’s, minus ever going to an ER (my parents didn’t think it could fix it). but am a lifelong migraineur, most episodes going on for several days. was part of 3 or 4 clinical drug studies and found one of the drugs to work on the spot, but the headache would come back and finish off its apparently appointed time.
i’ve always been in decent shape and worked out to some degree, including serious competition when i was younger. but when i ramped up training after starting to do triathlons, and especially after jumping up to the IM training, the headaches have gone way down. and the ones i do have are more in the category of slow burners.
that’s a hard program to sell to other migraine people, since it’s a huge investment of time and energy. i think it only works if you like triathlons, the lifestyle, and exerting so much energy. it’s been beneficial for me, but that turned out to be a happy side outcome of doing something i already wanted to do. i still get headaches, but they’re not nearly as bad as they were. and i have to say, just the years of enduring pain and situations that had no cure probably made me a good candidate for IMs.
peggy
I would second again everthing you said, especially the ‘slow burners’. I seem to get one or two of them over the winter that last a couple days even, but they are not debilitating, do not wipe me out, I don’t get nauseaus etc… More of an annoyance that I can manage with some Advil for a day or two. I don’t ever seem to get them in the summer when training a lot.
Also, the statement about enduring pain of a full blown migraine is spot on. I have broken bones, had kidney stones and so on and nothing compares to the absolute pain of a full fledged migraine and how much it wipes you out and takes out of you. My non-migraine sufferring friends could never understand growing up just how bad they truly hurt!
no direct experience with topiramate, lots of experience researching headache drugs unfortunately… a brisk google-trot gets,
“you should know that topiramate can prevent you from sweating and make it harder for your body to cool down when it gets very hot…” http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a697012.html
Seems to be the strongest adverse effect as far as exercise goes…
I tried everything. I’ve had migraines since I was a little girl. I usually get a warning that they’re coming, but if I’m working, it’s easy to miss. Neck pain, forehead pain, then all over. Debilitating as many others have mentioned. Nausea, the shakes, weakness. Strangely enough, sound and light doesn’t seem to make it worse (I guess because it’s pretty bad already).
It took a long time to figure out what works to “control” my migraines. And I haven’t always been in shape. Finally, the doctor put me on the topimirate in 2006. I was pretty worried about how it would affect me in athletics as well.
The short answer is that I really don’t notice a difference. I live, train and race in Texas. Whether there’s some truth to reduced ability to sweat, I couldn’t tell you. I do remember reading that and being worried. I can tell you that I finish many of my workouts completely soaked.
The tingling sensation pretty much doesn’t happen any more. The doctor has given me a bit of leeway over my dosage - as stress and weather changes (specifically cold fronts) are my usual triggers. I tend to increase my dosage a bit October - March. I DO still get breakthrough headaches but not often.
Since starting topimirate, I’ve done 2 half marys, 2 marys, 1 ultra, 3 hims and 1 im and all the training that goes with it. There are many shorter races in there, but I think that listing the longer races kind of make the point the topimirate won’t limit you. Actually, quite the opposite. Topimirate has freed me to think about my race or training rather than thinking about just finishing through the pain.
Great! This was the information that I was looking for!
I don’t need a MRI. I am a nurse and know enough about the physiology and what not. I wanted to know of someone that was taking THIS medication and doing halfs, racing etc. on it.
I could not find any good data on that and this helps to allay some of my concerns.
My doctor recommended physical therapy for headaches because my shoulders were tense. It helped a lot, they teach you some incredible stretches and it really helps your swim form, your form in the time trial position on the bike, and your form on the run. It forced me to straighten out my back and use a bunch of my back muscles that I never use.
Well said - sometimes blood flow to the head can be restricted due to overused/injured muscles etc. in the congested neck region. T|here is a lot going through the neck and blood flow control is a quirky thing. This was hockey player Sidney Crosby’s problem for example. I had the same thing due to getting rocked in hockey and RSI from slalom waterskiing. MT and PT, blew up and healed several tight and restricted muscles, ended up with increased range of motion and working on my posture in the run and swim
I’m also interested in the topiramate. Have you started taking the medication yet? If so, what have you noticed as far as side effects?
I started very slowly at 12.5 mg and noticed that it made me really sleepy, so I take it at bedtime. I did have some of the tingling, but nothing that was irritating at all. The biggest thing was the taste of my favorite Diet Coke went to pot, but it was a blessing. I don’t drink it anymore
I have tried one since (2 weeks out) and I can taste the carbonation again, but it is not quite the same…not enough for me to drink them regularly again for sure. I just started the 25 mg after I raced last weekend on the 12.5 mg without any ill effects at all.
The 25 mg has done well so far, I expect the same adjustment, but I am titrating to the 50 mg slowly again. So it will be 25 mg for 2 weeks and then I will race my last tri of the season and see where we are after that.
It seems that most people have the issues with side effects when they ramp up quickly on the meds, which is why I am going so slowly. So far, the only headache I have taken 800 mg of Motrin for was post race, which is a given for me even with good hydration (as evidenced by urine production/color). Took that and napped and was good to go.
same with me, i tried everything with no results, medication, therapy, dehydration test, nothing work for 30 years.
one day i went to the dentist, he put one of those blue paper to check my bite, notice one of my back tooth was off, filed it, never had a migraine since
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I’m also interested in the topiramate. Have you started taking the medication yet? If so, what have you noticed as far as side effects?
I should tell you, that on day 2 of 25 mg, I have no tingling of feet, hands. I can taste carbonation but it taste like soda water, so the artificial sweetners still are off but as a result of not pounding back diet coke and replacing it with unsweetened tea and water, my weight is down from 138 to 134. I am still eating, I still have an appetite but I can tell it has dropped off some, so I make sure I have quality protein, fats and carbs with my meals so that I am getting solid nutrition instead of snacky junk food.
I don’t think the weight loss is a result of the Topiramate, it has only been 3 weeks since starting the medication and the doses are low. I think it has more to do with all the water retention that is gone from drinking the diet sodas.
So far so good. I have all my hair, I don’t talk like a babbling idiot, I remember my kids and apparently I am nicer to them
