Topiramate, sold under the brand name Topamax among others, is a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor medication used to treat epilepsy and prevent migraines. It has also been used in alcohol dependence. For epilepsy this includes treatment for generalized or focal seizures. It is taken by mouth.Common side effects include tingling, feeling tired, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, weight loss, and decreased cognitive function such as trouble concentrating. Serious side effects may include suicide, increased ammonia levels resulting in encephalopathy, and kidney stones. Use in pregnancy may result in harm to the baby and use during breastfeeding is not recommended. How it works is unclear.Topiramate was approved for medical use in the United States in 1996. It is available as a generic medication. In 2020, it was the 57th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 11 million prescriptions. Medical uses
Topiramate is used to treat epilepsy in children and adults, and it was originally used as an anticonvulsant. In children, it is indicated for the treatment of Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a disorder that causes seizures and developmental delay. It is most frequently prescribed for the prevention of migraines as it decreases the frequency of attacks. Topiramate is used to treat medication overuse headache and is recommended by the European Federation of Neurological Societies as one of the few medications showing effectiveness for this indication. Pain
A 2018 review found topiramate of no use in chronic low back pain.
Treatments in the past have attempted to alleve psychogenic amnesia by treating the mind itself, as guided by theories which range from notions such as betrayal theory to account for memory loss attributed to protracted abuse by caregivers to the amnesia as a form of self-punishment in a Freudian sense, with the obliteration of personal identity as an alternative to suicide.Treatment attempts often have revolved around trying to discover what traumatic event had caused the amnesia, and drugs such as intravenously administered barbiturates (often thought of as truth serum) were popular as treatment for psychogenic amnesia during World War II; benzodiazepines may have been substituted later. Truth serum drugs were thought to work by making a painful memory more tolerable when expressed through relieving the strength of an emotion attached to a memory. Under the influence of these truth drugs the patient would more readily talk about what had occurred to them. However, information elicited from patients under the influence of drugs such as barbiturates would be a mixture of truth and fantasy, and was thus not regarded as scientific in gathering accurate evidence for past events. Often treatment was aimed at treating the patient as a whole, and probably varied in practice in different places. Hypnosis was also popular as a means for gaining information from people about their past experiences, but like truth drugs really only served to lower the threshold of suggestibility so that the patient would speak easily but not necessarily truthfully.