As if bipolar women didn’t have enough to worry about, yet another treatment for the condition comes with stringent warnings on it. Generally, bipolar disorders are treated with antidepressants or antipsychotics, which have proven themselves to be quite dangerous on their own. Now Topamax is being used to treat the condition. The drug also brings with it some serious concerns — particularly for pregnant women.
Many studies have been conducted on Topamax, an antiepileptic drug that generally is used to treat epileptic seizures, which have linked the medication to birth defects in children. Topamax birth defects listed so far include oral cleft, PPHN, neural tube defects and cleft palate. Some of the studies that have been conducted were watching for the effects on bipolar symptoms when the medication was taken on its own, while other studies were watching how the drug worked when taken in conjunction with other drugs.
The manufacturer’s studies were looking to see how effective Topamax was when it was used to treat acute mania or mixed episodes in adults with bipolar disorder. The studies proved that the drug is practically useless against bipolar disorder when taken on its own. The results of this study were first published in the Bipolar Disorder journal in February 2006. However, when the drug is taken with other bipolar treatments, various small studies have shown that it helps improve the symptoms of both depression and mania. To be fair, however, a bigger study that used a control group has shown that Topamax patients and placebo patients had the same effect against depression symptoms.
That may wind up being the best reason for pregnant women to avoid taking Topamax as part of their treatment for bipolar condition and avoid the potential for their children to be born with birth defects. Besides, Topamax is not approved as a bipolar treatment. If your baby has suffered from birth defects after your doctor prescribed you Topamax to treat your bipolar condition, contact attorney Greg Jones today for a free consultation. I will fight hard to help you recover money for your baby’s injuries.