Medication Related Weight Loss/Gain

I feel I am in a good position to talk about this as I have experienced both weight loss & weight gain as a result of different tablets & can hopefully provide some useful tips & tricks no matter what your situation.Lets start with my story. I was taking Sodium Valporate for my migraines but it caused my platelet count to drop to a dangerous level. I needed to reduce the amount I was taking while staying protected against my migraines. Here would be a good time to give you my stats – I am 5″ 3′, my ‘normal’ weight is 8st 7lb & clothing size is an 8 (sometimes a 10 to take in to consideration my larger thighs & boobs!).I can’t remember the name of the medication that was introduced to my cocktail at this point, not only did it affect my weight but also my cognitive functioning – great for my second year at university! I went from 8st 7lb down to 7st. 7lb of that I lost in a month! I was never hungry, having to force the last half of my bowl of cereal down. I could easily go until 3 or 4pm before realising I hadn’t eaten lunch! Dinner was the worst though as, if I hadn’t planned what I was going to eat, I would spend the the whole evening trying to work out what I could force myself to eat! My stomach shrunk & gurgled because I needed to eat & was swallowing air in place of food. There was very little taste to what I was eating. I went down to a size 6 & found shopping for clothes very difficult.

I then changed to Gabapentin & went from 7st to 11st 9lb!!!! *Since writing this, I went up to my heaviest weight of 12st 9lb* Here, instead of my brain quashing my ability to feel hunger (along with other things!), the Gabapentin stopped me from feeling full. As a result my portion sizes got bigger & bigger & I snacked more & more just because I fancied something. I ate an awful lot of sugary products (no wonder I put on so much weight!). Food tasted great, it was like experiencing new flavours all over again. As my dose increased so did my taste buds & weight. I was thrilled that I could finally taste food & fit into clothes again (size 12)!

So here are my tips & tricks to help if you find yourself in one (or both) of these positions:

For Those Affected by Weight Loss

For Those Affected by Weight Gain

• Become comfortable in your body.
• If you are wanting to loose weight set yourself a main goal with smaller goals along the way.
• Treat yourself when you reach your goals. This can provide extra motivation. This works best when you know what you’re working towards so pick something at the beginning of each step.
• With exercise, find an activity you really enjoy, so you will be motivated to keep it up.
• Don’t be too hard on yourself – loosing weight gained by medication is harder than ‘normal’ weight loss!