The difficulty occurs when a person is trying to lose weight, or even maintain present weight, with the use of certain medications. It is difficult enough to find the medications you may require prevents you from losing the weight you have been trying desperately to drop. But it becomes an even greater horror to find that a required medication causes you to gain weight! Talk about a plateau in your weight loss program!
Women have known for many years that oral contraceptives and even Depo Provera cause a minimal weight gain of up to 15 pounds. With proper exercise and diet control, these effects can be minimized, and some women never even experience them. Of course, these are both voluntary medications used solely for the prevention of pregnancy or as hormone replacement therapy, but what about mandatory medications? Two such medications are Actos, which can cause water retention and Glyburide, known to cause minimal weight gain by raising insulin levels. For the diabetic, there may be no way around these problems except for exercise to boost the metabolism and drinking plenty of water in order to offset the water retention.
In addition to diabetics, people who suffer from bipolar disease are faced with a number of medications used to treat their condition that are also prone to cause weight gain. Zyprexa, Depakote, and lithium are only a handful of anti-depressants, and of course, some people are never affected by this particular side effect. All of the new generation medications like Zyprexa, Risperidone, and Seroquel and even some older ones like Haldol are guilty of causing weight gain. Some of the newer anti-depressants such as Paxil and Prozac, though not unheard of, are not as prone to cause this problem. On the bright side, there is another form of Zyprexa called Zyprexa Zydis. In a recent study, patients on Zyprexa gained an average of eight pounds over a four-month period in comparison to those on Zyprexa Zydis who lost an average of 14-1/2 pounds in the same amount of time.
Steroids are another group of medications that are prone to cause weight gain. Many people refrain from taking these medications for inflammation for this reason alone. Since these medicines should customarily be used for short-term use, the average patient should be able to work around this side effect. Unless one is into bodybuilding or strenuous sports, steroids are not taken continuously, and even then should be taken only for the short-term. Many allergy medication and decongestants have a steroid to help control the allergic reaction. These medications need to be closely watched by a physicians and monthly blood work should be taken to make sure no side effects are occurring.
The key is if you must take a medication that is prone to cause weight gain or even prevent weight loss, be prepared to work with this side effect by eating foods that are known to boost metabolism, as well as making exercise a part of your daily routine. Only by offsetting the bad effects with good behaviors will you be able to combat the problem.