Off Spirits

epilepsy and alcohol

To simplify, alcohol relaxes your brain, which makes seizures less likely. But when people who drink a lot suddenly stop, their brain suddenly becomes much more active. That can trigger a seizure – usually within 6-48 hours after stopping drinking. It’s best to seek medical advice before having any alcoholic beverage since each person is unique.

Those with epilepsy who have alcohol dependence and stop drinking suddenly have an additional risk of withdrawal-induced seizures. Some AEDs have side effects that include lowering tolerance for alcohol. This means a person will become intoxicated faster than they used to before they were on the medication.

Call 911 and tell the operator you think the person is experiencing an alcohol seizure. The emergency operator will often direct you on further steps to take. With alcohol use disorder (AUD), GABA responses just never return to normal. The brain is always slightly sedated, and the body is always trying to return to normal.

Risks

NICE recommends that Epidyolex is only used to treat the conditions above if two other ASM have been tried and they have not controlled the seizures. They also recommend that doctors check every six months to see if Epidyolex is working to control or reduce seizures and stop prescribing it if it is not. Experiencing this kind of seizure can make you hurt yourself by biting your tongue or hitting your head. Medications such as clonazepam and lorazepam are benzodiazepines that can cause a life threatening interaction when mixed with alcohol.

Alcohol Consumption and Antiepileptic Medications

This indicates a potential selection bias and our results may not be generalized to all epilepsy patients without restrictions. Amounts of different alcoholic beverages that correspond to 1 standard drink as defined by the World Health Organization. This illustration has been shown to the participants of this study to guide them in estimating their individual average alcohol intake per drinking occasion. A report from 2021 also found that alcohol-related deaths were five times more likely in people with epilepsy than those without the condition. A typical alcohol withdrawal seizure is a tonic-clonic seizure (also called a grand-mal seizure).4 This episode involves a loss of consciousness accompanied by violent muscle spasms. But some people can experience smaller episodes that don’t seem like full-body seizures.

  • Whether to drink alcohol or take recreational drugs is a personal choice, but it is worth knowing the possible effects they could have on your epilepsy.
  • We addressed this by focusing only on alcohol-related seizures that had occurred within the last 12 months.
  • The patient information leaflet that comes with your ASM should say if alcohol is not recommended.
  • It doesn’t necessarily mean they will go on to develop epilepsy, which is where you have two or more unprovoked seizures.
  • Overall, from the data presented, are we convinced of the real, complex, and fatal relationship between alcohol consumption and epilepsy?
  • Finally, the present study population was exclusively recruited at a tertiary care epilepsy center where usually patients with more severe variants of the disease are treated.

Even if alcohol itself doesn’t trigger your or your loved one’s seizures, it’s important to understand whether your antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) are compatible with alcohol. Withdrawing (stopping drinking) from alcohol causes people’s  brains to become more excitable. This means that some people who do not actually have epilepsy may also experience seizures when they stop drinking. This is especially true for alcoholics or people who often drink heavily.

How Alcohol Affects the Brain

  • In patients with generalized genetic epilepsy, seizures commonly manifest within 30 min after awakening.
  • First, talk with your doctor about the risks, and read the leaflet inside your anti-epilepsy medication.
  • Luckily, current research can help you make wise decisions about your relationship with alcohol.
  • Our results are in line with previous population-based study findings from Canada reporting a 12-month prevalence of alcohol use in patients with epilepsy of 57.6% (20).
  • In that group, the mean amount of alcohol intake prior to the seizures was 10.9 standard drinks.
  • Studies have found that an unusually high number of alcoholics also have epilepsy.
  • The brain is always slightly sedated, and the body is always trying to return to normal.

This can happen whether or not a person has epilepsy at the time of the withdrawal. However, people with epilepsy may be more likely to have seizures while going through alcohol withdrawal. Second, as patients were interviewed retrospectively on the occurrence of alcohol-related seizures, we were not able to provide data on AED drug levels after the acute manifestation of these seizures. We cannot exclude that subjects might have been more prone to seizure occurrences due to AED non-adherence. Furthermore, we cannot exclude hypoglycemic episodes caused by acute heavy alcohol consumption (26), which may have contributed to the manifestation of epileptic seizures (27).

epilepsy and alcohol

Learning more about your own epilepsy and treatment means you can make informed choices about your lifestyle. Many people with epilepsy have heard that alcohol consumption can change the blood levels of their AEDs. More recent research shows that having one to two drinks a day does not seem to affect these levels in most medications. However, some medications are more likely than others to metabolize differently when alcohol is used. It is important to discuss your individual risk for drinking with your health care team.

Epilepsy and alcohol – an introduction

Combining ASMs with alcohol may also increase the side effects of medications, such as dizziness epilepsy and alcohol or drowsiness, and may also increase your risk of liver problems. People with a history of alcohol misuse seem to have a greater risk of developing sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) than people with epilepsy with no history. Consuming alcohol is a common seizure trigger for people with epilepsy. People who chronically consume large amounts of alcohol seem to be more likely to have epilepsy than people who don’t.

epilepsy and alcohol

Alcohol withdrawal syndrome is a condition that occurs after an abrupt stopping of heavy drinking in people with alcohol use disorders (AUD). Based on surveys of volume and frequency of consumption, approximately 10 to 20 percent of the adult population (over age 10) “drink heavily.” Approximately 10 percent of this population will have seizures. Another 4.5 percent of this population will be diagnosed with epilepsy by the age of 80. Symptoms are generally mild during the first 12–24 hours of withdrawal but increase in intensity around the third day without alcohol. Tell the person you’ll help them find the right treatment program for alcohol abuse.

Expand Other risks associated with alcoholism SectionOther risks associated with alcoholism

Antiepileptic drug monotherapy (OR 1.901) and physicians’ advice that a light alcohol intake is harmless (OR 4.102) were independent predictors for alcohol use within the last 12 months (Tables 2, 3). Out of the 204 patients who used alcohol, 147 (72%) were occasional or light alcohol users, 43 (21.1%) were moderate users and 14 subjects (6.9%) practiced heavier alcohol use. Nine subjects of the study population (2.9%) were AUDIT positive indicating hazardous and harmful alcohol use. The data collection on alcohol use was part of a research project systematically gathering information on nicotine, alcohol, and illicit drug use in epilepsy patients within the last 12 months. The data was collected by a standardized questionnaire (see Supplementary Material). Only subjects ≥18 years who had suffered from epilepsy for at least 1 year were included.

First, our data on alcohol use depended on patients’ self-reporting and may be affected by recall bias. It has been demonstrated that assessing alcohol consumption is biased by recall even when the recall period is only 1 week (25). In our study population, alcohol consumption is probably underestimated. Moreover, patients were seen at our institution at scheduled outpatient visits and did not attend the clinic after acute manifestations of alcohol-related seizures. Only a minority of patients documented details on alcohol-related seizures in seizure diaries. Our retrospective data collection on alcohol-related seizures also depended on subjects’ recall capability, and may reflect bias due to recall errors.

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