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Grand Mal seizures after night of drinking, advice please

Sun, 07/18/2010 - 22:12
Hi, I am a 22 year old male who is generally health, although for the last about 3 months I have been slacking off with exercising. As a child (younger than 3 years old), I had a few absence seizures (less than 10) and then apparantely grew out of them. 2 months ago I had my first grand mal seizure the morning after a night of hard drinking, I was out for a friends birthday and did not get home until 2:30am. When I woke up in the morning I started playing video games, and within about 20 minutes I had a the grand mal. After going to the hospital and getting a CT scan and EEG, both which returned normal. My doctor told me that it appeared I have a mild seizure disorder, and there was a very low likelihood of another seizure occuring. 6 weeks later I had another grand mal, again after a night of hard drinking and lack of food. Today, 7 weeks after my first seizure I had my third grand mal, again after a night of drinking, but this night I had eaten very well and drank plenty of water throughout the night. But did go to bed very late, and threw up in the middle of the night. It seems to me that my seizures are occurring as a result of drinking too much. I am just about to finish university and have so much in my life I still want to do, does anyone here agree that the seizures are occurring because of my drinking? If I were to quit drinking alltogether for a long period of time do you think I could raise my seizure threshold, and also not worry about having an unprovoked seizure? Thank you. UPDATE: First of all, thank you for your responses. After quitting drinking and continuing to have seizures, and visiting the doctor again it has been determined that I have Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy, and have been put on Valproic Acid for it.

Comments

Re: Grand Mal seizures after night of drinking, advice please

Submitted by Sammishakes on Mon, 2010-07-19 - 00:33
Its probably in your body's best interest to not drink. It's just too risky with seizure threshold.

Re: Grand Mal seizures after night of drinking, advice please

Submitted by phylisfjohnson on Mon, 2010-07-19 - 11:14

 

Boy, you have to started being kinder to yourself!

Large amounts of alcohol are thought to raise the risk of seizures and may even cause them.   Not to mention lowering your tolerence and seizure threshold.

The video game seizure could have been an indication of photosensitive epilepsy where certain types of flickering or flashing light can incite a seizure.  The trigger could be exposure to television screens due to the flicker or rolling images, computer monitors, certain video games or TV broadcasts containing rapid flashes, even alternating patterns of different colors, in addition to intense strobe lights.

And inadequate or fragmented sleep can set off seizures in lots of people. In one study, the lowest risk for seizures was during REM sleep (when dreams occur). The highest risk was during light non-REM stages of sleep. 

So, it looks like you hit the trifecta of common seizure triggers.  All you're missing is stress, cigarettes and caffeine.  (Or are you?)

If it was me, I'd clean up my act and if the seizures continued, I would go to a neuro for diagnostic testing.  But, it's not me, so you have to make your own choices.    Phylis Feiner Johnson   www.epilepsytalk.com

 

Boy, you have to started being kinder to yourself!

Large amounts of alcohol are thought to raise the risk of seizures and may even cause them.   Not to mention lowering your tolerence and seizure threshold.

The video game seizure could have been an indication of photosensitive epilepsy where certain types of flickering or flashing light can incite a seizure.  The trigger could be exposure to television screens due to the flicker or rolling images, computer monitors, certain video games or TV broadcasts containing rapid flashes, even alternating patterns of different colors, in addition to intense strobe lights.

And inadequate or fragmented sleep can set off seizures in lots of people. In one study, the lowest risk for seizures was during REM sleep (when dreams occur). The highest risk was during light non-REM stages of sleep. 

So, it looks like you hit the trifecta of common seizure triggers.  All you're missing is stress, cigarettes and caffeine.  (Or are you?)

If it was me, I'd clean up my act and if the seizures continued, I would go to a neuro for diagnostic testing.  But, it's not me, so you have to make your own choices.    Phylis Feiner Johnson   www.epilepsytalk.com

Re: Grand Mal seizures after night of drinking, advice please

Submitted by Jk606 on Mon, 2010-07-19 - 11:51

I have had the same problem as you, the solution: quit drinking alcohol.  It took me a while to realize that drinking triggered my seizures also the lack of sleep and not getting the proper hydration after a night of drinking.

If you think about it this way, its not the alcohol itself that triggers the seizures, but what the alcohol converts to when its metabolizing in your system, alcohol (or ethanol) first converts to acetaldehyde which is extremely toxic for the body in high concentrations (it is this chemical, not ethanol, that causes issues such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and can lower anyone's seizure threshold).  The body can get overwhelmed with acetaldehyde and may not be able to convert it fast enough to a less toxic substance: Acetic Acid (the same chemical which gives vinegar that awful smell).  The body has to break this down even further to make a substance that your system can tolerate: Acetyl CoA.  Then after that the body reduces the Acetyl CoA to carbon dioxide and water.  Too much carbon dioxide in you system can also have negative effects along with a high concentration of acetaldehyde (if the body cannot metabolize it fast enough).  If your on AED's, then drinking will lower your threshold even further.  People who suffer seizures already have a hypersensitive system (chemically speaking), and push this hypersensitive system over the edge by drinking and lack of sleep is just asking for trouble.

Sorry for such a long explanation, but I think its important that the more information people know about how toxic drinking can be to their system the better, especially if a side effect of drinking can be tonic clonic (grand mal) seizures. 

On a side note:  If your friends give you a hard time or a guilt trip about not drinking (which was a problem for me), screw them, they are not your real friends.

Take Care!!!!

 

I have had the same problem as you, the solution: quit drinking alcohol.  It took me a while to realize that drinking triggered my seizures also the lack of sleep and not getting the proper hydration after a night of drinking.

If you think about it this way, its not the alcohol itself that triggers the seizures, but what the alcohol converts to when its metabolizing in your system, alcohol (or ethanol) first converts to acetaldehyde which is extremely toxic for the body in high concentrations (it is this chemical, not ethanol, that causes issues such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and can lower anyone's seizure threshold).  The body can get overwhelmed with acetaldehyde and may not be able to convert it fast enough to a less toxic substance: Acetic Acid (the same chemical which gives vinegar that awful smell).  The body has to break this down even further to make a substance that your system can tolerate: Acetyl CoA.  Then after that the body reduces the Acetyl CoA to carbon dioxide and water.  Too much carbon dioxide in you system can also have negative effects along with a high concentration of acetaldehyde (if the body cannot metabolize it fast enough).  If your on AED's, then drinking will lower your threshold even further.  People who suffer seizures already have a hypersensitive system (chemically speaking), and push this hypersensitive system over the edge by drinking and lack of sleep is just asking for trouble.

Sorry for such a long explanation, but I think its important that the more information people know about how toxic drinking can be to their system the better, especially if a side effect of drinking can be tonic clonic (grand mal) seizures. 

On a side note:  If your friends give you a hard time or a guilt trip about not drinking (which was a problem for me), screw them, they are not your real friends.

Take Care!!!!

 

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