Taking cannabis, ecstasy, speed, cocaine, and other recreational drugs can trigger, or increase the frequency of, seizures for some people. Taking recreational drugs increases the risk of seizures and of mental and physical health problems, which in turn may make seizures more likely. Learning more about your own epilepsy and treatment means you can make informed choices about your lifestyle. In the study population, generalized genetic epilepsy was an independent predictor for the occurrence of alcohol-related seizures. The mean alcohol intake prior to alcohol-related seizures was not higher in patients with generalized genetic epilepsy than in subjects with focal epilepsy.
What does it feel like to have an alcohol-related seizure?
Drinking alcohol poses real risks to everyone’s health, and it can be especially risky if you have epilepsy. Talk with your doctor about epilepsy and alcohol for advice about what’s best for you. If you take an ASM, speak with your doctor about the risks of drinking alcohol.
If you do drink, avoid binge drinking or chronically high consumption, which may help reduce your seizure severity or frequency. In a 2022 review of 8 studies, researchers found that the risk of epilepsy was 1.7 times higher (95% confidence intervals from 1.16 to 2.49) in people who consumed alcohol compared to non-drinkers. The authors report that over 90% of alcohol withdrawal seizures occur within 48 hours after the last drink. Alcohol consumption or withdrawal may trigger seizures in those with epilepsy. Some experts link excessive alcohol consumption to the development of epilepsy. Managing epilepsy requires following instructions given by your doctor and taking medications as prescribed.
A double-blinded, randomized, interventional study on 52 subjects with epilepsy demonstrated that a social alcohol intake over a 4-month-period did not increase seizure frequencies (2). In another interventional study on 14 patients with epilepsy and 10 healthy controls, acute moderate alcohol consumption initially suppressed epileptiform EEG-activity. Later however, when alcohol blood levels had declined, epileptiform EEG-activity was increased.
Because of the risk of seizures and other serious symptoms, detoxing from alcohol should only be attempted with medical support. Alcohol withdrawal syndrome is a condition that occurs after an abrupt stopping of heavy drinking in people with alcohol use disorders (AUD). These changes can promote seizure activity in people with and without epilepsy during periods of alcohol withdrawal. The researchers also found that the risk of epilepsy increased as alcohol consumption increased. According to the researchers, these results are consistent with previous studies.
Alcohol consumption
Alcohol and seizure medication may interact in ways that make it more likely that some people will have a seizure. For example, alcohol may reduce the levels of some anti-seizure medication (ASM) in your blood or alter their effectiveness in the brain. Speak to your doctor and read the leaflet in the packet for more information. Combining ASMs with alcohol may also increase the side effects of medications, such as dizziness or drowsiness, and may also increase your risk of liver problems. If you experience a seizure after drinking, seek medical advice to evaluate your alcohol consumption and seizure management.
What to Do If You Witness a Seizure
Regarding chronic heavy alcohol consumption, our cohort of patients had used alcohol far more responsibly than the general adult German population. Only 2.9% of our interviewed study subjects were AUDIT positive indicating hazardous and harmful alcohol intake. By contrast, data from the general adult German population showed that a proportion of 19.7% is AUDIT positive (9). Yet, there is currently little knowledge on the alcohol-drinking behavior of epilepsy patients.
Epilepsy and alcohol – an introduction
Epilepsy happens when the brain’s electrical signals misfire, causing sudden bursts of activity. These can be mild, like brief confusion, or severe, with body jerks and unconsciousness. It’s like a power surge in the brain, affecting movement, awareness, or senses. Dual diagnosis complicates alcohol addiction treatment and requires specialized behavioral therapy. This condition occurs when someone has an addiction coupled with a mental illness.
Seizures occurred in some of those subjects and a rebound phenomenon was discussed (3). In addition to that, alcohol intake significantly suppresses REM sleep periods (30). Altered sleep architecture due to acute alcohol consumption constitutes a non-negligible and important co-factor for seizure risk in patients with epilepsy. Due to the retrospective design of the present study, we were not able to assess sleep quality prior to alcohol-related seizure occurrences. Future prospective research, e.g., using polysomnography, will be needed to provide insight into the complex relationship between alcohol consumption, altered sleep architecture and timely manifestation of seizures.
Epilepsy is not a mental illness, but mental illnesses can accompany alcohol addiction as well as epilepsy, complicating recovery. Someone with epilepsy should be epilepsy and alcohol particularly careful when using alcohol, only drinking if their doctor has okayed it and, even then, only in moderation. Using alcohol can make epilepsy worse in some situations and requires special considerations. First, talk with your doctor about the risks, and read the leaflet inside your anti-epilepsy medication. The interaction between alcohol and epilepsy presents several risks that individuals with epilepsy should be aware of.
Some cannabis-based products are available to buy over the internet, without a prescription. It could be that most of these products may be illegal in the UK, even those called CBD oils. MaH holds the Friedrich-von-Bodelschwingh endowed Professorship for Clinical and Experimental Epileptology at the Charité—Universitätsmedizin Berlin funded by von Bodelschwingh Foundation. Statistical analyses were conducted with the help of Martin Donhauser, Ph.D., Department of Statistics, University of Regensburg. We thank David Richard Urry for helpful comments in editing the manuscript.
- “Certain lifestyle factors such as stress, sleep deprivation, and alcohol can sometimes trigger seizures, but they are not direct causes of epilepsy,” added Dr. Chhapra.
- Mixing ASMs and alcohol can also reduce the effectiveness of medication and/or increase side effects by affecting how the ASMs are metabolised, increasing the risk of seizure activity.
- Epilepsy Society and any third party cannot be held responsible for any actions taken as a result of using this service.
- Possible confounding variables that were included in the logistic regression model regarding the occurrence of alcohol-related seizures in patients with epilepsy within the last 12 months.
- 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.
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Alcohol increases your seizure threshold while it is in your bloodstream. As it wears off, however, your seizure threshold falls, often dropping lower than it was initially. Binge drinking increases the magnitude of this drop, increasing the likelihood that a seizure will occur. In multivariate analysis, alcohol consumption within the last 12 months was independently related to AED monotherapy. It is highly likely that subjects with well-controlled epilepsies on monotherapy are more likely to consume alcoholic beverages than those with difficult-to-treat variants. Physicians’ advice that “a light alcohol intake is harmless” was identified as an additional predictor for alcohol use.
Alcohol also increases your risk of developing epilepsy and can interfere with epilepsy treatments. In patients with generalized genetic epilepsy, seizures commonly manifest within 30 min after awakening. A transcranial magnetic stimulation study on patients with genetic generalized epilepsy demonstrated that motor cortex excitability was significantly increased in the early morning (24).
Consuming alcohol seems to be a common trigger for seizures in people with epilepsy. 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. Over half of those with alcohol withdrawal seizures may have repeat seizures, and up to 5% of cases may lead to status epilepticus. Alcohol-related seizures in those with epilepsy mostly occur due to alcohol withdrawal rather than the act of drinking itself. One line of defense is anti-seizure medications (also called antiepileptic drugs or AEDs).
Mixing ASMs and alcohol can also reduce the effectiveness of medication and/or increase side effects by affecting how the ASMs are metabolised, increasing the risk of seizure activity. The interaction of alcohol and ASMs makes driving more hazardous, even if you have consumed an amount within the legal limit, so you should avoid driving in these circumstances. The most direct way alcoholism causes seizures is during withdrawal, which is when someone with alcohol dependence stops drinking. 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.
People with alcohol withdrawal seizures may also experience tremors, hallucinations, muscle spasms, and a rapid heart rate. A 2017 review found that a history of alcohol misuse increased the risk of post-traumatic epilepsy in people with traumatic brain injury. Unprovoked seizures that occur more than 48 hours after a person’s last drink may be due to another cause, such as head injury or withdrawal from other drugs.