Alcohol Use and Alcohol-Related Seizures in Patients With Epilepsy

The answer to whether alcohol can trigger seizures is more complex than you might think. Once you know what triggers your seizures, you may be able to avoid those triggers or lessen their impact on you. Depending on the type of trigger, there are many ways to help prevent seizures. Identifying your specific triggers is the first step in finding ways to avoid triggering seizures. Identifying what induces your seizures can also help you and your neurologist or other health care provider pinpoint your diagnosis and determine the best treatment for your situation.

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Therefore, treatment typically starts with alcohol detox, followed by residential rehab. Repeated, severe withdrawal with seizures may increase the risk of future spontaneous seizures during withdrawal. However, these seizures may differ in physiology from true epileptic 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. It is not possible to simply avoid getting sick, but seeking medical treatment at the first sign of fever, infection, or other illness can help prevent seizures. Emotional or psychological stress, including anxiety, anger, depression, or other heightened emotional states, can trigger a seizure in some people.

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Some people with epilepsy can tolerate small amounts of alcohol, but others may have seizures after only one drink. Binge drinking — drinking until you are intoxicated — is a very common trigger. Seizures triggered by alcohol can occur anywhere from one to two hours after drinking and up to 48 hours after stopping heavy drinking.

• The interaction between alcohol and epilepsy presents several risks that individuals with epilepsy should be aware of.
• Details were only recorded on those alcohol-related seizures that subjects were able to remember the best.
• Independent predictors for alcohol consumption within the last 12 months.
• Study subjects passed through the domains of the questionnaire with an increasing social stigma degree.
• You may, for example, be asked to stay off alcohol for the first few months of starting a new medication or when changing over to a different medication to maximise your chances of seizure control.

What are the recommendations for alcohol use with epilepsy?

The prevalence of can alcohol trigger epileptic seizures alcohol use in individuals with epilepsy is noteworthy. Alcohol can significantly influence the frequency and severity of seizures among those with epilepsy. People who drink large amounts of alcohol and suddenly stop are at a higher-than-usual risk of seizures. About 5 percent of people detoxing from alcohol abuse will have alcohol withdrawal seizures as part of the process of quitting drinking. This can happen whether or not a person has epilepsy at the time of the withdrawal.

The Risk of Mixing Epilepsy and Alcohol

Some people have seizures at a specific time of day or night, including while they are sleeping. Some medications, including over-the-counter options, can change how the body processes your AEDs, leading to seizures. Always check with your health care provider or pharmacist to see if any of your medication or supplements interact with your epilepsy medication.

Alcohol-Related Epilepsy

However, if you have a seizure disorder or epilepsy, you also face risks when drinking alcohol—both from the increased risk of seizure activity and potential interactions with seizure medications. 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). Out of 310 interviewed subjects, 204 (65.8%) had used alcohol within the last 12 months, 158 (51%) within the last 30 days, and 108 (34.8%) within the last 7 days. 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).

These include effects on calcium and chloride flux through the ion-gated glutamate NMDA and GABA receptors. During prolonged intoxication, the CNS adapts to the effects of alcohol, resulting in tolerance; however, these adaptive effects seem to be transient, disappearing after alcohol intake is stopped. Although the relationship of seizures to alcohol use is likely to be dose dependent and causal, the available clinical data do not suggest that alcohol use results in seizure genesis. However, a genetic predisposition to alcohol withdrawal seizures is possible. Other seizures in alcohol-dependent individuals may be due to concurrent metabolic, toxic, infectious, traumatic, neoplastic and cerebrovascular diseases and are frequently partial-onset seizures. Alcohol abuse is a major precipitant of status epilepticus (9-25% of cases), which may even be the first-ever seizure type.

Physicians’ advice that “a light alcohol intake is harmless” was identified as an additional predictor for alcohol use. Patients with epilepsy may feel unsure about alcohol consumption on chronic medication and therefore may be willing to follow physicians’ advices more often. Fifteen out of 95 (15.8%) alcohol-experienced but now abstinent subjects had experienced alcohol-related seizures in the past. In that group, the mean amount of alcohol intake prior to the seizures was 10.9 standard drinks. All of these patients stated that they had stopped alcohol consumption because of the experience of alcohol-related seizures.

Using hormonal treatments, such as certain hormonal birth control methods, can help prevent seizure triggers by altering the normal menstrual cycle. Your doctor may also adjust your AED dose or add AED medications at specific times during your menstrual cycle to help prevent seizures. Limiting or eliminating caffeine or nicotine intake can decrease your risk of seizures if those are triggers for you. Other drugs that trigger seizures, including recreational and illicit substances, should be avoided.

• In several test-interviews, patients were intimidated when being asked about nicotine, alcohol, and illicit drug intake in front of their companions.
• Seizures often occur during delirium tremens but are not always a symptom of this condition.
• Note that the occurrence of a febrile seizure in a child does not necessarily mean that the child has or will develop epilepsy.
• However, Epilepsy Society is unable to provide a medical opinion on specific cases.
• According to the Epilepsy Society, consuming alcohol may make your epileptic medications less effective and may make the side effects of your medications worse.
• Alcohol withdrawal syndrome is a condition that occurs after an abrupt stopping of heavy drinking in people with alcohol use disorders (AUD).
• Consuming alcohol in large quantities for extended periods seems to increase seizure frequency and might increase your risk of SUDEP.

Many doctors, however, advise not to drink alcohol when on anti-epileptic drugs because alcohol can sometimes make these less effective. Prior to the interview, each participant was educated on the scientific background and purpose of the study. Thereby, we attempted to increase subjects’ receptivity to the questions and avoid patients answering the questions in a more socially acceptable way. In several test-interviews, patients were intimidated when being asked about nicotine, alcohol, and illicit drug intake in front of their companions.