How does carisoprodol affect the central nervous system ?

[Volvak]

Is anything known ? I think that aside from some general action there is some specific one as well.

 

[Coolwhip]

I know its GABAergic, its a pro-drug to meprobamate, acts at the barbiturate binding site, not a PAM like benzos. I know its safer than barbs, but this migfht be solely to due it being a pro-drug and could carry the same risks in overdose. Has a much greater muscle relaxant effect than benzos, can be more euphoric less anxiolytic, I know from experience it goes really well with opiates, better than benzos, for a while it would consistently bring back that glow you lose to tolerance over time, but you gotta be VERY careful with that obviously. It being so old and also being a carbamate probably means its not as well understood as modern drugs.

And strangely enough I have witnessed two people have seizures from it(both female not that I know if that matters), without taking too high of a dose either, like 700mg, they were mixing with opiates.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

Seizures? that is strange. Now, this is just a hypothesis, but I wonder if it could be affecting (as an agonist) ionotropic glutamate receptors. This is based on the admittedly structurally completely different, methaqualone, which despite being a GABAa agonist, also causes seizures, and my best guess at why, would be action as an AMPAr agonist, going from its close analog methylmethaqualone, which while I personally avoided that one, it seemed like a downright noxious drug, it seems like methaqualone derivatives bearing substituents at C2 are noncompetitive AMPAr ANTagonists, so its not a huge stretch to imagine that other substitution locations (such as the C4 methylation of MMQ) would alter the action to give an agonist, given the basic pharmacophore for AMPAr binding is there already.

This is of course, a hypothesis only, and a long shot at that, but it'd be interesting to see the results of a radioligand displacement assay at AMPA, NMDA receptors for these targets both for meprobamate and for carisoprodol.

 

[Coolwhip]

Your guess is as good as mine, I don't even know if it was directly from carisoprodol or meprobamate, so I guess that confuses things. But they were full on grand mal, well one girl didn't lose consciousness, which honestly made it a lot harder for her and everyone there. If its a known side effect then I'm probably lucky I didn't see it more(or have it happen to me), this was like 15 years ago but at the time my area was straight flooded with Somas, you could get two cheaper than a pack of gum. One of them I didn't really know, and I never saw her again after that night, but the other one was a friends girlfriend, and we followed her to the hospital, it was actually her first time taking carisoprodol although she was dependent on opioids and an experienced drug user, but even before it happened she said she wasn't enjoying it at all, I can't remember what language she used to describe it the word "weird" used a lot, but highly dysphoric was the just of it, although at the time I couldn't really relate and I felt bad she wasn't having a good time because I was the one who gave them to her, you can imagine how I felt at the hospital.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

I'm sure it did for her. Seizures suck a metric fuckton of anal sphincter.

Mine aren't drug related (at least, aside from coverage wearing off med wise), and they happen usually when I've just awoken. Not sleep paralysis, sometimes I've got up, woken up, if wishing I hadn't, before an atonic seizure, usually starts with major muscle weakness, briefly, before turning into almost complete paralysis, and as it wears off, turns into a myoclonic seizure. If I'm lucky, I can get to the bottle of chlormethiazole caps I keep close at hand and get a couple down me, since I can still swallow, breathe, but not much more, remain semi-aware in a fucked the hell up kind of way, although sometimes it'll just hit me like a truck and someone else, assuming there is anybody there to see it and to realize that I'm not moving because I can't, not because I don't wish to, has to stick the things in my mouth, open the bottle etc., and if lucky, I'll be able, weakly, to move my hands enough to tell them a couple of words, numbers in ASL sign. Its a real pain in the arse. I'm just glad they almost always seem connected with sleep. Because otherwise, I could really see it likely that I'd meet my end at the end of something nasty and arsenical, acidic, strongly basic, just generally toxic, corrosive or else have somebody murder me for turning into a walking, weapons-grade stench factory of the kind no non-chemist could imagine something so foul as to prepare for its being ignored.

If there is a god, I'd probably end up meeting him without anything from about the height of the lab bench down, and be found by someone as a torso next to a pair of smoking shoes. Not a thought I relish much I must confess.

 

[Coolwhip]

I've had one myself, grand mal, it was no big deal to me, but everyone around me was sufficiently freaked out. I don't remember anything for about 5 minutes before it started, or a good while after the jerking stopped, I was told it seemed like I was going to suffocate to death after the jerking stopped. "Woke up" in the back of an ambulance, then at the ER I couldn't tell them where I was or what year it was, everything was still fuzzy for a few hours after that. Don't know what brought it on, was on the way to work when it happened(not driving, thankfully), hadn't been taking anything GABAergic or out of the ordinary, MRI/EEG came back negative.

What was really surprising to me it how fucking sore I was for 2 days afterwards, it felt like I had participated in a triathlon followed by a weight lifting session; could barely move around the next day.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

I know what you mean. Thankfully mine aren't so physically forceful. Although I have had ones that have been.

Although your description, I worded it a little differently, but it makes me think of the time one of my pet widow spiders got herself into a most atypically pissy state, and got me whilst it was her lunch time. Felt like getting run over by a tank after. and the during was not what'd call fun either.