josva
Greenlighter
I did a search but couldn't find anything on this particular subject, my apologies if this is a repost.
First a little background. Skip down to the end for the questions.
So last Friday I had a seizure. My first one at that. I was unsure on why it even happened in the first place, as were the doctors when I was admitted to the emergency room. They asked about drug use and I was straightforward about everything that I did, but nothing to my knowledge (at the time) seemed out of the ordinary. I told them about my "benzo" use but I didn't particularly think that my dosage/usage warranted any kind of withdrawal severe enough to cause seizures. They did their tests and everything came back normal, so nothing wrong with the old brain. They said that in most adults one seizure is actually "acceptable" (though not necessarily good). They let me go after a couple hours essentially saying, "we have no idea," and I'm back to normal life again.
The more I mulled it over the more I started to think that this may have come from my misuse of Etizolam. I didn't even realize that I was misusing it, though I definitely was using it recreationally. I thought that in order to develop a dependency on benzos that daily use over a long period of time was necessary and also that Etizolam did not develop dependency in the same way normal benzos do, seeing as how Etizolam is not a traditional benzo. Boy was I wrong. I wasn't using it everyday, but I was using it at least a couple times a week and at (I guess to be) high dosages (anywhere from 3-6mg and maybe even up to 7-8 sometimes, though I forget really, over a period of maybe a couple months), just because why not, right? Well come to find out, high dosage use of benzos even after a short period of time can cause withdrawal effects, Etizolam included.
I noticed that I was having anxiety attacks where I would become OCD about breathing deeply, but this is something that I've had since I was a child so I didn't think too much of it as it generally passes after a while. This one stuck around a bit longer than usual then wham, I had a seizure on Friday. It was probably about 3 days since I'd taken any Etizolam. Since the seizure I haven't had any anxiety attacks, it seemed to kind of do a hard reset on my brain. I haven't had any other benzo withdrawal effects, it just went straight to a seizure (with some anxiety attacks that are on par with my normal life anyway), so I'm only speculating really that it was caused by misuse of Etizolam. I've had a lot of stress in my life over the past 6 months due to various things and I've read that stress is one of the, if not the, most common causes of non-epilepsy related seizures. I didn't think it was an inordinate amount of stress but it has definitely been the most stress I've ever had in my life. It's also worthy to mention that my cousin had a couple of seizures when she was younger but hasn't had any since.
:::tl;dr:::
So I said all that to ask a few questions:
Does this seizure seem to be one caused by misuse of Etizolam, or was it perhaps related to something else? (I realize that one of the guidelines is not to ask speculative questions, but given the background information I provided above this seems relatively reasonable.)
[If this is related to withdrawal] When can I resume (more responsible) use of Etizolam? I have an incredible amount of social anxiety and it is very useful for that and also for the occasional bad trip so I'm hoping that I didn't fuck myself. I was tempted to throw them away when I got home from the hospital but thinking it over I decided that if I were to limit my use to an as-needed-basis that I would be fine. I just don't want to lapse into another seizure after using it once for something that I actually need.
[If this is related to withdrawal] And finally, for those of you familiar with benzo withdrawals, is there any harm in taking painkillers or muscle relaxers while going through withdrawal? As in, risk of causing another seizure? I ask because I dislocated/hyper-extended my shoulder during my seizure and have been in an incredible amount of pain all week. I have a whole bottle of muscle relaxers (Norflex) and someone I know who is prescribed Vicodin is willing to just give them to me but we're both hesitant as we don't want this to result in me having another seizure. I haven't taken any drugs since then except for some Tylenol/Ibuprofen (which doesn't do shit) and a little caffeine. Would kratom be okay as well?
Thanks for reading through this novel and for any answers/advice you can give, it's really appreciated. It might not seem like it but I'm actually pretty responsible as far as drugs go. I usually research very deeply on any given substance before I imbibe (in the case of psychedelics I literally read for years before I even tried one) but I definitely did not take this one seriously enough. That's the last time.
First a little background. Skip down to the end for the questions.
So last Friday I had a seizure. My first one at that. I was unsure on why it even happened in the first place, as were the doctors when I was admitted to the emergency room. They asked about drug use and I was straightforward about everything that I did, but nothing to my knowledge (at the time) seemed out of the ordinary. I told them about my "benzo" use but I didn't particularly think that my dosage/usage warranted any kind of withdrawal severe enough to cause seizures. They did their tests and everything came back normal, so nothing wrong with the old brain. They said that in most adults one seizure is actually "acceptable" (though not necessarily good). They let me go after a couple hours essentially saying, "we have no idea," and I'm back to normal life again.
The more I mulled it over the more I started to think that this may have come from my misuse of Etizolam. I didn't even realize that I was misusing it, though I definitely was using it recreationally. I thought that in order to develop a dependency on benzos that daily use over a long period of time was necessary and also that Etizolam did not develop dependency in the same way normal benzos do, seeing as how Etizolam is not a traditional benzo. Boy was I wrong. I wasn't using it everyday, but I was using it at least a couple times a week and at (I guess to be) high dosages (anywhere from 3-6mg and maybe even up to 7-8 sometimes, though I forget really, over a period of maybe a couple months), just because why not, right? Well come to find out, high dosage use of benzos even after a short period of time can cause withdrawal effects, Etizolam included.
I noticed that I was having anxiety attacks where I would become OCD about breathing deeply, but this is something that I've had since I was a child so I didn't think too much of it as it generally passes after a while. This one stuck around a bit longer than usual then wham, I had a seizure on Friday. It was probably about 3 days since I'd taken any Etizolam. Since the seizure I haven't had any anxiety attacks, it seemed to kind of do a hard reset on my brain. I haven't had any other benzo withdrawal effects, it just went straight to a seizure (with some anxiety attacks that are on par with my normal life anyway), so I'm only speculating really that it was caused by misuse of Etizolam. I've had a lot of stress in my life over the past 6 months due to various things and I've read that stress is one of the, if not the, most common causes of non-epilepsy related seizures. I didn't think it was an inordinate amount of stress but it has definitely been the most stress I've ever had in my life. It's also worthy to mention that my cousin had a couple of seizures when she was younger but hasn't had any since.
:::tl;dr:::
So I said all that to ask a few questions:
Does this seizure seem to be one caused by misuse of Etizolam, or was it perhaps related to something else? (I realize that one of the guidelines is not to ask speculative questions, but given the background information I provided above this seems relatively reasonable.)
[If this is related to withdrawal] When can I resume (more responsible) use of Etizolam? I have an incredible amount of social anxiety and it is very useful for that and also for the occasional bad trip so I'm hoping that I didn't fuck myself. I was tempted to throw them away when I got home from the hospital but thinking it over I decided that if I were to limit my use to an as-needed-basis that I would be fine. I just don't want to lapse into another seizure after using it once for something that I actually need.
[If this is related to withdrawal] And finally, for those of you familiar with benzo withdrawals, is there any harm in taking painkillers or muscle relaxers while going through withdrawal? As in, risk of causing another seizure? I ask because I dislocated/hyper-extended my shoulder during my seizure and have been in an incredible amount of pain all week. I have a whole bottle of muscle relaxers (Norflex) and someone I know who is prescribed Vicodin is willing to just give them to me but we're both hesitant as we don't want this to result in me having another seizure. I haven't taken any drugs since then except for some Tylenol/Ibuprofen (which doesn't do shit) and a little caffeine. Would kratom be okay as well?
Thanks for reading through this novel and for any answers/advice you can give, it's really appreciated. It might not seem like it but I'm actually pretty responsible as far as drugs go. I usually research very deeply on any given substance before I imbibe (in the case of psychedelics I literally read for years before I even tried one) but I definitely did not take this one seriously enough. That's the last time.
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