Serious seizure from MDMA - why?

[Ooft]

Hi everyone

My friend recently had a serious seizure from taking MDMA and had to be rushed to hospital. I'm trying to find out why this happened, I know the answer may simply be that this is a risk associated with the drug but considering the circumstances I'm inclined to believe that something else has caused this in conjunction with the MDMA and not on it's own.

The MDMA we had was from a trusted source and I reagent tested it, I know without lab testing that I can be certain that it isn't adulterated/poor quality but many other people have taken the same batch including myself and not encountered anything out of the ordinary, for all intents and purposes it is top quality stuff.

My friend has used MDMA many, many times over the last 10+ years, sometimes to excess and has never had any problems of any kind apart from the expected come down. He is healthy, early 30s, no medical conditions nor taking any medications. The man has the constitution of an ox.

He had been drinking quite heavily the night it happened, we were both drinking straight white rum immediately beforehand. We both took around 150 - 200mg (certainly no more than quarter of a gramme). Within 10-15 minutes my friend passed out and went into a tonic-clonic seizure (as later confirmed by his blood work up, or at least the doctor said something was consistent with this). I had to stop him from choking on his own vomit and call for an ambulance. Even after the paramedics arrived and had pumped him full of what I assume where benzos he was seizing for over half an hour. The paramedic said he'd never seen a reaction like this before, he said that it was looking likely that he wouldn't make it. He was hypertensive and a hair widths away from a cardiac episode. All very scary traumatic shit. He eventually came to but has no memory up until almost an hour and a half later. I didn't experience any negative side effects at all.

He was kept in hospital over night due to his temperature and a high resting heart rate (His resting rate was 175 for over 5 hours when he was admitted). Although out of hospital and generally feeling ok, he's cleary still recovering and has had what sounds like panic attacks over the last few days.

He had a tooth removed less than 48 hours before and the wound was fresh/still bleeding.

Is it possible that along with the straight alcohol and the open wound the MDMA has gotten in to his system/bloodstream quicker?
Could the local anaesthetic for his dental work have anything to do with it? He wasn't on any pain killers afterwards.
He had much more to drink than me, could this cause this? Although to be fair I've been in similar situations with a stupid amount of booze mixed with MDMA.

He's had no history of fits or seizures, I find this to be a really oddly violent reaction to someone who has used many times before.

Also if anyone has experience with this can there be any lasting damage from this sort of thing? He's noticed he's slurring his speech a little and the panic attacks I mentioned - but its only been a couple of days, I'm hoping this will subside. Is there anything I should keep an eye out for?


Thanks!

 

[MagickalKat777]

Unfortunately, seizures can come out of nowhere and both alcohol and MDMA can lower the seizure threshold. Its quite possible that your friend just suffered a random seizure and that it had little, if anything, to do with the MDMA. I would suspect the alcohol but if he's having slurred speech and things like that after the fact, maybe they should be doing a brain scan to look for the possibility that he has an outside factor causing the issues - like a swollen brain from an active infection or a parasite.

If everyone took the same batch of MDMA and only your friend had the issue, there is an outside variable that is responsible for the problem. It is possible to have a seizure while drinking but its not common with recreational usage and actually is much more common when you're in alcohol withdrawal or you drank so much that you were knocked unconscious than anything else. MDMA has been shown to lower the seizure threshold but its not even as dramatic as say, the prescription antidepressant bupropion is even.

Make sure they do a full workup on your friend including an MRI or a CT scan of his brain to see if there are any signs of an infection, especially to see if a pork tapeworm has created a cyst in his brain as that can be deadly.

 

[BlueBull]

You say he is not on any medication. It's just a thought, but maybe he only considered serious/heavy medication when you asked him this question? One example I can give, which would be perfectly normal after dental work is that he was prescribed tramadol. I was prescribed that stuff after dental work and it lowers the seizure treshold quite dramatically though it is only a mild painkiller and prescribed quite a lot. Probably not what caused it but it's just something that sprung to mind when I read "seizure" and "dental work" in one story. You should indeed start eliminating seizure causing factors, both external and internal ones. I wish him all the best, I assume such an event is quite unnerving...

 

[zebrafish]

It sounds like there could be an element of serotonin syndrome. He has tachycardia and hyperthermia post MDMA reaction. However the tachycardia and hyperthermia could be from the seizure itself. Like MagickalKat said, MDMA can lower the seizure threshold. However, acutely drinking alcohol shouldn't cause seizures; it's usually alcohol withdrawals that cause seizures. However, some studies have shown that the combination of MDMA and alcohol can increase the plasma concentration of MDMA in the blood, which could have precipitated the response experience by your friend.

Was he on antibiotics after his tooth extraction? Several antibiotics are notorious for competing with other drugs for the same hepatic and renal excretion mechanisms. So a possible interaction could have occurred between the MDMA and the antibiotic as well.

The local anesthetic likely used was Lidocaine or Marcaine. Lidocaine blocks sodium channels, and has been known to cause seizures or even cardiac arrest. This especially can happen if the lidocaine was accidentally injected into a blood vessel. Although this is unlikely, because if lidocaine was inadvertently injected intra-arterially, he would have had a reaction in the dentists office. Also, lidocaine has a half-life of 2 hours, so it shouldn't be an issue 48 hours later.

Several people on this forum have complained of slurred speech post MDMA, and likely represents serotonin transmission disruption likely in the basal ganglia (deep nuclei in the frontal lobes of the brain). This seems to resolve in most people over time. However, in the setting of a seizure, one needs to make sure there was not an anoxic (lack of oxygen) injury to the brain during the seizure.

If the slurred speech is not improving, he should get an MRI with diffusion weighted imaging to rule this possibility out.

Magickalkat, you are referring to neurocysticercosis (pork tapeworm infection in the brain). Why would you suspect he has this? He has no history of seizures before, and this diagnosis is usually found in migrant farm workers in Mexico/southern california.

 

[F1n1shed]

Unfortunately, seizures can come out of nowhere and both alcohol and MDMA can lower the seizure threshold. Its quite possible that your friend just suffered a random seizure and that it had little, if anything, to do with the MDMA. I would suspect the alcohol but if he's having slurred speech and things like that after the fact, maybe they should be doing a brain scan to look for the possibility that he has an outside factor causing the issues - like a swollen brain from an active infection or a parasite.

If everyone took the same batch of MDMA and only your friend had the issue, there is an outside variable that is responsible for the problem. It is possible to have a seizure while drinking but its not common with recreational usage and actually is much more common when you're in alcohol withdrawal or you drank so much that you were knocked unconscious than anything else. MDMA has been shown to lower the seizure threshold but its not even as dramatic as say, the prescription antidepressant bupropion is even.

Make sure they do a full workup on your friend including an MRI or a CT scan of his brain to see if there are any signs of an infection, especially to see if a pork tapeworm has created a cyst in his brain as that can be deadly.

Ummm what...?
How would you come to the conclusion that it would have nothing to do with MDMA. IT HAPPENED AFTER INGESTING MDMA, i'm sick of people acting like nothing bad can happen with MDMA.
I have been on this site for years and have read many cases where seizures happen to people who have rolled before , and on pure stuff. It lowers the seizure threshold by a lot, it sucks that it happens but it can happen to anyone. Glad it never happened to me, the alcohol probably had to do with it but it was most definitely MDMAs fault... that is clear...

Anyways, your friend has been rolling for 10+ years? I think it's about time he has thrown up the towel and let his neruons recover, or at least some what recover. I have no problem with people using drugs, but anyone rolling for over 10 years is seriously messing with their brain. This chemical is not to be taken lightly and can dramatically change how the brain functions, especially with 10+ years of usage.