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Zopiclone

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Effortly
Effortly

Doctors found a clot in my neck which caused strokes and seizures, had an endarterectomy. Now I feel seizures comming on but if I take zopiclone in the morning and supper time plus one at bed time all seizure symptoms have stopped. Each pill is 5mg. Why is this working, haven't told docs what I found works?? I also take lamotrogine 400mg a day. Any explanation and is it safe?

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4 Replies

  • mary_70540
    mary_70540 Effortly

    Posted

    To be on the safe side I'd have a chat with the doc I'm not a medical person but the doc might understand more why zopiclone has this effect .after all you have been through I'd just be honest with doc he may well say that if it works for you carry on .it would be peace of mind for you I'm sure .good luck x
  • jaw444
    jaw444 Effortly

    Posted

    Just to clarify, if you only take the lamotrogine 400mg and no zopiclone, you have the seizure symptoms?  so that the lamotrogine isn't controlling the seizure symptoms?   But if you take zopiclone throughout the day, you don't have seizure symptoms (5mg 3X a day)?  If i understand that right, if it was me, i would probably talk to a doctor (neurologist?) and say that the lamotrogine isn't controlling the symptoms.  I also wonder if you get side effects from the lamotrogine, so that you wouldn't want to be put on a higher dose. If not, maybe a higher dose of it is what you need. I would want to talk to a specialist in treating seizures, one that i trust. Some doctors i can trust and some i can't. It has to do with how open they are in communicating, rather then acting as if i don't need to know stuff. i like to have information about drugs i'm given, that kind of thing.  If i trusted my specialist, i'd talk to them and see whether lamotrogine is the right medication and whether i was taking enough of it.  As for zopiclone, if it works and isn't giving you problems, it's good to know you have something to take, to avoid seizures, but if there is trust with the doctor, if it was me, i'd want to talk about the zopiclone and have the doctor be in the loop.

    i wouldn't tell someone else to trust their doctor, that would have to be up to them, based on their experience, but if the medication the doctor is using to control the seizures isn't controlling them, it seems important to have communication open about that with the doctor. You might not need to take the zopiclone if there's another seizure med that would work or a higher dose.  

    Zopiclone is addictive for most people who go on it, though not always in the short run, and many people (i include myself) have weird symptoms from taking it, and it can potentially cloud the clinical picture. Still, at a low dose like you're taking, it might be the best thing for you medically. For that, it would be best to have a trustworthy doctor to communicate and consult with.

    • jaw444
      jaw444

      Posted

      i just googled lamotrigene and was reading about side effects.  To me, it sounds like a drug i would want to be in communication with an MD about, someone knowledgeable about that medication. I read that the blood levels should be monitored, to make sure you're not getting too much.  I read that 400mg is the maximum recommended dose for partial seizures, so apparently you are getting a high enough dose. From what you say, it sounds like the seizures may not be controlled enough, or maybe you haven't been taking the lamotrigene long enough, but i hope you have a doctor you can trust so you can work together to make sure you're on the right medication for your needs--there are a few other medicaitons also used to treat partial seizures that a doctor might want to try if the lamotrigene isn't working well enough.   

      i read that one of the possible side effects of lamotrigene is insomnia, but it wasn't listed as a common side effect, it doesn't mean that most people who take it get insomnia.  Not knowing your situation, it seems a good idea to let your doctor know about the zopiclone, or if not, then maybe you could say that you've been thinking of trying zopiclone to help with the seizures and wonder what the doctor thinks.

      Drugs interact with each other and cause effects that you wouldn't otherwise get.  I've been taking zolpidem for sleep for 20 years.  In 2012, i also added in zopiclone 7.5 mg at bedtime, together with the 15mg of zolpidem. Shortly after i started the zolpidem, i began having a weird thing, just occasionally, not often. but i would wake up in the morning in a very weird dissociated sort psychedelic state, where i didn't know what was real---i've never had anything like that before. I didn't think it was the zopiclone but i did wonder if it was related since it started a couple of weeks after i started taking it. It happened about every two or three weeks, and after i'd been up for a half hour or less, it would go away, but it was really intense and not fun.  

      One morning i had a black out thing, where i got a phone call from a plumber, saying he wanted to verify my address. It was about noon and i was feeling normal. I confirmed my address, i had forgotten that i had an appointment with a plumber, i always chalked my really poor memory up to the sleeping meds i was taken, as that is a common side effect. The man said that his plumber employee had come to my house but that i told him i didn't need a plumber. I thought when he said that, there must be some mistake, nothing like that had happened, and i did need a plumber.  I told him i'd been there all morning and no one had come. i mentioned that i had a dog, and he said "Yes, the guy said there was a woman with a dog who came to the door."  Wow.  i have no memory of it, but i began to consider that it had really happened, pretty disturbing, and embarrassing.  I thought it might be related to the other weird symptoms i'd been having, every couple of weeks, where i'd wake up feeling really weird, but i always remembered those.  That morning, the plumber came back to my house, he said he had been there earlier and i said i didn't need a plumber. I said "That's really weird." I still wasn't sure, but i did come to believe it happened, even though i didn't remember it.  There was no reason for the plumber to make it up.  

      I was on zopiclone for a year and a half, along with the zolpidem.  I continued to have the other weird morning symptoms, every week or two or so, and then, i decided i would wean myself off the zopiclone.  I only took them for sleep. Because i was still taking the zolpidem, it was pretty easy to get off the zopliclone. It took a couple of months. When i got off it, i was happy. i just knew it couldn't be very good for me to be taking both medications together, especially because of those weird symptoms.  

      After i stopped taking the zopiclone, i never got that symptom again, even though to this day, i still take the zolpidem, so this leaves me thinking that either the zopiclone or the combination of the two had a very weird effect on my brain.

      However, i had some other weird symptoms after i stopped the zopiclone, new symptoms i hadn't had before, which i think included seizures, i say i think because i live alone and all i know is two days in a row, i woke up laying on the floor with no memory of how i got there, some things were knocked over but i didn't remember any of it.  The back of my head was very sore, like it was bruised, and someone said that it could be from having a seizure, my head might have been knocking against the floor, it wasn't just from falling because both sides of my head were sore.  

      Pretty soon after that i found out i had a weird kind of very extreme hypoglycemia, which can cause coma and unconsciousness and seizures, it's fasting hypoglycemia so you get it in the morning after you have slept all night, not eating. Then i found out the low blood sugar was caused by a benign tumor on my pancreas (insulinoma), which was removed and now i don't have hypoglycemia anymore.  

      So, i don't know for sure, maybe it was the tumor that was causing me to have those weird symptoms that started shortly after starting the zopiclone and stopped when i stopped the zopiclone. Who knows. But the point is that in my experience, i have reason to think that zopiclone can cause some neurological symptoms under certain conditions, such as perhaps because of the kind of tumor i had, and also, maybe it's just coincidence, but those two occasions when i might have had some kind of seizure occurred about 3 months after i had stopped the zopiclone, so maybe the zopiclone was acting as an anti-convulsant and when i stopped taking it, it no longer was protecting me from seizures. i say this, only after reading your post. i hadn't thought of that before.

      So, i would definitely want to consult with a doctor about the zopiclone, and if it is having an anticonvulsant effect, don't stop taking it suddenly. If you want to go off it, do it gradually.

      On the Drugs.com site, the zopiclone entry, it says that zopiclone does have anticonvulsant effects, that is in the Introduction section.  So again, you would definitely not want to stop it cold turkey, i think.  In the section titled Combinatins with Zopiclone, it mentions two anti-convulsant medications and says that those medications weaken the effects of  zopiclone. Those two anticonvulsants are phenytoin and carbamazepine. So i don't know if the same is true for lamotrigene--a question for a knowledgeable doctor.

    • mary_70540
      mary_70540 jaw444

      Posted

      I agree zopiclone is very addictive I've just gone to hell and back getting off them

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