After studying 312 patients at the de-addiction centre in the Department of Psychiatry from 2001 to 2007, the doctors found that nearly 20 percent of these patients had developed epileptic seizures during their addiction especially to Propoxyphene (dextropropoxyphene DPP), a painkiller readily available in the market.

The increasingly preferred combination of the DPP with paracetamol is common among addicts in the country, finds the study.

The mean age of patients was 25 years and all were men.

Significantly, a negligible number of these patients had any history or prior complaint of epilepsy.

“We have found that 63 patients had seizures. This means that around 20 per cent of the total patients we had studied suffered attacks. Only five patients had any past history of seizures and only three had a family history of the disease,” said Additional Professor D Basu, a co-researcher of the study.

The study has indicated that three factors have been crucial in DPP induced seizures in the patients—greater duration of the abuse of the substance, high dosage compared to the addicts with no seizures and more medical morbidity along with substance abuse.

The addicts under study also had a non-opioid co-morbidity with 52.9 per cent of them addicted to nicotine and 29.8 percent addicted to alcohol.