Has anyone taken the drug Riluzole to work on glutamate (after using benzos)?

Some of you may be familiar with excitotoxicity, for those that aren't, Wikipedia says:

 

 

"Excitotoxicity is the pathological process by which nerve cells are damaged or killed by excessive stimulation by neurotransmitters such as glutamate and similar substances. This occurs when receptors for the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate (glutamate receptors) such as the NMDA receptor and AMPA receptor are overactivated by glutamatergic storm."

 

It also says what can cause it:

 

"Excitotoxicity may be involved in spinal cord injury, stroke, traumatic brain injury, hearing loss (through noise overexposure or ototoxicity), and in neurodegenerative diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's disease, alcoholism or alcohol withdrawal and especially over-rapid benzodiazepine withdrawal, and also Huntington's disease."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity  11/30/18

 

What I am wondering is if Riluzole can help with people that might have had excitotoxicity.  One reason is because, as you can see from above, excitotoxicity is also caused by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) which is the condition that Riluzole is used to treat.

 

According to Wikipedia:

 

"Mechanism of action

Riluzole preferentially blocks TTX-sensitive sodium channels, which are associated with damaged neurons.[18][19] Riluzole has also been reported to directly inhibit the kainate and NMDA receptors.[20] The drug has also been shown to postsynaptically potentiate GABAA receptors via an allosteric binding site.[21] However, the action of riluzole on glutamate receptors has been controversial, as no binding of the drug to any known sites has been shown for them.[22][23] In addition, as its antiglutamatergic action is still detectable in the presence of sodium channel blockers, it is also uncertain whether or not it acts via this way. Rather, its ability to stimulate glutamate uptake seems to mediate many of its effects.[24][25] In addition to its role in accelerating glutamate clearance from the synapse, riluzole may also prevent glutamate release from presynaptic terminals.[26] These effects combined could significantly reduce glutamate signaling and cause indirect antagonism without acting at glutamate receptors themselves."

 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riluzole 11/30/18

 

Here is my experience with it:  I was able to try a few pills to take on two different days.  I believe they made a difference at least in the short term for me.  The reason I say that is because when I took klonopin and slept, I would wake up with static tinnitus and it could remain there for 3 weeks or so.  When I took Riluzole, it took away the static tinnitus, but stupid me immediately went back to sleep and the tinnitus came back.  When I woke up again I took it and the static went away and didn't come back the whole day.  I can't remember if it came back the next day or not.  It is an expensive drug but with sites like goodrx.com and lowestmed.com, I can get a decent discount on it and be able to afford it (at least for now).  They have supposedly done studies where it helped people with OCD, GAD, depression, and some other things.  It would be interesting if this got approved for these purposes. 

 

According to Wikipedia:

 

Psychiatric use

A number of recent case studies have indicated that riluzole may have clinical use in mood and anxiety disorders.[5] It has been shown to have antidepressant properties in the treatment of refractory depression[6] and act as an anxiolytic in obsessive-compulsive disorder[7] and in generalized anxiety disorder.[8]

 

and

 

A reformulation of riluzole that originated at Yale University and is known by the code name BHV-0223[12] is under development for the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder and mood disorders now by Biohaven Pharmaceuticals.[13]

 

Source:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riluzole 11/30/18

 

If anyone else has taken this drug, please state your experience.  It would be interesting to know other people's experiences.  However, in no way do I want to tell people to take this drug because I am not an expert and I don't know long term consequences or ANY consequences that may result from taking this drug.  If there is an expert on drugs and brain conditions, I would love to get an opinion on this.

Following very interested

following as well

 

Following.. the whole exitoxicity has been worrying me.

 

Does it cause permanent damage? I’ve been up and down on meds  and suffered from serious WDs (I could literally hear my brain frying!) so worried about long term effect as I’m struggljng severely in recovery.

 

Tried low doses of lamotrigine and valporate to stop it but toxic reactions so had to stop 🙄

Never heard of this med!

Following.. the whole exitoxicity has been worrying me.

 

Does it cause permanent damage? I’ve been up and down on meds  and suffered from serious WDs (I could literally hear my brain frying!) so worried about long term effect as I’m struggljng severely in recovery.

 

Tried low doses of lamotrigine and valporate to stop it but toxic reactions so had to stop

Never heard of this med!

 

I'm not sure if benzo withdrawal causes permanent damage but I was comforted in the fact that Riluzole took away my static benzo induced tinnitus.  When I took it, I don't remember it being stimulating but I only took it for one day and then went a lot of days without a dose and then took it maybe on another day.  Long term it might be stimulating - I really don't know.  I do know the drug Lamictal was stimulating to me.  Also, I was pretty much off the klonopin for a while and then when I took the klonopin and slept (the day before I took the Riluzole) it was an extremely small amount of klonopin...it was like the size of a couple of salt grains from a .5mg pill.

 

It took me a long time to find this drug because I had never heard of it either.  I had to do a lot of research to find it but that's okay if it turns out to be helpful to people.  If it doesn't, I hope it would not hurt anyone.  It's kind of an obscure drug right now because it's used to treat ALS primarily, however, when I checked out drugs.com, I believe I saw some people giving it reviews for OCD.  I think some doctors may be scared to prescribe it to non-ALS people because it is used to treat ALS.

 

The reasons I thought it might help me are:

 

1. It can help some people with depression

2. It can help some people with anxiety

3. It can help some people with OCD

4. It is supposed to work on glutamate

5. It worked on my benzo induced static tinnitus

 

Maybe it's a good idea, maybe it's not.  I have been wrong before but I thought I would just share this information to people.  I welcome other people's viewpoints on this as I want to know what others think of this. 

 

 

Hey guys...I found a website where a person said they took Riluzole while withdrawing from Klonopin:

 

https://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/64855-started-riluzole/

 

What do you all think?

 

 

 

Following.. the whole exitoxicity has been worrying me.

 

Does it cause permanent damage? I’ve been up and down on meds  and suffered from serious WDs (I could literally hear my brain frying!) so worried about long term effect as I’m struggljng severely in recovery.

 

Tried low doses of lamotrigine and valporate to stop it but toxic reactions so had to stop

Never heard of this med!

 

I'm not sure if benzo withdrawal causes permanent damage but I was comforted in the fact that Riluzole took away my static benzo induced tinnitus.  When I took it, I don't remember it being stimulating but I only took it for one day and then went a lot of days without a dose and then took it maybe on another day.  Long term it might be stimulating - I really don't know.  I do know the drug Lamictal was stimulating to me.  Also, I was pretty much off the klonopin for a while and then when I took the klonopin and slept (the day before I took the Riluzole) it was an extremely small amount of klonopin...it was like the size of a couple of salt grains from a .5mg pill.

 

It took me a long time to find this drug because I had never heard of it either.  I had to do a lot of research to find it but that's okay if it turns out to be helpful to people.  If it doesn't, I hope it would not hurt anyone.  It's kind of an obscure drug right now because it's used to treat ALS primarily, however, when I checked out drugs.com, I believe I saw some people giving it reviews for OCD.  I think some doctors may be scared to prescribe it to non-ALS people because it is used to treat ALS.

 

The reasons I thought it might help me are:

 

1. It can help some people with depression

2. It can help some people with anxiety

3. It can help some people with OCD

4. It is supposed to work on glutamate

5. It worked on my benzo induced static tinnitus

 

Maybe it's a good idea, maybe it's not.  I have been wrong before but I thought I would just share this information to people.  I welcome other people's viewpoints on this as I want to know what others think of this. 

 

 

 

For how long did you take the ithe riluzole and how far off were you?

Hey sorry, I didn't see this til now.  I think I took it at various points.  And it was mostly a one off thing...I may have taken it two days in a row but mostly I just remember taking it in the morning and I think one time I took it at night.

Anyone's got more news on this?

I have heard that prodrug is being developed. It's called troriluzole, and ought to be much easier to take, because it turns out riluzole has some rules with regards to food.

Bumping this. Any body have any experiences?

I also want to know. I've tried to convince some doctors, with no success, to prescribe me due to the glutamate during benzo wd and also due to my pre-existing OCD.

Seems like a potentially useful treatment (to me at least, someone clueless on the science) but there's no data

I tried it for 3 days, tiny dose, 3mg 2 times a day, feel mental calm, no more racing thoughts.

so i took a related drug, memantine, a glutamatergic antagonist, that i didn't want to create a new post for but also wanted to mention because in tiny doses - like 5 mg seemed to help, but not enough and in doses just a bit larger 7.5-10mg it created for confusion and extreme muscle weakness.

 

i wound up tapering off of ambien without the help of a glutamate regulator.