Its one and the same. Will do both, but its short acting. Well, intermediate. And I kinda borrowed the descriptive term from kassiane (aka rettdevil), shes got quite a similar way with words as I am told I do. (and cute as hell too hah).
Problem is, I only am given enough of the stuff to attempt to prevent the seizures. if I have one, and have no choice but to take the stuff to end it, and it does, it brings me out of it near enough as soon as the gelcaps break open, chlormethiazole it is, an old, old old sedative-hypnotic, not first line for seizures in fact I don't think its ANY line, at least not in the BNF.
Just checked, and it isn't. But it IS pretty effective. Main beef I have with it is short duration of action.
But, whilst the process does, IMO, need some fine tuning, the lack of enough to both reverse a seizure if it does happen, and prophylaxis (which for the most part is working fairly well) can be dealt with. Its not a particularly difficult compound to synthesis. Starting from vitamin B1 (thiamine), if things get a bit too active to keep under control, during waking hours (well obviously:P) its a two step process. Hydrolysis of vitamin B1 to some soluble pyrimidine crap, and precipitation out of the intermediate alcohol, from the half containing the thiazole ring of B1, thiazole-2-ethanol, chlorination of tha thionyl chloride works perfectly, although I suppose phosphorus chlorides or the Appel rxn could be used also; and then separation out of the oily end product, after adding water (needs doing in anhydrous, or at least dry conditions) to quench any residual SOCl2 (copious gas evolution if much be present, SO2, HCl(g), stuff fumes like a politician being pressed for a straight answer if one simply opens the bottle. And it smells terrible from the evolving sulfurous and HCl fumes)
And theres one other problem with doing it oneself, the stuff is not amenable to acid-base extraction as I understand it, because solid salts are not easy to form, only the edisylate salt is well characterized, and ethanedisulfonic acid is not cheap. Could make it, but no point in salting the stuff, its a nuisalce. And the base tastes fucking nasty.