Isolde's Journey - beginning again
Hi all. It's been awhile since I updated my progress here, as I've been mostly active in the Meds Forums. I posted the below there, but wanted to include it here as well, in the hopes that it might help someone else.
So, I've been on bac for 'round about 2 months now and thought it was time to give an update with my progress.
I'm currently taking 115mgs/day dosed as follows:
7am - 25 mgs
12:30pm - 35 mgs
5-ish - 45 mgs
10pm - 10 mgs
I'm currently at a state of being able to moderate that in the past I would have been very happy with. There are days where I really don't have a desire to drink at all. Then there are days (well, nights really) that I kind of want something, but it's more psychological, and nothing really sounds good. Sometimes I'll just abstain, but sometimes I'll end up having something. Then there are times like last night where I definitely did want something to drink, so I had a beer, and pondered briefly having another, as I was feeling nice. But then considered the possibility of feeling yucky today because of how bac amplifies the effects of alcohol (yeah, even 2 beers can do that to me now). So just stopped at 1 and was fine.
Quite frankly, if this was as good as it ever got, I would still consider baclofen a HUGE success. This is really what I had thought Topa would do for me but which didn't even come close. But I recognize that considering the dose that most others have gotten up to, 115mgs is pretty paltry, and I will keep pushing forward until I get to the switch.
The side effects are all over the place, and sometimes bad, sometimes tolerable. The extreme happiness and energy that I was feeling around 80-90mgs (after re-starting bac after running out), was unfortunately short lived. At that time it felt like bac was the best anti-anxiety and anti-depressant in the world. Overall, I still do get the sense that there is hope where before I felt hopeless. But sometimes I'm just too tired and cranky to give a shit. Luckily the daytime tiredness is just a day or two here and there and then subsides. I generally do sleep very well at night, with just a couple of small episodes of insomnia sprinkled in every once in awhile. Last week I was getting pretty intense closed eye visuals when I would lay down to go to sleep. It was mostly like bright neon flashes and was very disconcerting. Sometimes I would have very intense dreams (sometimes good and sometimes bad), but other nights I don't remember my dreams at all.
The side effects are thankfully very inconsistent, as I don't think I could handle having all of the heavier ones all at once, all the time.
I have periods during the day of just feeling flat out "weird", where my head doesn't quite feel attached to my body, and I either need to sit down, drink some water, or do something to occupy my brain for a bit to wait it out. The dehydration factor gets annoying at times. Sometimes it feels like I have an irritation at the very bottom of my throat, that's a tough one to describe. No amount of water seems to help. And then there's when I'm just starting to fall asleep and I kind of choke on my own saliva. That'll wake ya right up and scare the crap out of you! There are times that I realize I'm kind of keeping myself from falling asleep because it's like giving in to the unknown, if that makes any sense. There were a few days last week where I was getting the closed eye visuals, choking on saliva, and really intense/vivid bad dreams all at the same time. That was a really tough time.
But the more intense SEs seem to be fading a bit now, this week it's much easier to cope. I'm really just going to try and focus on being as healthy as I can now. Eating a lot of fresh whole foods and start to exercise regularly again (well, that part has to wait a little bit as I'm healing from a minor surgical procedure last week). I think that this will help in all areas of my life, as I'm just going through a very rough patch in general.
As mentioned in a few other threads, I do get the sort of intense body tensing throughout the day, as a few others have also experienced. Taking a good chelated magnesium supplement throughout the day seems to help with that.
So that's where I'm at!
Hi all. It's been awhile since I updated my progress here, as I've been mostly active in the Meds Forums. I posted the below there, but wanted to include it here as well, in the hopes that it might help someone else.
So, I've been on bac for 'round about 2 months now and thought it was time to give an update with my progress.
I'm currently taking 115mgs/day dosed as follows:
7am - 25 mgs
12:30pm - 35 mgs
5-ish - 45 mgs
10pm - 10 mgs
I'm currently at a state of being able to moderate that in the past I would have been very happy with. There are days where I really don't have a desire to drink at all. Then there are days (well, nights really) that I kind of want something, but it's more psychological, and nothing really sounds good. Sometimes I'll just abstain, but sometimes I'll end up having something. Then there are times like last night where I definitely did want something to drink, so I had a beer, and pondered briefly having another, as I was feeling nice. But then considered the possibility of feeling yucky today because of how bac amplifies the effects of alcohol (yeah, even 2 beers can do that to me now). So just stopped at 1 and was fine.
Quite frankly, if this was as good as it ever got, I would still consider baclofen a HUGE success. This is really what I had thought Topa would do for me but which didn't even come close. But I recognize that considering the dose that most others have gotten up to, 115mgs is pretty paltry, and I will keep pushing forward until I get to the switch.
The side effects are all over the place, and sometimes bad, sometimes tolerable. The extreme happiness and energy that I was feeling around 80-90mgs (after re-starting bac after running out), was unfortunately short lived. At that time it felt like bac was the best anti-anxiety and anti-depressant in the world. Overall, I still do get the sense that there is hope where before I felt hopeless. But sometimes I'm just too tired and cranky to give a shit. Luckily the daytime tiredness is just a day or two here and there and then subsides. I generally do sleep very well at night, with just a couple of small episodes of insomnia sprinkled in every once in awhile. Last week I was getting pretty intense closed eye visuals when I would lay down to go to sleep. It was mostly like bright neon flashes and was very disconcerting. Sometimes I would have very intense dreams (sometimes good and sometimes bad), but other nights I don't remember my dreams at all.
The side effects are thankfully very inconsistent, as I don't think I could handle having all of the heavier ones all at once, all the time.
I have periods during the day of just feeling flat out "weird", where my head doesn't quite feel attached to my body, and I either need to sit down, drink some water, or do something to occupy my brain for a bit to wait it out. The dehydration factor gets annoying at times. Sometimes it feels like I have an irritation at the very bottom of my throat, that's a tough one to describe. No amount of water seems to help. And then there's when I'm just starting to fall asleep and I kind of choke on my own saliva. That'll wake ya right up and scare the crap out of you! There are times that I realize I'm kind of keeping myself from falling asleep because it's like giving in to the unknown, if that makes any sense. There were a few days last week where I was getting the closed eye visuals, choking on saliva, and really intense/vivid bad dreams all at the same time. That was a really tough time.
But the more intense SEs seem to be fading a bit now, this week it's much easier to cope. I'm really just going to try and focus on being as healthy as I can now. Eating a lot of fresh whole foods and start to exercise regularly again (well, that part has to wait a little bit as I'm healing from a minor surgical procedure last week). I think that this will help in all areas of my life, as I'm just going through a very rough patch in general.
As mentioned in a few other threads, I do get the sort of intense body tensing throughout the day, as a few others have also experienced. Taking a good chelated magnesium supplement throughout the day seems to help with that.
So that's where I'm at!
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