Baclofen Long Term Effects

[craving]

Has anyone experience with long term effects of Baclofen?
It is extremely hard to find case studies over a longer term (i.e. 5 years).

Will the craving stay down - or could it be only a temporary reaction?

[beatle]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

According to Dr. A, there are no major long-term side-effects, or negligible long-term side effects, on people using baclofen at high doses over many years (please correct me if I am wrong about this, anyone! I am only speaking from memory, and we all know what our memories are like nowadays!).

As for tolerance, I think this is also addressed by Dr. A. ... But to sum it up (and this is being very presumptuous), tolerance is only built up until you reach the point of indifference. Then you can diminish your daily dose slowly and carefully. As I understand it, this is why baclofen is not considered an addictive medication.

[beatle]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

Considering your incredible success, I would think you might want to continue for a while at your current dose, only decreasing it in increments after you feel very confident about where you are.

[craving]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

The majority of information I could find is all from Ameisen himself. Thats also why a lot of medics raise doubts about all the information provided. On the other side, I do not think that Ameisen really would make this things up - just really prefer public accessible information.

Antidepressants

there is insufficient published literature to which clinicians can refer as regards the long-term safety and efficacy of these drugs.

Long term effect (more than five years) of intrathecal baclofen on impairment, disability, and quality of life in patients with severe spasticity of spinal origin -- Zahavi et al. 75 (11): 1553 -- Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry

Compared with pretreatment values, there was a significant improvement in clinical efficacy (Ashworth scale and spasm score, p

[fets]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

Yes this would be nice to read. some other people, than Ameisen.


craving sorry, one offtopic question, i have seen once a graph from you.
with what software did you do that?
regards
fets

[craving]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

fets;804523 wrote: craving sorry, one offtopic question, i have seen once a graph from you.
with what software did you do that?

microsoft excel 2000 - newer versions have for sure more gimmicks

[Chocolate Mousse]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

Hi Craving

Just having a look at your chart and you are obviously doing great:goodjob: So the Nal did not help in any way? and you seem to be on the Bac for a very short time for it to kick in and see great results? I am right in this or....

Love and good wishes to us all on our journeys :l

[craving]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

Chocolate Mousse;804558 wrote: Just having a look at your chart and you are obviously doing great:goodjob: So the Nal did not help in any way? and you seem to be on the Bac for a very short time for it to kick in and see great results?

Nal did not help me. Nal is more likely to help people who have ancestors with alcohol problems. I have not had any one in my family with any alcohol problem at all!
My alcoholism has built up during only 3 years and is mainly that strong because of the medication Bupropion+drinking.

I dose Baclofen like a mad men, if you look in my thread you will find the doses I took. The biggest increase I took was 150mg in 2 days. That did the trick to me. Lo0p has also been doing so far good results with Baclofen dosing as needed.

28 days AF so far in a row - Baclofen has fixed the craving for me. Now it is on me to fix the other things in my life, and god knows that takes time!! :upset:

[christyacc]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

That's awesome! What do you do in major times of stress? I find I am ok for everyday life but when thrown a curveball, I cave. Can you recommend something?

[craving]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

christyacc;804614 wrote: That's awesome! What do you do in major times of stress? I find I am ok for everyday life but when thrown a curveball, I cave. Can you recommend something?

when there are stressy situations the dose of Baclofen can be increase by 20-40mg as a one time increased intake.

i.e. you know that you will be going tonight into your favourite bar to meet some friends, take an additional dose 2-4 hours before being actually there and you have an additional layer of craving protection.

One problem I notice lately is that the Binging is missing to me, I like to escape reality just sometimes. But that is a very bad sign to hear that from and addict :-)

[mingram000]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

Hello Craving,

I am curious if you are left handed or if anyone that Nal has failed for is left handed ( I know wierd question). I am probably asking this in the wrong place.

Congratulations on your success with the Baclofen!

Matt

[craving]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

i am right handed

[christyacc]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

I have a friend and myself it didn't work for and we are both eighties.

[craving]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

christyacc;804863 wrote: I have a friend and myself it didn't work for and we are both eighties.

TSM or Baclofen did not work?

[Greg]

Baclofen Long Term Effects

To answer part of craving's original post:

I have been having very real problems in getting my doctor to accept the idea of taking huge doses of baclofen to treat alcoholism, even though he is a very sympathetic doctor and an addiction specialist. Whenever we have talked about it in detail, he says that he can't find any examples of it in the medical literature "except for that Ameisen fella". I mentioned belonging to a forum but he dismissed this as a selective and non-scientific information source (sorry, no offence anyone!).

I am back to titrating upwards after having some bad reactions to baclofen but there's no way I will ever be able to obtain a prescription able to sustain me at a level of 200+ mg per day if I happen to need that much. My doctor is already being very generous by saying we can try over 100 mg, since the normal upper limit for oral baclofen in this country is 75 mg per day. To be prescribed 3.6 times that dose (i.e. 270 mg) or anything close to it would not be possible. Of course this will mean online ordering if I manage to tolerate and need such high doses in future.

Dr. Ameisen states in his book that he asked an Australian neurologist John Schaefer about very high doses of baclofen, and that he also read a bit about it in publications to do with neurology. I suspect that publications about neurology, MS, and so on are going to be the only sources of medical information about high-dose baclofen apart from Dr Ameisen's writings at this point in time. As for information on high doses of baclofen to successfully treat alcoholism, I'd say it's just Dr Ameisen and possibly a few case reports inspired by his example at this point. After all this treatment wasn't even heard of before that time. I'd be happy to be proven wrong on this, and if I do find any more published reports I'll happily post here about them.