Going to low on bac maintenace dose

[Brave Hearted]

Hi just though anybody on bac might find this interesting. I have been on bac since last Aug, reached my trigger at 120-140mg could not tollerate it any higher. Then tirated down to 50mg a day and was doing really well. But I was doing so well that I reguarly forgot to take it and then a feww weeks ago I noticed that the craving were starting to creep back in and I realised my error and had to slowly tirate back up again to 75 to 100mg daily and go through the side effects again for a few weeks ( feeling tired and just generally unwell , which I likened to morning sickneed, headaches, nausea etc, sorry thats not much use to guys !). I am now down to 50mg a day and plan to ensure i dont get complacent again as going through the side effects second time round was not much fun and I also panicked thinking the bac had stopped working !

With my limited knowlwedge of bac I think that your brain is like a sponge and getting up to the switch means slowly saturating your brain with bac and then drip feeding a regular dose of bac to keep it saturated and if you let the saturation levels drop to low you have to start the process again, if that makes sense ?

Hope this might be of help

BH x

[Henrietta]

Going to low on bac maintenace dose

Hi Brave Hearted,
I think you and I are in a very similar boat! I reached my switch at 130 mg in early February. At that amount my SE were fairly crazy --but I hung in there and hit that wonderful feeling of indifference. Sounds like a contradiction in terms, doesn't it?

Given my tiredness and nightmares, I was glad to tirate down. I did manage to do this pretty slowly. A couple of weeks ago I got down to 50 mg. Low and behold the cravings returned, as well as some serious sugar cravings. I really felt demoralized. I was hoping to wind down the dosage to at least 30 mg, what Ameisen has identified as his maintenance dose. After all, even though I've been at this for the better part of 25 years, my drinking was never as severe as his and I only weigh 110 lbs (50K).

The important thing is that I did NOT drink when I experienced this (and abstinence is an absolute must for me!). I went back up to 80 mg for a little while, and am now holding steady at 60 mg per day.

I guess I'm a little bothered by the fact that I may have to stay on the bac indefinitely. While I understand this is WAY better than the alternative, I was hoping that the more time I put into being AL free, the more my brain would heal on its own and the craving would diminish in intensity.

So just to compare notes, I'm glad you are sticking with it as well BH! Are you on any other meds? What are your plans for here on out?

Cheers, Henrietta

[eight days a week]

Going to low on bac maintenace dose

Very useful posts guys, thanks