Progress thread for ne

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Progress thread for ne

Doggygirl;1512056 wrote: Hi Ne! Just popped over to look for you and ended up reading your beautiful 5/9 post. I'm very happy for you! :h

How is school going? How much more are you doing? I just celebrated 5 years sober on 5/22. On that day my gift to myself was registering for my first 2 grad school courses. NEVER could I have done this back in the drunken days!

Life is good. For us. For the snails.

DG

So nice to hear from you DG! And CONGRATULATIONS. Holy wow. I cannot imagine what life will be like 3 years from now. I almost hope it doesn't change quite as dramatically as the last two years of (relative) sobriety have changed things. Egad. What on earth could that bring?

Congratulations, too, on the grad school. Amazing! And yes, there is no way. Literally no way, considering the fact that I am planning on pulling the middle-aged-woman version of an all-nighter and staying up for several more hours to study. Couldn't do that drunk!

What's the focus? I bet I can guess. I would really, really love to hear all about what you're learning. In fact, maybe you can share that sometime soon-ish?

I've got another 14 months 'til graduation, but I've already started the process to keep going...It's too good to pass up. Though Ed's clear that at some point I will actually have to (ugh, whisper it) work.

Glad life is good for snails and Nes and DGs. :l to you.

[bleep]

Progress thread for ne

How are the snails looking this morning? I can't imagine what a hangover feels like to what is essentially a bag of liquid.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Progress thread for ne

I am sad to report that I did not get any snails drunk last night. I must be losing my touch. There was a time that I could both attract and achieve drunkenness with all the low-lying, slimy nocturnal creatures for miles around.

Take 2 in Snail Abatement is not nearly as exciting. Diatomaceous earth. Apparently it has glass or something sharp in it that deters them. Maybe then they'll find the beer?

[RedThread12]

Progress thread for ne

Pecan shell mulch. Grinds them dead in their tracks. And pack a little extra at the base of those hostas and ferns.

[Xadrian]

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Maybe the snails are a little choosy? Hey, I rather would drink ditch water than Budweiser even before Baclofen.
Maybe you should get them another brand.

[Xadrian]

Progress thread for ne

Ne/Neva Eva;1512236 wrote: Take 2 in Snail Abatement is not nearly as exciting. Diatomaceous earth.

If you poor some nitroglycerin in it and throw in a match when the snails are close, I will assure you that it is going to be exciting!

[spiritwolf333]

Progress thread for ne

A lot of wisdom

Ne/Neva Eva;1511745 wrote: It's 8 am here in Virginia and I just opened a Corona. It's for the snails in my garden. Apparently they like beer more than they like vegetation. (Who doesn't?)

We keep the booze in the garage and I didn't bother getting the bottle opener, and just popped it. (A party trick!) It had a peculiar little poof of mist, and sprayed a bit onto my face and neck. I was instantly transported back to when that would have been the start to the day. (Anytime I could hide for an entire day, that is. I generally didn't start before noon, even on a day off, but it wasn't because I wasn't thinking about it when I got up. I figure you guys know...)

I was tempted to swig it, just to be rebellious. But honestly, the thought is repulsive. I've just finished my uber-healthy breakfast (thank you very much) and I think I would have tossed it right back up.

I am so grateful that I've got this gorgeous spring day. And a garden that I've actually tended for more than a month. That I will likely continue to take care of, because I can.

And a boatload of other productive, happy-making or boring-as-hell things to do today. (I know, Lo0p. You'll have it by the time you get up if you sleep in.) I am going to finish refinishing our patio table today. It is GORGEOUS now, I don't mind telling you. And I've got an exam tomorrow I would like to do really well on. I've got some friends to get in touch with, and pesto to make. Oh. And cream of tartar to buy! None of which would be possible if I hadn't kept taking the damn pills.

Thanks friends. Power on titraters. It works.

Neva - There is a lot (boatload) of wisdom and encouragement in this somewhat short message. No AL-rebellion temptation, Gorgeous Spring Day -sober-and grateful, project for more than a week (in my case)-and sights to continue, "boatload" of other boring and non-boring, pride in what you are doing, excitement over taking an exam-AND the willingness to continue taking that which "brung" you to the dance. How cool!!!

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Progress thread for ne

Xadrian;1512534 wrote: If you poor some nitroglycerin in it and throw in a match when the snails are close, I will assure you that it is going to be exciting!
I'm not trying to torch the garden I just sweated buckets to put in!

spiritwolf333;1512561 wrote: Neva - There is a lot (boatload) of wisdom and encouragement in this somewhat short message. No AL-rebellion temptation, Gorgeous Spring Day -sober-and grateful, project for more than a week (in my case)-and sights to continue, "boatload" of other boring and non-boring, pride in what you are doing, excitement over taking an exam-AND the willingness to continue taking that which "brung" you to the dance. How cool!!!

I think so, too!

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Progress thread for ne

Hormones, hypothalamus and baclofen science-y stuff

My hormones are out of whack. That's not new. In fact I think (and my parent's think) that everything changed when I hit puberty, in ways much more dramatic than most. That's when i discovered I loved booze, too, and after years of AA, I pretty much stopped paying attention to how much my hormones altered my life and attributed it to the booze. Until baclofen.

I started decreasing baclofen from ~140 mg in January. I started on 80 mg yesterday. In the last two months (who knows how long really) I've been experiencing PMS and menstruating irregularly. I'm also just out of sorts a lot. (Glass half-empty is not really my style, but it sure doesn't seem half-full these days.) I've hypothesized for eons that bac has an affect on hypothalamic hormones and blah, blah, blah. I won't go into details, since I don't really know what I'm talking about. Part of the reason I've thought this is because of the different ways in which the men and women around here experience baclofen.

Anyway, my breasts have been sore and swollen for what seems like a year. I started menstruating yesterday. I also lost my temper several times yesterday. And the day before that. (Not wholly unusual! :H But the frequency and the intensity have been a little alarming.) And last week just sucked. So I got on google.

Turns out (and here's the point finally) that estrogen and baclofen both work on these mu-opioid receptors in the brain. (Specifically, for my purposes, in the hypothalamus. I'm sure they do lots of stuff in lots of other places in the brain, too.)

Presently, we have shown that the DAMGO response occludes the baclofen response in guinea pig ARC neurons (Fig. 4) and that estrogen treatment causes an equivalent shift in the dose-response to baclofen without affecting the maximal response.

DAMGO is sort of a synthetic opioid. It stops the baclofen response in the arcuate (ARC) nucleus in the hypothalamus. Estrogen does the same thing, but apparently without affecting the "maximal response." (I think that means that the end result is met?)

And since I don't have a full grasp of all of it yet, I'll cut to the chase. In the ARC is where the neuroendocrine hormones are. One of those releases dopamine which in turn affects the hormone that stimulates milk production (among several other more important things). So there's the sore boobs.

The gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) is in the ARC too. This one has several functions, but very interestingly, it's constant in men but fluctuates significantly based on menstrual cycles.

Several other things of note, too. But I'll just add this last: Growth hormone releasing hormone (GHRH) is right there, too. And some of you might remember that Lo0p found evidence that baclofen works to increase GH.

What does it mean and why does it matter? I'll leave that to you, if you've made it this far! It matters to me in that after I get some blood tests done, I may go back up on bac. Even my mother supports that idea (and she's no big believer in this experiment). I think it's because she's had first hand experience of what my life is like when I'm on the hormonal roller-coaster. It's a scary thought, honestly.

It might also matter to people who, like Laurie65, are taking or stopping HRT. And really, to any other woman who comes around here...I just have no idea what the implication is. Especially since this is all rat studies, and we all know that it's a long way from rats to human. (Of course, that's what OA depended on...)

Hope it's a good day for you all!

Where I got the information I used to describe the above:

Estrogen Suppresses p-Opioid- and GABA,-mediated Hyperpolarization of Hypothalamic Arcuate Neurons
Martin J. Kelly, Michael D. Loose,a and Oline K. Ronnekleiv Department of Physiology, The Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, Oregon 97201-3098

And sort of from this excerpt:
Molecular Mechanisms of Hormone Actions on Behavior - Google Books

And of course, Wiki so I could decipher what I was reading.

[skullbabyland]

Progress thread for ne

As mentioned elsewhere, hope ya'all don't mind me poking my nose in almost every active thread to say hi... I'm trying to really get engaged in this community

Ne- I just wanted to say thanks for all the postings and support on this community- you along with some other oldtimers have posted (and thankfully continue to post) many many helpful bits of information and experience. It's REALLY appreciated, especially since you've been indifferent for a significant period of time- most people would just move on with their lives... I super appreciate that you hang around to help out the noobs.

:thanks:

[Juan BH]

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This is where i write bump?

100% agree with Skullbaby on this one Ne. Thank you! Gotta hit bleep and Stuck with this one as well. You have all been really good to us. EDIT: should have included Lo0p, RedThread, and many others, too!

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Progress thread for ne

You're welcome. And thanks!

[Sticky]

Progress thread for ne

Hi Ne

So glad to hear life is going well for you & Ed. And your snails! We have just dived into the depths of winter downunder. I shouldn't really complain. We had an amazing summer. We've had some rain and cold weather lately, but nothing compared to what some of the States and Canada experience in their winter. We live in the north of NZ so we don't really know what cold is. Sunday last weekend Sun we took hubby's Mum out to one of our west coast beaches with surf and black sand. It got to a mild 18 deg C (66F?). In 3 months, which will whizz by at my age, it will be spring again. Global warming has helped.

I've been thinking of contacting Susiesmum again and chatting to you has reinforced that idea. The 2 others apart from Susie who have tried bac in Auckland haven't had success. I'm just realising how amazing Susie's GP is for prescribing it. The doctors in treatment centres here aren't allowed to, apart from a trial of 80mg at one treatment centre. I'm lucky, even though I haven't as yet reached the switch. It's all been f****ing hard work, but I'm not giving up.

You take care of yourself, Ed and the snails.
Thanks for being here all this time later - you are inspirational

Sticky :l

[joanna_d]

Progress thread for ne

interesting info Ne, thanks!
me too while going down on bac: more pms (pain and bad bad temper). and periods gone heavier. guess that's also due to much increased overall health over the last 6 months.

xox sister!

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Progress thread for ne

oops. This'll be brief...