Progress thread for ne

[Ne/Neva Eva]

A visit to the doc might not be a bad idea. I'm a big fan of visiting doctors, actually. They can be very helpful just so long as you're not trying to talk to them about addiction. Or baclofen. But for post-nasal drip and a chronic cough? Yep.

A netipot is...well, best idea is to google it. Cheap, easy, and it'll fix it right up. I found mine this morning but I've already got makeup on so I'll use it tonight. Thanks again for the reminder, folks.

I have a steroidal nasal spray that I use when it's really bad. And of course, when I quit smoking I bet it straightens right up. I figure that will happen immediately after my first heart attack.

[Stevo]

LOL Ne,I am thinking that my smoking will end right after my first heart attack or something along them lines too.

It put a smile on my face reading that this morning.

[StuckinLA]

Ha!

That's about right. Heart attack = no more smoking.

Not much new going on here. Basically drank right through the weekend. All Friday, all Monday, and this morning my god, every fiber of my being was saying I should cancel my classes today - partly because I was being observed by the head of the writing program. That's why I wanted to cancel, and also the reason I didn't. Anyway, it went fine even though I was woefully unprepared and freaking out and whatever.

Still, I made it through. And then cancelled my office hours and came straight home, with a stop at the grocery for a bottle of whiskey. Yeah, that kind of day. Almost through 1/2 the bottle and just starting to feel ok again.

This is just annoying.

Hope everybody is having a good one!

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Egad. I was kidding about the heart attack thing. Though my maternal grandmother did have her first heart attack in her fifties. She lived to 86, and smoked the whole time.

My mother jokes, though it breaks her heart, that it'll take something like a heart attack to get me to quit smoking. She might be right. On the other hand, the work I'm headed into does not condone smoking and given the fact that I had a hard time finding time to go to the bathroom, much less leave for a smoke, I'm hoping there's a whole new healthier world out there for a Ne. An addiction-free world. ha. hahahahahaha. If it's not booze and cigarettes it'll be sugar and puppies. But at least the puppies will help keep the sugar from adding pounds. Maybe it'll be crystals and mantras? Or raising rare and unusual plants that need to be spoken to every day. Who the fuck knows?

Maybe, just maybe, it'll be helping our tribe. And dogs. I'm pretty sure dogs are going to be part of the equation. Especially since I can't stand the one I have (today she ate every single remote in the house) and I'm still ready for another one.

(Seriously. I wasn't ready to walk her, and she was all wound up, and somehow she can now reach the shelf where we kept them out of her way. She ate FOUR remote controls. We can't turn the tv on. Even if we could, we couldn't watch anything. Huskies are a royal pain in the foot. I cannot wait until she's 2. Or 6. Or something. But rest assured, I will be getting off of my arse and walking her tomorrow morning very first thing. It's going to ruin my MWO time.)

[nicnak68]

I think I am an unusual alcoholic because I don't smoke,but I still have this bloody cough!
I have a dog also and have to force myself to walk her.Shes a jack Russell so really needs her walks and barks and barks at me till I take her.I promise myself to get another dog if I can give up drinking.

[Molly78]

While we're on SE, I just want to refer to some posts on "that" thread (I think) about serious SE such as prolonged QT interval. I don't think I can find the exchange again & I haven't got the hang of quoting yet anyway.

However, there were comments along the line of "that particular SE has never been described with baclofen", & I just wanted to say that that may be true for those taking it under license at 100mg daily. We actually have no idea what the SE might be at the doses some of us are taking. I can tell you one of mine, which took a while to emerge.

When I started on bac in 2010 just after I read Ameisen's book, I took the dose up stupidly fast (I'm one of the "lucky" people who don't get many imediate SE), carried on drinking, spent a whole summer doing heavy gardening using equipment I could hardly lift & - surprise surprise! - developed quite severe back pain. Did I stop? No I swallowed bucketloads of strong painkillers & carried on.


In the autumn I noticed that I seemed to look a bit asymmetrical about the hips, got a spinal X ray which confirmed a lumbo-sacral scoliosis, then went for an MRI. When I walked into the orthopod clinic room my scan results were up on the light box, & I had to sit down quickly. My spine is twisted out of shape in an alarming way. The orthopod told me I had probably always had a degree of scoliosis, & age had made it worse. But I think I know better. Bac at high doses destabilises the core trunk muscles which are what keep you upright. I had gone at a physical activity which put them under strain, ignored the warning pain & here I am.

I don't think it has got any worse in the last few years, but for my 2nd attempt at sobriety I stopped drinking while I was titrating up. Actually I think that helped in other ways.

Just making the point that the doses some of us are taking are a whole new ballgame. I suspect new SE's will emerge which have never been described or even seen before.

Small price to pay for sobriety having a twisted back. It causes some discomfort, prevents me from walking long distances & might need surgery if I get nerve entrapment. If HDB gets general acceptance I could write myself up as a case history!

[nicnak68]

Funny you should say that and it's probably not related but I have been getting a really bad pain in my shoulder and upper arm when lifting it,especially when putting my coat on ect.Ive googled it and it sounds like frozen shoulder

[Mentium]

The combination of high dose baclofen and continued drinking is unknown territory too. Have been trying to take a break as I titrate up but have not managed to. My bottle and a half a night of red still gets downed. I do feel worse in the mornings though.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Now hold on there folks. That's the kind of thing that makes everyone nervous, and one of the reasons that Terryk takes so much time researching this stuff for us. It's not because he wants to prove someone wrong! It's because there is a risk for all of us (including him) that take HDB. He investigates and then posts what he finds. It would be very unusual for baclofen to affect the heart, because of the way it works. So he looked around and couldn't find any information related to that. Not because he was trying to make Spellers feel bad, but because he was trying to make him feel better. Does that make sense?

Now, about the weakening core muscles and the scoliosis, I would also say that it would be very odd to have a correlation with baclofen. For a couple of reasons. The first is that they give this to people who already have issues with those things. It would surprise me if it was a first line medication that made core strength and spinal straightness worse. The second thing about that is that we know that baclofen actually increases some hormone that allows you to put on muscle more quickly...

You can read more about that here:

https://www.mywayout.org/community/medication-research-and-support/35377-baclofen-exercise.html

I've noticed a VERY strange but undeniable effect while exercising on baclofen. According to the warnings, we're supposed to avoid activities that might require muscle tone while taking baclofen. Initially, I tried to do this, but I exercise twice a day sometimes. Cardio in the morning, always, and weightlifting in the evening. I tried to take all of my baclofen right before weightlifting so that it wouldn't hit my bloodstream till I was done but this didn't work out. I couldn't get enough in.

I'd never noticed any of the muscle-relaxant properties of the bac before so I decided I'd just take it all day before and after exercising and see what happened. The results have me absolutely confounded. (skip ahead of the quote for the results)

...

You'll note that he says you're supposed to avoid exercises that might require muscle tone while taking baclofen, but his reaction on HDB was the opposite. The result was that his lifts got stronger and the cardio got better. Somewhere in that thread he talks about HDB increasing this hormone that I can't remember and how it actually contributes to strength gains.

That thread is worth a read anyway. First of all, he's included before and after pictures, and if you swing that way, the after pictures are lovely. Second of all, and more importantly, he's very inspiring. It's what got me to really start to love pushing my limits at the gym (within reason) and the results were astounding.

I have never been stronger or more fit than when I was working HARD at the gym while taking HDB.

So what I'm suggesting is that perhaps those of us with a predisposition to something (even something like sleep apnea) can have very different reactions to HDB than those of us that don't. It's very important to listen to our bodies, pay attention when things don't feel good and then do something about it. (Like exercise or see a doctor or get a CPAP machine) simply because those things need addressing regardless of the HDB. Does that make sense? Or does it sound like I'm being judgmental. Because I'm definitely not judging.

I definitely remember had weird things going on in my neck and shoulders when I was titrating up. That it felt like they were tight, or under pressure or something. Exercise really helped with that, but it was still there. One of those side effects that came and went as I went up and up and up and up...and up. :eek-new:

Hope it's a good day peeps. I'm going to take an exam I will surely fail with the expectation that everyone else will, too, and they will have to curve them so we can all actually graduate. That's what happened last week, anyway. Keep your fingers crossed for me that it's a BIG curve. hahahaha.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

The combination of high dose baclofen and continued drinking is unknown territory too. Have been trying to take a break as I titrate up but have not managed to. My bottle and a half a night of red still gets downed. I do feel worse in the mornings though.

Jkttdp, Ment. :hug:

[knobert]

Hi Ment

HDB and continued drinking isn't exactly new. Here's a link you might enjoy reading

Take care
Knob

The Use of Very High-Doses of Baclofen for the Treatment of Alcohol-Dependence: A Case Series

[Mentium]

Apologies if I caused any alarm! I'm very new at this. A question rather lazily asked with no evidence that there is any potential problem. This is a new territory for most of us too I would guess. As well to be on the lookout for potential issues.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Oh, no Mentium! I don't think your post was alarming. Nor was Molly's. It's very important to talk about all of these things. I guess my point is that it's unlikely we are going to develop scoliosis from taking HDB...But between that and the hard work she was doing it may have exacerbated something that was already going on, as she pointed out.

Another good example is sleep apnea. People who already have sleep apnea can have a really hard time taking bac, because it can exacerbate the condition. They can choose to quit baclofen because it can get so bad. But there is also the option of getting a CPAP machine (if it's affordable) because the sleep apnea was preexisting and will continue to affect their sleep patterns. You know?

But also that I definitely had neck and shoulder issues when I was titrating up. I think a lot of us do. I don't know why.

And as far as drinking and taking bac, I did it the entire way up the first time and it looks as though I'm going that route again, even though it definitely makes it harder. The point of the baclofen is that it eases the cravings as you go up.

It was recently posted (a couple of times) that in the official prescribing guide the doctors point out that it absolutely IS NOT necessary to insist on abstinence. The baclofen does the work. Or rather makes it easier, as you go up, to drink less and less.

Husband and husky are hollering my name. Gotta go.

[Molly78]

I think you're right, Ne, no one is going to develop scoliosis without predisposing factors - I'm sure I probably did have a slight tendency to begin with, plus I was doing stuff I really shouldn't have taken on given my size & general level of fitness. Exercise which is balanced & within your capabilities won't do any harm, but you need to be thinking about what baclofen actually does to your muscles of core stability, & just be a bit cautious maybe? That's all I was saying.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

I agree, Molly. It's so easy to overdo it when it comes to exercise in general, especially for people like us who like to overdo things. (Well, actually, it's not just people like us. It's human nature. Like,"Hey! I want to look like Arnie so I think I'll start eating completely differently and take a bunch of supplements and quit smoking and go to the gym and work out for 3 hours every day! Starting tomorrow." Or maybe that's just me?)

Jkttdp, Ment. :hug:

Have I explained what this meant?

It means, "Just keep taking the damn pills." And if you read around at the beginning of my thread (and I'm not suggesting that you should because this thing is ENDLESS...) you'll see it was advice given to me by a guy who called himself Lowcountryman. He was taking gobs of baclofen, and was finally indifferent after a long period of time, and I was lamenting that I was Neva Eva going to get sober, or find indifference. And then we started using "jkktdp" as a quick reminder that it's just a matter of time.

He's Dutch, with a very dry, witty sense of humor. And he would say things like that all the time. It helped keep me on the path. Not that I didn't whine the whole way there. ha!