Progress thread for ne

[taw]

Progress thread for ne

glad everyone is still here and ok....happy new years!!

[Isolde]

Progress thread for ne

:H :H

There's so much to respond to, and I don't have the patience for multi quoting at the moment. From the Naughty Nymphos Covenant (which Rusty was right, I'm already a member!), and Low actually Googling it!!! to the meeting in a meadow to drink and dance and fornicate... I was just smiling and giggling all over the place. Thanks, you guys.

ne, I completely understand where you're coming from with your love for and anxiety over your dog. As well as how the dog really helps to get you out of the house for the walks! I've thought about what would happen if my dog got hit by a car or got into a fight with a raccoon in the middle of the night or whatever. Did I know where the nearest emergency animal hospital was? Ugh. I think this is what having kids must be like. In any case, I am so glad to hear that your fur child is doing better!

Rusty, that info. about modding is very interesting. I think I'm just over the 5 year mark, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to successfully mod. So far, so good!

Bleep, nev's absolutely right about making SURE you have enough pills! I ran out once (only for a week, and I'd prepared by titrating down) and it was rough on me! Insomnia kicked in and the titrating down and back up, even though I did both quickly, took away from my progress.

The only part of MWO that I find depressing are some parts of the General forum (no disrespect to anyone one is an active participant there!), just because it seems that SO many people are white knuckling it and struggling. They are falling off the wagon over and over again, and most of them have never even considered trying bac, even if they are aware of it and have heard the success stories of others. So it's hard for me to read because I KNOW there's a better way! But I find the bac/meds and holistic healing forums so incredibly helpful and welcoming. I visit MWO daily, often throughout the day, even though I've already hit my switch. I really love our little community here. Although I can understand how some people who have been AF for awhile and are getting on with living their lives might not visit as much anymore.
But considering how much help I've found here, especially since being on bac over the past few months, I feel like I need to pay it forward. Whether that be by sharing my story or giving advice, or just joining the NNC (Naughty Nymphos Covenant)! :H

Nev, my continued wish for your good luck at 240! Having had a hard time at 155mgs, I have much respect for you! Don't know if I'm just having a brain fart right now, or if maybe you've not really posted them all in one place, but what kind of SEs are you experiencing right now? How's your sleep (was it just a few hours a night lately?), any ringing in the ears, inability to stay awake past 9pm.. ? I was absolutely obsessed with mine (which I'm still dealing with), so now I'm obsessed with everyone else's too!

Rusty, I hope you finally made it to the gym! I'm looking into getting a membership again, so tried out a 24 Hour Fitness down the road, which I hated, but I'll use up the last 6 days of my pass. But at least I got a workout in. I'm still sore from my run on Friday night, which was the first one in close to a year. I'll probably end up going back to my old club in the end.

Alright, the 9pm sleepies are kicking in (which actually hasn't happened in over a week!) and I feel like my thoughts are all over the place, so I'll say good night.

Love you guys! :groupluv:

[beatle]

Progress thread for ne

Isolde;1033706 wrote:

The only part of MWO that I find depressing are some parts of the General forum (no disrespect to anyone one is an active participant there!), just because it seems that SO many people are white knuckling it and struggling. They are falling off the wagon over and over again, and most of them have never even considered trying bac, even if they are aware of it and have heard the success stories of others. So it's hard for me to read because I KNOW there's a better way! But I find the bac/meds and holistic healing forums so incredibly helpful and welcoming.

I feel this way, too. It's interesting that it seems like (to me) that most of the posts and folks on General are only interested in support -- at least less interested in healing than support in their struggle. Don't get me wrong, support is great, but as the alcoholism researcher Dr. Gersten commented:


"...you need to understand that support systems, including Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), according to a great deal of research, do not have better than a 5 percent cure rate. Mind you, I refer my alcoholic patients to AA. AA was never intended as a treatment modality. It is support and is profoundly helpful.

But alcoholism is a physical disease. You cannot cure diabetes or cancer through support groups or psychotherapy, nor can you cure alcoholism through such support. I also don't buy into the nearly universal belief that alcoholism is an incurable disease.

The point of this tongue-in-cheek discussion of the “Alcoholic Personality” is to help you finally set aside such a notion. There is not a “Diabetic Personality” or an “Arthritic Personality.” Similarly, alcoholism is a disorder of severely disturbed biochemistry. There is metabolic chaos from head to toe."

Also, Joan Larson, in her book "Seven Weeks to Sobriety" (which advocates heavy supplementation, especially with amino acid therapy, as a way to "fix" the alcoholic's brain/body -- no medications are mentioned) expressed a similar sentiment to yours, Isolde. I don't have the book here, and only read it years ago (yes, I'm a veteran in the struggle), but I remember her saying something to the effect of feeling extreme compassion for the struggling alcoholics in AA, who believe (or are lead to believe) that they must suffer forever, and there is nothing they can do but give themselves to a higher poser (unintentional typo there), and continue struggling and suffering for the rest of their lives. Her answer to that is that the body *can* be healed and balanced through supplementation, nutrition, and also therapy/inner work, and that alcoholics should not have to struggle and suffer forever -- that they can heal their bodies in other ways than just "surrendering".

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Progress thread for ne

It's 2am and I'm logged in to MWO.
What do I do with my free time? ha. Now you know! Nice that this therapy is open 24/7
And side effects? Sleep disruptions, obviously.
I had some thoughts I woke up with that seem terribly important at the moment:
We're on a bell curve here, in terms of disease:
AA was created for wo/men like me. (Or maybe helped to create me, but I don't want to digress.) I can relate to almost all of the symptoms that are described in the book, Alcoholics Anon..., as well as the ones OA details.
I've got 'it', I've almost always had it, and at the moment it's not so bad that I need to go for 30 days of rest. But that wasn't far off.
The disease, or beast or whatever, started escalating this time around about a year ago, after a couple of years of remission/submission.
The telltale signs (for me) include choosing to drink instead of eat. I stopped going out and entertaining. Even when it was important to me to do so. [Last time I had a party in the evening was last December and I got very drunk and humiliated a young woman. (She's a nit, ftr, but was a guest in my home. She left in tears. and then I had to apologise to her and our friends who erroneously brought her. that added insult to injury.)] I entertained A LOT prior to that. And thrived on it. The only friends I have over now are the ones who know to clear out by 9pm or politely ignore the fact that I am falling down drunk shortly thereafter. (they 'get' me. love them.)
Erratic behavior and poor work performance. I didn't really care though, because drinking is my best friend and my lover and my panacea. It soothes all things. I'm not being dramatic, or pathetic. It is what it is. And that's why I got here, and one of the reasons it's so important to me to reach out to others.
I'm pretty clear that moderating is not such a good idea in my case. ha. And it's very confusing to try and suss out who is like me, who is simply younger/earlier stage than I am, and who has a different form of the disease, if you will.
I love us all. Wholeheartedly. And I included the stuff about the people I've reached out to, and the moderating, for two reasons. First, because if you find someone that writes something that resonates, you should reach out. Even if their last post was months ago.
They're likely to be flattered and will answer you quickly. That's been my experience.
Second, I think that maybe the moderators, or even the ones who really want to be AF, but aren't yet, feel left out of the discussion. And when they do mention it, it freaks out people like me. But this club is much less exclusive, or should be, than some of the others... ha, again. The recovery part should be on the same bell curve as the disease part. A 'desire to stop drinking' is probably pretty universal, if you've committed to baclofen. But a desire to have it define you and make you spend your life mired here, in virtual land or spreading the message or whatever AA model you want to choose? Counter-productive, imho. I love the support, and if it "works, than I'll work it" but it hasn't helped me overcome the disease as of yet and I've been pretty diligent about checking in here, wouldn't you say?

I agree with beatle and Is, too. I don't particularly have time for the ones that are not looking for answers...they're looking for attention or revelling in their remorse or something. The ones who continuously 'relapse' but don't have a 'problem.' grrrr. It's hard not to shout, "It's not a fucking PROBLEM. It's a DISEASE!"
But they're not reading this, so I'll refrain from using all caps or excessive profanity. :H

I was having trouble logging in, now it looks like I don't log out. If it looks like I'm here and you try to contact me, and I don't answer, it's likely I'm not actually here. xo, peeps and good night! again!

[bleep69]

Progress thread for ne

Hey Rusty, sorry, I missed your reply.

I am kind of hoping this is the case for me as well. Strange that I find myself hoping I'm anxious, but it would be nice to discover that there's some sort of reason for all this, if that makes sense.

Neva - choosing not to eat. I'm famous for it.

Without having been in general very much at all, if it's anything like AA, I'm quite happy here thanks!

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Progress thread for ne

I called Dr. L. He said I was titrating too fast, that I should have taken the normal amount this morning (I took 40mg instead of 60mg) That I MUST stay at each dose for a MINIMUM of SEVEN DAYS. NO LESS. Maybe more. NO MORE THAN 20mg up or down per week.
Will revisit and update this post later.

[Rusty]

Progress thread for ne

Neva,

Let me know how it goes! He told me the same thing last week! I hope you're ok!

[beatle]

Progress thread for ne

Neva, How are you?

I don't mean to be insensitive or unkind, but I wonder if you might be overreacting.

How did Dr. Levin react when you called him and explained the situation? Don't you think he would have been alarmed and told you to go to the ER if he thought you should?

From your post, all he told you is that you are titrating up too fast, and he gave you details of how your titration schedule should be. He also suggested that you go back UP to your previous level, NOT go down or quit baclofen. (From what Dr Levin said, it could be that you titrated DOWN too fast, and that what you experienced could have been a result of that, and not from taking high levels of baclofen.)

That sounds like an explanation for a scary experience, and an insight as to why it happend and what you should do... not a recommendation to go to the ER and stop your bac journey.

I may be misinterpreting this situation, and maybe you haven't given all the details in your distress, but from your post, I would say that you had a disconcerting episode, not a dangerous one, and you should follow Dr Levin's advice and titrate up more slowly, but not go down quickly either.

Please keep in touch!

[bleep69]

Progress thread for ne

Shit, I hope you are okay. Having no experience of bac yet, I can't say if you are over-reacting or not, but I really hope you are.

Beatle has a very valid point about Dr. Levin not being alarmed, think about that. He must have spoken to a fair few people having a nasty turn on bac.

Thoughts are with you, go well

[taw]

Progress thread for ne

NE, how you doing? feeling better? get some rest? I around if you need anything!

[taw]

Progress thread for ne

NE, are you ok? please let us know!

[ignominous]

Progress thread for ne

Spoke to Nev in chat last night and she's OK, just a bit shaken up.

Dramatic stuff, unfortunately Nev you've edited your post. Many people have had had twitches or tingling but loosing seconds would be very disconcerting.

We love you Nev, when you're ready come back.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Progress thread for ne

First of all:
Fletch, the driving thing was really disturbing in the beginning. I?m not sure what happened there. Vertigo maybe? Not sure.
But it?s all gone. The panic, the vertigo, the problems behind the wheel. Just drove home in a blizzard, remember, over the very same bridge that was my first major freak out, (it resulted in a call to 911, an ambulance being called, a police escort off the bridge and a very nice guy who drove my car off of the bridge. Nothing physically wrong, ftr. Blood pressure and oxygen levels normal. Just a plain-old-panic-attack. It suuuucked.) Ig, feel free to laugh, (but you had ?em too.) Always a flair for the drama! If I had read the threads better, or while sober, I could probably have just sat it out and regained some composure. But, instead I got to create chaos and return home to drink that night. (I was on my way out of town for a sober weekend with family. Telling, that.) I had titrated up dramatically that week, from 5mg/day to 50 or 70, I can?t remember. But it?s here on a thread somewhere and I?ll try to find it.

Here?s what happened yesterday, interpret it as you will.
I was squeezing out a tube of lotion. I remember it was difficult to get it out. But I did squeeze out a little dollop. Then when I stood up I noticed a great big 2 inch glob of it on my jeans. I have no memory of that happening.
I freaked out, obviously, though I didn?t have a panic attack. I slept off and on for the rest of the day, with my husband there, keeping an eye on me. Poor guy. It?s all very clear, though hazy. Like in a vivid dream.

Dr. L did say it ?could? be a seizure based on my titration over the last week. That the brain has to adjust to each level of bac, and that it can be overwhelmed. He was a little alarmed. That was yesterday morning. Last night he went in to a little more detail about that, but I didn?t take notes and was still foggy.

Relevant information:
Titration over the last week leading up to that was 200mg/day, 200, 180, 220, 240, 240. Stupid on my part and I know better. I don't have any records of the preceding Wednesday; I made them up for my log the next day when I realized I?d forgotten. That?s also telling since I have diligently kept the log up since November 22. More than a month, of writing down exactly what I took, when I actually took it, for the most part. And then I completely missed an entire day? And then I started to titrate erratically again after having followed the schedule pretty accurately for 4 weeks. Hmmm. Something happened there.

As Ig said, I only lost a few seconds if that. It was and is very scary. Last night I had intense visuals while I was drifting in and out of sleep too. My first thought was rather dramatic, that I was destroying my brain, then I remembered that Isolde had that experience and she seems like she?s doing okay.

For all of the well-meaning advice and varied titrations and personal experimentation on here, there are a couple of doctors who have been on this for several years. And only a couple. Dr. OA, and Dr. L in this country. I think that it?s a good idea to pay attention to any changes they are recommending, my opinion of course. But based on their research and treatment of actual patients in an outpatient setting. You?ll notice if you follow the threads obsessively that Dr. L?s titration schedule has changed over the last couple of years. And also that a lot of people who didn?t take to baclofen titrated irregularly and/or jumped around based on how they were feeling. I?d like to see Lo0p and Tip weigh in on that thought, since they are two of the grand-daddies around here. Also, Low, what did do? I feel pretty confident Lo0p would disagree, but will also point out that the guy?s chart is impeccable and he was probably pretty careful and thoughtful about his own titration. Dramatic though it was.

Several weeks ago when I talked to Dr. L about titration he said that I could break up the daily dose into 4, or as many as 5 equal doses throughout the day. Then a couple of days later he told Ig to take it, what Ig? Three times a day.
Yesterday he told me to take it every 8 hours, in even doses. The change confused me, but I think that perhaps at the lower doses, where I was when I spoke to him, you can split it up more? And where I am now was where Ig was when he spoke to him last.

I?m going to stick with 200mg/day evenly spaced, every 8 hours, for the next week or two, though frankly it feels like a lot atm. Still, Dr. L assured me that the SEs will go away and that I ?shouldn?t? have a seizure. Sigh. I suppose I?ll take what I can get. Not giving up at this late date. Plus I think I?m close.
Sorry for the tome.
:h right back at you.
I'll list the SEs etc. tonight or tomorrow. I'm late. As usual.

[taw]

Progress thread for ne

NE...glad to hear you are ok...scarry stuff...but I am still willing to take the plunge!! How are you feeling today...keep us posted!

[Isolde]

Progress thread for ne

Ok nev, I was behind on my MWO-ing yesterday so I missed what I assume was a frantic post. But I get the gist of what happened in your latest post.

You mention how Dr. L is prescribing a completely different bac schedule for you than he did for Ig. I think this just goes back to how bac affects every one differently. So he's looking at your situation and thinking that given your reaction, it might be better to keep you at evenly spaced doses in order to minimize the way that it's affecting you. I think it is a good thing that he is tailoring the dosage schedule to you, based on your experience.
I personally like taking larger doses in the early and late afternoon, to fend off any cravings I might get in the evening, since that's when it has always hit for me. But that's a personal preference and one that I've never had a problem with. I think that you are at such a high dose now that just keeping an even amount of bac in your system at all times is enough.

As far as the lotion on the jeans and the forgetting to track your titration schedule for a day, I'm sure Ig will be able to chime in and let you know how absolutely forgetful and utterly scatterbrained bac can make you! It is completely possible that while you were squeezing out the lotion (trying not to make a Silence of the Lambs reference here!! :H ), you were using so much force to get the last little bit out, that you DID totally miss some that came flying out to land on your jeans. I've totally done stuff like that, not under the influence of anything! Try not to let yourself get too freaked out about it.

By the way, have you had panic attacks in the past?

Yeah, that titration is pretty erratic and I'm sure went a long way towards contributing to all the weird shit you've been feeling and experiencing. As I got up to higher doses, I followed the "no more than 20mgs/week increase" doctrine and did well with it. Sure, I got the crazy closed eye visuals at night when I laid down to sleep, and eventually severe insomnia and couldn't remember a damn thing, but hey, that comes with the bac territory. It does some crazy things to you that can be pretty damn scary at the time! But it really is an incredibly safe medicine.

Stick with Dr. L's advice (which I know you're doing already), get a pill box if ya need to, and keep us posted on how you do w/the evenly spaced doses.

Hugs!! :l