Obtaining Baclofen in Australia....

[ExpatJock]

Has anyone had any experience of this? My GP gave me a (kindly) but unequivical 'NO' when I asked him. Even with Naltrexone, in order for a GP to prescribe it, (a) the patient is required to be on a recognised treatment programme and (b) any presciption has to be 'On Authority' from the PBS (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme) bigwigs. I do (vaguely) remember reading somewhere that Naltrexone CAN be privately prescribed by a GP though.

I'd much prefer in-house private clinical rehab., (yes, been through it before), but previously all I had to do was phone the clinic and I'd be admitted the same day. Now, the person has to be assessed (1 week wait) and then another week's wait for an 'admission' date and, of course, on top of that, the rehab. period - minimum 2 weeks. I just can't afford the time off work. Besides, my job is 'sensitive' - and if my my employer found out about it, I'd probably lose it (Im sorry, but I can't expand on this point).

I've absolutely no idea what to do or where to turn to now. I had thought about taking high, front end dosages of benzos (which, paradoxically, the same GP has no qualms about prescribing). On the upside if I can go 2/3 days AF, I cease having alcohol cravings, strangely enough. The cravings change to 'sweet' cravings - tea with condensed sweetened milk, ice cream, chocolate etc.

FWIW, my current fall from grace has happened after three years of total abstinence. There's a lesson in there.

All suggestions will be graciously welcomed.

[electron]

Obtaining Baclofen in Australia....

I would say try a different doctor. I was lucky that the first doctor I saw agreed to prescribe it. Because he doesn't know how to use it I have been using the info from Dr A's book and from here on the forum for dosage schedule and it hasn't been an easy process. It has taken me a long time to get to 175mg/day with a couple of major set backs due to side effects.

There seems to be only 2 brands of baclofen in australia. Lioresal and a generic called clofen. I started on the generic and the side effects were really hard to deal with. Only after reading a post by loop I decided to try lioresal brand and there is definitely a difference so I would recommend to get the brand name. When you are on the 25mg pills the price difference is only a couple of dollars for a box of 100.

Good luck. Try a different doctor and bring the book with you.

[ExpatJock]

Obtaining Baclofen in Australia....

electron;1024463 wrote: I would say try a different doctor. I was lucky that the first doctor I saw agreed to prescribe it. Because he doesn't know how to use it I have been using the info from Dr A's book and from here on the forum for dosage schedule and it hasn't been an easy process. It has taken me a long time to get to 175mg/day with a couple of major set backs due to side effects.

There seems to be only 2 brands of baclofen in australia. Lioresal and a generic called clofen. I started on the generic and the side effects were really hard to deal with. Only after reading a post by loop I decided to try lioresal brand and there is definitely a difference so I would recommend to get the brand name. When you are on the 25mg pills the price difference is only a couple of dollars for a box of 100.

Good luck. Try a different doctor and bring the book with you.

Thanks electron,
Unfortunately, I don't have Dr A's book and, given the time of the year, I doubt if I have sufficient 'window time' to obtain it and then 'shop around' for another GP whose willing to prescribe.
As a matter of interest, how much did the lioresal brand cost? And was it via PBS or private script? What were your SEs with the generic? By law, all generics in Australia are required to provide the same therapeutic effects as the 'brands'. But, as we all know.........

Many thanks.

[electron]

Obtaining Baclofen in Australia....

The brand name $35.48 and the generic is $33.30. I was more surprised than anyone that the brand name had less side effects. I would love to know the explanation why. As far as my limited knowledge goes I believe that a drug is a particular molecular structure and that a generic should have the exact same molecular structure. The differences should be bindings that give the pills their physical structure and appearance.

With clofen I get anxiety and general feeling of unease that is nothing like what I hear people describe. Even so I pushed through and increased the dosage using valium when the anxiety was too much during titration. I only switched to lioresal when I read a post by loop in another thread and I had always disregarded other peoples posts about differences between brands. I decided to try it because the price difference was so little but I did have to ask my pharmacy to order it in.

I don't get the anxiety feeling with the lioresal and that was the main reason I took so long to get to 175mg/day. I really wish I had used this brand from the beginning. Now the main side effect I still have is insomnia. Like many people describe at higher doses I'm getting about 2 to 3hrs sleep a night.

I think it really helped that I had the book with me when I went to the GP. It might be worth a few phone calls to book stores. When I ordered the book from bookdepository I also ordered some baclofen from 4rx at the same time. I had received the book, read it, seen the doctor and had a prescription 2 weeks before my shipment from 4rx arrived in the mail.

I'm really interested in how there can be a difference between the generic and the brand name. It could be all in my head but if you want to use the generic I would recommend at least trying the brand name at some point if you get side effects like I described.

[electron]

Obtaining Baclofen in Australia....

Sorry I didn't answer your question about PBS or private. The prices are PBS prices and from memory private prices weren't that much different.

[Seethepony]

Obtaining Baclofen in Australia....

God, it's depressing to read about doctors saying "no" the whole time. The cost of baclofen is insignificant compared to every other treatment out there. Is that the point? That there's no money to be made in prescribing it? If that's the case, well... plague on them!

Can't you order it online?

I haven't tried other brands, but Lioresal has been good for me. As for Ameisen's book, it should get a Nobel Prize, though not for literature. The really important bits in it could be condensed onto half a piece of paper. You are better off digging around on this forum and reading other people's stories re. dosage and side effects. Ameisen's book provides clues (the big one being baclofen itself) but scant practical information.

In any case, good luck!

[Guitarista]

Obtaining Baclofen in Australia....

G'day ExpatJ,

Speak to 'Reggie', an Aussie here, who has had experience with Baclofen in Oz.

Best wishes, G-bloke.

[Greg]

Obtaining Baclofen in Australia....

I was lucky enough to be able to get sober without high-dose baclofen but I can still give a bit of information about getting the drug from doctors in this country.

I live in a rural city in NSW and I soon found out that doctors here (including my own family doctor) were not willing to prescribe baclofen for alcoholism. I don't think this is just the case for baclofen, or alcoholism, and I'd say it would apply to any patient who asked for a medication that is not officially approved for a disorder. I ended up seeing a doctor in the Sydney area who specialises in addiction treatment, and who I had previously consulted a number of times, and he became willing to prescribe up to 100 mg/day but said he was "sticking his neck out" by going outside the dosage guidelines. He was only in favour of using the official maximum of 75 mg per day and said that prescribing large amounts (like hundreds of mg) would amount to prescribing the drug for "an off-label condition at an off-label dose". I didn't have Dr Ameisen's book with me but I did tell the doctor briefly about it, and he said "that's just one guy's story". If I had just tried seeing random doctors in the same area I may not have been prescribed any baclofen at all. As far as I know baclofen is not prescribed above its daily official maximum dose for anyone apart from patients seeing a neurologist or other specialist for illnesses such as MS and spasticity (I say that because Dr Ameisen said a similar thing in his book).

I bought the GenRx Baclofen 25 mg tablets, 100 in a bottle, which I obtained cheaply via my health care card. The full price listed in brackets on the label is $59.95. I can't say if these tablets were any better or worse than another brand but I did get some side effects, as almost everyone does. I encountered extreme insomnia when trying to take a fairly high dose soon before bedtime, which discouraged me from taking it that way, but if I had no other way of being sober I would probably just try to push through the insomnia and order online like others have to do.

Good luck with it and sorry but I can't give details of the doctor I saw, for obvious reasons. Hopefully some doctors may be more liberal-minded now; it was in late 2009 and early 2010 when I saw the doctor about baclofen.