Well . . . wow . . . okay . . .
I started with baclofen in Oct. '09. I had been drinking vodka in the morning (say, 5:30 - 6:00 am), passing out for most of the day, waking up in time to have food and a few more drinks, pass out again and start over the next day. (I also had a totally alcoholic thing about not keeping alcohol in the house because I knew I would drink whatever was there, which meant driving to a friend's house and seriously depleting his vodka stash before the sun came up, but I digress).
I was one of the incredibly lucky ones. I ordered baclofen on-line and quit drinking alcoholically the first day. Really. First day, 30 mg, down to 2 glasses of wine. Boom. I eventually titrated up to 160 mg or so, but noticed no difference - I still enjoyed a glass or two of wine most nights, but never more than that. So I settled at "maintaining" at 80-100 mg/day.
Oh, and let me just mention that I had NO negative side effects. Ever. I got the "bac buzz" immediately and it stayed with me the whole time. Quit taking anti-depressants, the whole package. I even posted a thread "Enjoyable Side Effects of Baclofen." It didn't go very far.
A couple of months ago I started drinking a little more. Not a lot, just more regularly and sometimes 3-4 glasses of wine. No getting drunk, no hangovers, but the frontal lobes kicked in with "remember what is was like." Inspired by all the b-activity on the board I decided to titrate up to see if I could find a complete switch. By last week I was at 200 mg/day; 50/50/50/50. Still NO side effects. But also no noticeable difference in drinking "enough" almost every evening. (You can only imagine how astounded my friends and family have been to watch me do that over the past year!)
Then came Ringo's info about the one-dose "punch," and I decided to check that out. I took 20 mg off my am dose for 3 days, then 20 mg off my early afternoon dose for 3 days, adding those amounts to my evening (6-7'ish) dose, making it 30/30/50/90. Back to 1-2 glasses, not every night. This is good. So yesterday was going to be 30/30/30/110.
In ALL of my 17 months on baclofen, which included lots of traveling and traveling out of the country for months at a time, I NEVER (okay, neva eva) forgot a dose at approximately the right time. Then, yesterday, I spaced taking the late afternoon 50 mg dose. And for the first time ever, I really screwed up. Stone-cold sober and only slightly spaced-out from yoga, I put my afternoon and evening dose together and for some completely unknown reason I doubled that - 320 mg. (50+110x2) It was only later that I remember standing in the kitchen with a huge handful of pills. Frontal lobes completely offline.
4 hours later my vision got blurry, my entire body tingled with either heat or cold, I became incredibly dizzy, and I realized that I needed to pay attention to every breath to make sure it happened. The good news is . . . none of this made me anxiousI :H And I was used to paying attention to every breath through yoga and meditation.
I am now bowing at the feet of every MWO member who has ever posted about their baclofen exprience, especially LoOp: Thank you Evan, for posting your story and your persistence in bringing rational thought to this board. Your one-liner to cOffee, "the antidote for baclofen overdose is more baclofen" surely saved me from a very expensive, stressful, terrifying, useless foray through the medical ranks; thank you whomever posted the study about the woman who tried and failed to commit suicide with an overdose of baclofen; and to cOffee, for letting me know that the emergency room was not a good idea.
This guy's goofy look in no way conveys the depth of my gratiturde, but you'll get the idea. :bow:bow
I threw up a couple of times, but thought processes continued to work. Mostly. I did have an on-going, repetitive thought telling me "5 hours. 5 hours. 5 hours. You'll be okay in 5 hours." I kept counting off the hours from when it all hit at 11 pm to 4 am on my fingers! I monitored my blood pressure (up to 151/109); after 2 hours I took 25 mg of baclofen; one hour later I took 25 mg. I fell asleep (kind'a), woke up, took 50 mg more. By then it was not just my frontal lobes telling me I would be okay, I could feel my body recovering. And weirdly, that was 4 hours and 45 minutes later. I guess there IS a Baclofen Goddess. Where the hell did that thought come from?
It's now almost 12 hours later. I'm spaced, sleepy, and still temperature-weird. I have slept 4 hours, doing 50 mg 4 x today and fully expect to feel fine by this evening. Guess I'll spend the day packaging my daily baclofen dose.
Anywho . . . that was definitely a baclofen overdose for ME. Clearly we're all different, but now that I know what that's like I won't be doing it again. I will, however, go bac to find out if the "punch" theory works once I'm comfortable again and have pre-packaged doses.
That makes two times knowledge and experience from this forum have saved my life. I was so moved by Edostan's "Miracle on (some Japanese name) Street." I am certainly feeling the miracle this morning. I'm not a heart-throb kind of girl, but damn, sometimes it's the only thing. :h:h To Dr. Ameison, to baclofen, to each and every baclofentist, and to life. It's indescribably good to have one free from the demon of alcohol.
I started with baclofen in Oct. '09. I had been drinking vodka in the morning (say, 5:30 - 6:00 am), passing out for most of the day, waking up in time to have food and a few more drinks, pass out again and start over the next day. (I also had a totally alcoholic thing about not keeping alcohol in the house because I knew I would drink whatever was there, which meant driving to a friend's house and seriously depleting his vodka stash before the sun came up, but I digress).
I was one of the incredibly lucky ones. I ordered baclofen on-line and quit drinking alcoholically the first day. Really. First day, 30 mg, down to 2 glasses of wine. Boom. I eventually titrated up to 160 mg or so, but noticed no difference - I still enjoyed a glass or two of wine most nights, but never more than that. So I settled at "maintaining" at 80-100 mg/day.
Oh, and let me just mention that I had NO negative side effects. Ever. I got the "bac buzz" immediately and it stayed with me the whole time. Quit taking anti-depressants, the whole package. I even posted a thread "Enjoyable Side Effects of Baclofen." It didn't go very far.
A couple of months ago I started drinking a little more. Not a lot, just more regularly and sometimes 3-4 glasses of wine. No getting drunk, no hangovers, but the frontal lobes kicked in with "remember what is was like." Inspired by all the b-activity on the board I decided to titrate up to see if I could find a complete switch. By last week I was at 200 mg/day; 50/50/50/50. Still NO side effects. But also no noticeable difference in drinking "enough" almost every evening. (You can only imagine how astounded my friends and family have been to watch me do that over the past year!)
Then came Ringo's info about the one-dose "punch," and I decided to check that out. I took 20 mg off my am dose for 3 days, then 20 mg off my early afternoon dose for 3 days, adding those amounts to my evening (6-7'ish) dose, making it 30/30/50/90. Back to 1-2 glasses, not every night. This is good. So yesterday was going to be 30/30/30/110.
In ALL of my 17 months on baclofen, which included lots of traveling and traveling out of the country for months at a time, I NEVER (okay, neva eva) forgot a dose at approximately the right time. Then, yesterday, I spaced taking the late afternoon 50 mg dose. And for the first time ever, I really screwed up. Stone-cold sober and only slightly spaced-out from yoga, I put my afternoon and evening dose together and for some completely unknown reason I doubled that - 320 mg. (50+110x2) It was only later that I remember standing in the kitchen with a huge handful of pills. Frontal lobes completely offline.
4 hours later my vision got blurry, my entire body tingled with either heat or cold, I became incredibly dizzy, and I realized that I needed to pay attention to every breath to make sure it happened. The good news is . . . none of this made me anxiousI :H And I was used to paying attention to every breath through yoga and meditation.
I am now bowing at the feet of every MWO member who has ever posted about their baclofen exprience, especially LoOp: Thank you Evan, for posting your story and your persistence in bringing rational thought to this board. Your one-liner to cOffee, "the antidote for baclofen overdose is more baclofen" surely saved me from a very expensive, stressful, terrifying, useless foray through the medical ranks; thank you whomever posted the study about the woman who tried and failed to commit suicide with an overdose of baclofen; and to cOffee, for letting me know that the emergency room was not a good idea.
This guy's goofy look in no way conveys the depth of my gratiturde, but you'll get the idea. :bow:bow
I threw up a couple of times, but thought processes continued to work. Mostly. I did have an on-going, repetitive thought telling me "5 hours. 5 hours. 5 hours. You'll be okay in 5 hours." I kept counting off the hours from when it all hit at 11 pm to 4 am on my fingers! I monitored my blood pressure (up to 151/109); after 2 hours I took 25 mg of baclofen; one hour later I took 25 mg. I fell asleep (kind'a), woke up, took 50 mg more. By then it was not just my frontal lobes telling me I would be okay, I could feel my body recovering. And weirdly, that was 4 hours and 45 minutes later. I guess there IS a Baclofen Goddess. Where the hell did that thought come from?
It's now almost 12 hours later. I'm spaced, sleepy, and still temperature-weird. I have slept 4 hours, doing 50 mg 4 x today and fully expect to feel fine by this evening. Guess I'll spend the day packaging my daily baclofen dose.
Anywho . . . that was definitely a baclofen overdose for ME. Clearly we're all different, but now that I know what that's like I won't be doing it again. I will, however, go bac to find out if the "punch" theory works once I'm comfortable again and have pre-packaged doses.
That makes two times knowledge and experience from this forum have saved my life. I was so moved by Edostan's "Miracle on (some Japanese name) Street." I am certainly feeling the miracle this morning. I'm not a heart-throb kind of girl, but damn, sometimes it's the only thing. :h:h To Dr. Ameison, to baclofen, to each and every baclofentist, and to life. It's indescribably good to have one free from the demon of alcohol.
I think I will sign up. 
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