Insomnia on bac

[Chi]

Ugh. I'm needing help with this. I'm doing mostly well on bac, until the insomnia persists for days on end and then I become really fried. I start wondering what is/could be a SE from bac and what is the result of not sleeping well for days and days.

Granted there are things stressing me out right now. My work has been intense and a few other things, but there is always going to be stress, right? Yesterday I noticed that I was so irritable, moody and just exhausted. Amazingly I didn't want to drink. Bac is working, but I have GOT to get some sleep at night. Last night was another lousy night of sleep. I've got a full day in front of me, and it's extremely frustrating :upset:

How have others dealt with this??

[ignominious]

Insomnia on bac

I didn't work so sleeping irregularly wasn't an issue for me.

I used to wake up regularly from some sort of panic attack. My wife could tell you better. Apparently I'd let out a cry, moan ,yelp and sit up or wander around for a while.

At the time I didn't relate it to anxiety but from another angle Dr L suggested I could take some Xanax for the anxiety/panic. At the time that also seemed reckless!

I've since tried Xanax and I sleep like a log. Don't feel really refreshed in the morning though so don't use it much. However if you haven't tried it yet it seems to be Dr L's baclofen compatible drug of choice so it's probably worth a go,

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Insomnia on bac

The insomnia and the SEs related to that are awful. I used xanax, too, also infrequently. Benadryl and melatonin have also been suggested and used successfully. Tho I guess melatonin is also a CNS depressant.

It definitely ends! I've returned to sleeping really well.
Good luck, Chi.

[terryk]

Insomnia on bac

Ne/Neva Eva;1100723 wrote: The insomnia and the SEs related to that are awful. I used xanax, too, also infrequently. Benadryl and melatonin have also been suggested and used successfully. Tho I guess melatonin is also a CNS depressant.

It definitely ends! I've returned to sleeping really well.
Good luck, Chi.

melatonin is not a CNS depressant, it is a natural occurring hormone that regulates sleep. I have used it for years with much success. Take it when you go to sleep, it starts to work in about 20 minutes, if you stay awake through the onset of its action, it may not work.

Benedryl is a histamine antagonist (h1?). It works great for me, but can leave me sluggish in the morning. When it take it, I take it earlier in the night rather than if I was still up at 5am. Can cause some CNS depression and is probably not recommended. No problem for me though and probably less CNS depression than Xanax.

Both might lose effectiveness if used regularly, benedryl more so.

-tk

[Chi]

Insomnia on bac

Thanks to both of you. I do have xanax on hand, and have used it, but like Ig it's not a refreshing kind of sleep... I do think xanax has a hangover effect of sorts. I have it around for panic attacks and prefer to use it only for that (although I haven't needed it for those purposes since being on bac which is nice).

Ne how long before the insomnia passes? Ig has it passed for you?

Benadryl makes me feel weird but I think I will pick up some melatonin today.

Something else I want to ask... is insomnia a known SE of bac? I don't really get it since early on it seemed to help me sleep, just trying to figure out the mechanism of action here. I also have had insomnia issues in the past, but AL took care of that. So I'm not sure what is causing what... but I see another moody day ahead of me. Not mean moody, more like sad moody and down right exhausted.

[Chi]

Insomnia on bac

Hi terry I just saw your post. Glad to hear melatonin has worked for you. Are you using it with bac now? Does it keep you asleep through the night? Also what mg's should I buy?

Thanks in advance for any info on melatonin.

[Guest]

Insomnia on bac

I have never had insomnia issues with baclofen, quite the opposite I could sleep for England at any time with it.

Could the insomnia have anything to do with withdrawing from alcohol at all?it's something that always happens to me when I stop drinking or come off a bender. With Baclofen it never happens and this is the one and only benefit I actually get from Baclofen.

[Chi]

Insomnia on bac

Ukblonde;1100751 wrote: I have never had insomnia issues with baclofen, quite the opposite I could sleep for England at any time with it.

Could the insomnia have anything to do with withdrawing from alcohol at all?it's something that always happens to me when I stop drinking or come off a bender. With Baclofen it never happens and this is the one and only benefit I actually get from Baclofen.

No, there is no way I am in AL withdrawal as the bac works and I have not been drinking.

On lower dose bac it seemed to help me sleep. At 50-75. Now at 110-110 since March I'm having bad insomnia.

UK are you on the bac still? If so what dose? I recall you were going to go with Nal and Bac, right? Have you started that yet? If so how is it going?

[terryk]

Insomnia on bac

Chi;1100748 wrote: Hi terry I just saw your post. Glad to hear melatonin has worked for you. Are you using it with bac now? Does it keep you asleep through the night? Also what mg's should I buy?

Thanks in advance for any info on melatonin.

I use it very rarely now. I think that 3mg is the standard and maximum dose. More doesn't work better, it doesn't make you sleepy exactly, it provokes a sleep response from your body.

I had various bouts of insomnia during my titration. Sometimes I would sleep 3-4 nightly and feel fantastic, sometimes not sleep for days and feel terrible. Post switch I sleep 7 hours of quality sleep. I also have less and less somnolence now. I have increased my coffee intake, however, and have added a cup in the evening (although as time goes on, my coffee habit is normalizing down too).

When I didn't sleep for a day or too pre-titration or during titration, benedryl did work wonders (50mg). It has helped me self detox at points as well. Hydroxazine? is another h-1 antagonist that is used as an anxiolytic/sleep aid.

sorry for the messy post, gotta make the donuts (I'm sober, living my life, going to work)
get some sleep,
-tk

[Guest]

Insomnia on bac

It's going rubbish, but I am due to see an addiction specialist this week who will be able to advise and prescribe a proper regime.

I've tried reducing my baclofen dose to feel better, but then started drinking again so out of desperation went back up again only to still drink and still feel rubbish. I have tried some Naltrexone before drinking, but don't think I'm taking it soon enough.

So I'm all over the place, still popping baclofen in case it works, drinking and not knowning if side effects are from the alcohol or from the baclofen. I can't function properly, can't work or train, or interact with other people, have little motivation and have lost the plot. I've lost all my cognitive tools I was losing last year and just feel rubbish. It's been commented upon by many who have known me over the years(and in fact on MWO) that I've become withdrawn and isolated since starting baclofen. I really needed this to work properly, and it hasn't and my life is a mess because it hasn't worked. I'm right back where I started, and in fact worse.

[ignominious]

Insomnia on bac

Insomnia or disruption of sleep patterns is a fairly common SE of bac and affects people to varying degrees.

For weeks I was only able to sleep in 2 hour bursts which even when added up didn't seem to be sufficient although on waking I felt thoroughly refreshed. Since my switch my sleep pattern has returned to normal or better.

Melatonin sounds like a good idea.

[Isolde]

Insomnia on bac

Fear not Chi, you are not alone! Insomnia is absolutely a side effect of bac. Most people here have experienced it once they got into higher doses. 90mgs is the max dose that makes me sleep well. Anything above that and I start to experience sleep disruptions. The higher I go, the more it turns into full blown insomnia.

There is tons of information about how to deal with this SE scattered all over the place:
https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...ml#post1061136

Unfortunately this thread was started way after a lot of the options had been discussed at length in other threads, so it's not all reflected here, but maybe you'll find something helpful in it.

I also use xanax on occasion for the sleep issues. Sometimes it works GREAT. And sometimes not, even though I use it only very occasionally. The best course of action seems to be to use things on a rotation, in order to keep your body from getting used to anything and to maintain the effectiveness of each.

Here's a short list of a few things used either by myself or by others here:

Xanax
Benadryl
Advil PM
Melatonin (I use it in conjunction with Valerian)
Ambien

Good luck getting catching some Zs!!

[Chi]

Insomnia on bac

Thanks everyone for the responses. I did get some melatonin today so I will try that tonight.

I still wonder about the bac/insomnia mechanism at play.... I know with xanax one of the reasons it won't be a good sleep aid for long is because once tolerance builds the body will wake up when a withdrawal of sorts kicks in, and with the short half life of xanax it makes sense to me. I wondered if that could be happening with bac so I tried taking a larger portion of my dose at bedtime but it didn't seem to matter. Even with plenty of bac in my system I will lay there wide awake, and physically exhausted. So odd.

I'll experiment with a few things and report back.

[Longshot]

Insomnia on bac

Chi;1100971 wrote: Thanks everyone for the responses. I did get some melatonin today so I will try that tonight.

I still wonder about the bac/insomnia mechanism at play.... I know with xanax one of the reasons it won't be a good sleep aid for long is because once tolerance builds the body will wake up when a withdrawal of sorts kicks in, and with the short half life of xanax it makes sense to me. I wondered if that could be happening with bac so I tried taking a larger portion of my dose at bedtime but it didn't seem to matter. Even with plenty of bac in my system I will lay there wide awake, and physically exhausted. So odd.

I'll experiment with a few things and report back.

Try and get your dosage in earlier in the day.

Use melatonin and 5-HTP to help sleep, and consider Zolpidem
Zolpidem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Greg]

Insomnia on bac

Hey there Chi I also experienced insomnia when I was trying high dose baclofen, as a direct side effect of it. Any largish dose soon before bed would cause the problem. I would love to know why this happens with a drug that is mainly a GABA(B) agonist and CNS depressant. Nobody, that I know of, has ever explained why this can be a side effect of this drug, and it doesn't seem to make sense. Interestingly the same issue has been reported on a drugs forum with phenibut, another GABA(B) agonist.

I too have used Xanax as a sleep aid, and it does work wonders until tolerance builds up. After that it can stop working and the withdrawals as it wears off during the next day can be troublesome. With me it took months of nightly use for this to be a serious problem. I took 1 mg each night, which is probably an excessive dose for sleep; 0.5 or even 0.25 mg can help sleep with low tolerance from a few tests I have done. Xanax did unfortunately cause a marked sedative hangover that lasted well into the next day with a 1 mg dose.

I haven't used Benadryl but have used a related antihistamine doxylamine (Unisom, Restavit, Dozile) as a sleep aid. Even 12.5 mg can help, and 25-50 mg definitely helps. Once again a hangover can last for quite a while the next day. Tolerance to these two drug types can be reduced by rotating them, e.g. taking one for 3-4 nights then switching to the other.

I have read of a combination of 1.5-2 grams L-tryptophan, 50-100 mg 5-HTP, and 0.5-1 mg melatonin, but have not actually tried it. Someone who is knowledgeable about natural products may know more about the reason for combining these things that way. I have tried just 1.5 to 2.5 grams of tryptophan and it has seemed to help, as long as it is taken without any other amino acids or protein containing food.

Good luck, others say the insomnia becomes less of a problem when the bac is taken well before bed, so hopefully that will help. Somebody here told me that Seroquel also helps with bac-induced insomnia but I have not tried that; presumably Seroquel in low doses acts as a 'super-antihistamine'.