Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

[cumberbund]

:new:

ok, hopefully that disclaimer will forgive any mistakes that I make. I am not really a blogger or poster, or if i do have to do it because of work i constantly agonize over it. So do not judge harshly anything i say on this thread. In the words of some random country singer, "We are none of us whole."

so... i started baclofen today, on a titration schedule of .5 mg. I am so giddy with hope that i can barely stand myself.

I have been on SSRIs for years (anti-depressant selective seritonin re-uptake inhibitors) and yet, I always thought my (genetic) problem was anxiety. However, mentioning anxiety apparently rang "DRUG SEEKING" bells for every doc i went to. So I took SSRIs instead. Better than nothing.

But I medicated on the side with AL. And other stuff.

So now I've started my crazy journey with bac. So far, so good. Day 1 felt great. I'm still up late at night, but got a lot of stuff done today, and felt the influence right away. With no outer coating and split in quarters, I could feel my body responding quickly to the pill. Calmer, more relaxed. Still shakey, but not so aggro.

Good enuf.

cheers,
cb

[spacebebe01]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

good luck cb

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now



YAY! Welcome, cb.

Have you read redthread's story? Something about what you've written reminds me of her...

:l

[suneelca]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

cb -- welcome, and bon voyage on what one hopes will be a most excellent journey!

[krs]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

Welcome, cb! I have had anxiety issues for almost three decades. OCD, GAD, and I've been drinking since I was 15. I started on bac, skeptically, on February 17th. Well, the news is that it does work. I can barely drink a glass of wine anymore, and my anxiety is pretty much gone.

I got off of Klonopin (very difficult), and started my taper off of Paxil today. Can't wait to hear more about your journey!

[LadyLush]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

CB,

Good luck as well. I am kind of interested in your Avatar?

LL:l

[redhead77]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

Hey cb,

You decided to start your own thread. That's cool! I had a major reduction of anxiety too when I started. I believe at the time, I started on 15mg. It amazed me.

Welcome once again, and it's good to have you here. :l

[RobinJ]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

Good Luck...I am 12 days on Baclofen and 6 days AF! :welcome:

[cumberbund]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

yowza yowza

woot! well, only one more day before i get to take baclofen 3x a day!

I have taken baclofen for almost a week and feel a dramatic lessening of my intense PTSD-like level of tension. So far, so good!

No side effects, but my dosage is very low.

Very strong lessening of social anxiety. Interest in people, social activities, and worldly events is up, courage in new situations is up, desire to smoke cigarettes up (?), interest in drinking till passing out down quite a bit. Yay!

And I did something probably kind of stupid. I was feeling so great and hopeful that I stopped taking my SSRI antidepressant. Probably prematurely. Dr. L would not have recommended that, I presume, but I must fulfill my innate desire to make things as hard for myself as possible (lol). So now I am going thru some good old-fashioned zoloft withdrawl symptoms.

Some background: I have been taking SSRIs for decades. I was one of the first folks to report withdrawl symptoms (which docs used to deny was happening, lol). I had some druggy teenage years so I know withdrawl when I feel it. But mostly I am feeling pretty good. The zoloft was not working so well when I began looking at baclofen. It was one reason I began looking for something else.

I also have not made the opportunity to call Dr. L, but will do so soon. I will, I will, I will. I feel like I am bugging him, and have some massive phone anxiety anyway, but I will call and be accountable.

So tomorrow? 10 mg 3x a day. I am remarkably encouraged so far. Yay!

Good health to all you folks. Thanks for making me feel so welcome!

:h
cumberbund

[cumberbund]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

hey red! yeah, I didn't want to hijack your thread!

I am still lurking and following your journey and everyone else's too. I feel a great deal of gratitude to all of you for documenting your experiences in this way.

Guess I wanted to add to the anecdotal evidence that baclofen might really be a good thing. After teenage druggy years I was in the 12-step community, and saw lots of people OD on moral judgement and harsh ascetic behavior. I always thought for me there was a chemical link between anxiety and substance abuse, but it was not a popular ideal, as it allowed for something else besides abstinence. But here I am. 12-step programs helped me stop the drug behaviour I was wallowing in back then, and I remained abstinent for many years. I appreciate and admire those meetings and the people in them. They taught me a lot about how to live.

But I was young, and life changes. Now I need to learn some more. Hence, baclofen and the other interestingly odd paths my life is on now.

hugs to you,
cumberbund

[chigg]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

Please keep posting about the Zoloft if at all possible. My wife really wants to get off it, but the two times she's tried have been nightmares. Everything in her life became negative. She started talking about quitting her job and stopping school. Every conversation was a complaint fest about something. It's the only time in our 9 year relationship I thought we may not make it.

I'm just curious of anything you find to help mitigate the downside of stopping or if you think bac could help even if she doesn't have chemical dependency issues. Thanks!

[suneelca]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

SSRI cold turkey - danger, Will Robinson!

Hi, cumerbund. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. Not an MD (usual disclaimer) -- but be very careful about going cold turkey on Zoloft. MDs will often say it's not a problem to go cold turkey. There's a psychiatrist out of Harvard named Dr. Joseph Glenmullen who's written two books who definitely advises otherwise (he's written two books).

To wit, he also says ADs are wildly overprescribed.

I got off Lexapro two years ago, and weaned pretty slowly. Just re-read your post and sounds like you know what you're doing, but just adding my $.02. Which is probably all my advice is worth!

[redhead77]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

Hi cb!

First off, I want to tell you that I appreciate what you wrote to me on my thread and here. Well, that's not the first thing I want to say, I actually wrote you a long post from my phone, couldn't finish it since I had to run to a doc appt, and then lost it! It ticks me off. But I shall start over. Maybe my other post was too long and it happened for a reason. I don't think I realized that 'my story' or my experiences could affect others who go on to read my thread. At least not by much. It's really wonderful to know that all that personal crap I've written has been worth more than my online diary. More than making me feel self conscious that I've put it out there.

I had some drugged out teenage years too. My teen years were also when I started on ADs. I didn't start on SSRIs at the time. My first experience was with a tricyclic antidepressant since SSRIs (specifically Prozac), hadn't been invented. This would have been when I was 14 (I'm in my mid 30s), and by my late teens I was on Prozac. It wasn't a good drug for me. I ended up very suicidal. Looking back, I recognize that I was trying to self medicate my anxiety too. I did it with binge drinking and drugs. It's good we've come far enough that it's recognized that anxiety is a real reason for substance abuse.

But enough about me, let's talk about you...

I love reading about your response to bac. This may end up being the only drug you need, but only time will tell. It sounds like you've tolerated quitting Zoloft cold turkey. You're even aware of your withdrawal symptoms. Maybe you'll do fine just stopping it. My concern would be what happens down the road. Say a few weeks from now, or a month or two. You'll have titrated up much higher on your baclofen by then, and if you start to do badly, it will be difficult to differentiate what the cause is. I'm saying if your anxiety returns with a vengeance, or if you end up suffering from depression. I think people in general are quick to point the finger at all problems being caused by HDB, when in reality many of us make changes that are too quick and too drastic. I know when we feel better we want to just move on; we want to start to downsize some of the stuff we take. But it can then difficult to tell what the cause of certain SEs are. I've done this too when I've felt better.

I think you should treat your body and mind as fragile right now. Try not to make any big changes, except for a slow titration on bac. I'm not sure what Dr L's take is on Zoloft, but I can be positively sure he wouldn't say just to stop it. He'll probably say so a little harshly. I'm also not sure why everyone thinks he only wants people to take bac. I haven't experienced this with him. I tapered off my Wellbutrin when starting bac, and I thought I felt some inklings of depression creeping in. He was very concerned about it, really looked into finding another suitable AD for me to take. I know there are some out there, he read a list to me. I, for some reason, thought Paxil and maybe even Zoloft were on the list. I remember because I said "nope, I don't want to gain 30 pounds". But the truth is, I haven't found an SSRI that I do that great on. Luckily, I never needed one.

If you could stay on your AD for a time until you find some equilibrium, it might be a good thing. Or at a minimum taper down very slowly and watch yourself. I can tell you're insightful and have a good understanding of your body. I just wouldn't want you to spiral down in the future, for obvious reasons. It's happened to many here, and I think sometimes people think it's the HDB they're not tolerating, when it's a conglomeration of things. And it's hard to see what's happening, when it's happening to you. Just my humble opinion.

Wishing you the best, my friend. :l

*This post turned out longer than the first one. :H

[spacebebe01]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

Hi there I have just managed to delete my probably too long post as well, whats going on with this???

Anyways to cut a long story short I think you should listen to Red cb, if you stop the ad's now you wont know what is going on with you for the next few months, bac se's, withdrawal symptoms, reacurance of symptoms (presumably you have been taking se's for a reason). It is only natural to want to get better as soon as possible but it is better in this case to take your time. There will be a lot of changes taking place within your body and brain and you will need to let yourself heal. Think the hair and the tortoise when it comes to recoving from AL, slow and steady wins the race, in a few months you can slowly stop the ssri's then if you still want, it cant hurt to wait a bit. I want for you to get better and in my years and years of trying to get myself better one thing I have noticed in myself and others is trying to do too much and change too much too soon.

Best advice I got was keep posting and reading, good luck

[RobinJ]

Wouldn't Take Nothin For My Journey Now

Hi Cb, I was tempted to stop taking my Wellbutrin as well because I have been feeling really good since taking BAC. I read some posts on here about people feeling depressed after a month or so on BAC so I kind of changed my mind for now. What I did do was drop down from 300mg to 150 mg because I feel like I was on a drink/increased depression cycle. So far I feel fine at my current level, but I do want to eventually get off of it all together.

I feel like I take a thousand pills a day now. Baclofen every 2 hours, 2 BP meds twice a day, 2 fish oil pills, vitamins, an iron pill, meletonin, and mucinex for my cough. Couple all that with drinking gallons of Gatorade and water all day for thirst. No wonder I have lost 5 pounds...I don't have the energy to focus on eating except if you include the pills lol. YET I have been sober for 17 days and AF free for 10. So I'm really not complaining