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5 months in with Baclofen

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    5 months in with Baclofen

    Hi I just registered, wanted to share my baclofen experience thus far for anybody's benefit, and to network about side effects and experiences with some other users. I'm lucky enough to live in Chicago so I've met with Dr. Levin in person several times, and been able to get Baclofen quite cheaply at Walgreen's. I started in in December 2011 and have been titrating up til now, all the way up to 320-340!

    To those of you who never pushed passed the 100s - the baclofen SEs get very different. The foggy, sleepy feeling gives way to a speedier up + down feeling. You still get that chemically, drowsy feeling when you up the dose but you settle in to each level quickly. You can get quite buzzed and energetic sometimes though. I started working out everyday about a month ago, and I haven't had an issues really with the amount I'm able to lift or other such muscular issues.

    My sleep schedule is still strange, I get very, very tired and crash out @ 10p, only to wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning wide awake. If I take xanax and melatonin though I will sleep for a solid 8 hours.

    In regards to the xanax I started taking that very recently when I pushed up into the 300s. I began to, weirdly, have an uptick in general anxiety and even began having panic attacks. Dr. Levin prescribed a small amount of xanax and it has worked amazing well. When combined with the baclofen I feel extremely calm and lucid.

    I've seen some back and forth regarding the maintainence dose concept, so just to clarify, Olivier and Dr. Levin both do not advocate going down to a lower dose anymore. According to Dr. Levin, Olivier takes a dose high in the 300s every day now.

    Still, I personally am planning to titrate back down in to the 200s myself. I felt my switch around 240-260, so I will probably step back down to 280. I want to see if that helps lower my general anxiety issues.

    I definitely get intermittent weirdness with numbness, dizziness, grogginess and all of that, but for the most part only one side effect has been seriously troublesome: I cannot climax during sex at all. Has anybody else had this problem with baclofen? My libido and all other functions are totally fine, but the sensation is just not the same. Anybody find any solutions?

    My last concern is about the liver and kidney issues I see raised some places on the web? Is it true the HDB can affect your liver or renal systems? I'm a healthy 26 year old if that gives you any frame of reference. Anybody have any hard knowledge or sources on this?

    As far as alcohol goes though, the baclofen is working exactly as promised, I have no more chemical compulsion to drink, even when I occasionally have a couple beers and the opportunity to have some more presents itself.

    I could write another 10 paragraphs about the experience, but I can already feel the heavy baclofen sleepy feeling creeping up on me as I type. Those are my scattered initial thoughts on the subject. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or advice, glad I found a place to share and hopefully discuss with others about their journey with Baclofen.
    - Grant

    #2
    5 months in with Baclofen

    Congratulations on your success!

    I have a curiosity about the cognitive effects of high-dose baclofen. Can you take some online IQ and psycho-motor tests? This is of course completely unscientific, esp. if there are no pre-baclofen results. (Baseline IQ should be 110 based on college attendance).

    Don't post them. Just let us know about your general impressions.
    Thanks.

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      #3
      5 months in with Baclofen

      To Grizzy, I'm guessing that you are a man, correct me if I'm wrong. I want to respond to your problem of not being able to climax. I'm female and am only at 180mg per day under Dr. Levin's care. I have the opposite experience: I have experienced a marked sexual disinhibition at around 120 mg per day which has only increased since titrating up. Anyone else have this experience?

      Not that this is bad news, I mean, I'm not embarrassing myself by acting out in public or anything. But I have, ahem, discovered things I'm sure that non-anxious young women probably discover in their 20s that I am now just discovering in my mid forties.

      You might want to try male kegels or jelqing. Look it up. Maybe this will help. Not to get too personal but if that is an issue I'm sure that it is not adding positively to your experience.

      To BillF, am I correct in assuming that you have a hypothesis that high dose baclofen either increases or decreases cognitive ability? I'd love to hear your hypothesis as I have my own theories on this as well.

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        #4
        5 months in with Baclofen

        bacinblack;1298300 wrote:
        To BillF, am I correct in assuming that you have a hypothesis that high dose baclofen either increases or decreases cognitive ability? I'd love to hear your hypothesis as I have my own theories on this as well.
        I genuinely do not know. I think acutely, baclofen hampers both cognition and motor skills. I am interested in what happens in people taking steady 200+/day long-term. This is completely different from the effect of bac on alcohol intake.

        A formal study would be two-tailed, since a priori hdb can enhance or decrease performance. I'm just asking for anecdotal test scores.

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          #5
          5 months in with Baclofen

          My guess is it is definitely hampering me to some degree. I'll give it a shot though. Not to toot my horn at all, but stating facts I scored a 1400 something out of 1600 on my SAT back in high school, and I was already drinking heavily and smoking weed a few times a day at that point. Not sure how that translates compared to an IQ test, but I may not be the best guinea pig is all

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            #6
            5 months in with Baclofen

            Can you recommend some legit sites to test at? Every one I find is some garbage where they want to send you a certificate, you have to register and get a bunch of spam, etc.

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              #7
              5 months in with Baclofen

              Hi Grizzley, you didnt say where you are/ were at with the drinking. I would be interested to know

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                #8
                5 months in with Baclofen

                x

                Comment


                  #9
                  5 months in with Baclofen

                  Hey spacebebe - Baclofen has been a 100% success on the drinking front for me. I was an intense binge drinker, like once I got started it was a minimum 48 hours of blacking out disaster time before a very painful multi day withdrawl. Now, although I choose to abstain almost all the time and never keep alcohol in the house, I do fairly regularly have a couple beers out with friends and I feel fine. I've had as many as 4 beers and no desire to launch into a binge. It was REALLY weird at first. I was probing the feeling like you would the space of a missing tooth. The whole midbrain chemical compulsion to keep drinking once I start is just not there for me anymore. So for that I continue with the baclofen experiment.

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                    #10
                    5 months in with Baclofen

                    I can also second you GolfMonster and bacinblack on the disinhibition thing. My libido has increased strangely as well. It's just sort of a weird climax/desensitization thing.

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