I am a 45 y.o male and have been drinking for about 30 years. Tried Topomax for 2 months and was very excited until I realized I would lose my job if I kept taking it. Too much confusion and difficulty thinking clearly. I switched to Baclofen. I have a physician who I talked into a script despite his reluctance. I have been taking Baclofen for almost 3 months now. I am currently at 170mg per day. My dose is split evenly at 6am, 10am, 2pm and 6pm. I may change that to 6 times a day soon. I have titrated up roughly 10 mg every 7 days (2.5 per day for 4 days starting on Thursdays) but recently that proved way too fast for me and I have had to slow it down to 5 mg every 7 days. My alcohol consumption seemed to go down slightly but since I hit 140 I have been drinking more like normal again. No switch in sight yet.
I have almost quit Baclofen 3 times but stuck it out. The worst was yesterday which may be why I am finally posting rather than lurking. I was driving 70 MPH in a 70 MPH zone on the interstate and fell asleep at the wheel. I ran off the road and almost lost control of the car. I am convinced the rumble strips woke me up and saved my life just in time. Had I not been on the interstate with rumble strips I may have been dead. I have to frequently make long trips for my job and I have no way around that short of quitting. I pulled off and got coffee and even smokeless tobacco hoping the nicotine/caffeine combo would help. Strangely it did not. I did make it back to the office with a few more stops to walk around and jump up and down. I have to drive a 5 hour trip next week and I am scared to death now. I will not be going up in dose at all until after that trip. I may take some of my Daughters Concerta. I hate stimulants like caffeine, nicotine etc because they worsen my Baclofen induced anxiety. I have never in my life fallen asleep at the wheel. I thought that kind of thing could never happen to me.
The other problems I have had are severe panic attacks (started at about 70 mg) and I have never had panic attacks in my life until I started taking Baclofen. I am required speak in front of groups for my job, been doing this for 15 years without incident. Now I have severe panic every time I am speaking. Other times I panic for no reason. Once my blood pressure shot up to around 190/120 with a pulse of about 120, I could not slow it down. 10 minutes in a warm bath with wine finally helped a little. It is very scary and at work I have no way out of it. Terrifying. I stopped all caffeine but that did not help. Benzodiazapines knock me out. Alcohol is the only thing that reduces my anxiety. Last week I got pulled over for speeding and my BP shot up so high I could not see. My eyes were flashing white with every heart beat. I got an extreme pain around where my kidney is located that pulsed hard with every heart beat. I thought I was going to pass out. Crazy.
The other almost deal breaker for me was post nasal drip. I have heard some people refer to “choking” at night and that is how it feels. The mucus closes up my throat and I wake up unable to breath about every 5 minutes or so in a panic. This prevents sleep all night when it happens. I have tried every decongestant and antihistamine on the market along with constant neti pots to no avail. This past week it lessened somewhat by itself? maybe because I slowed the titration.
Other negative side effects which I have never before experienced include: Severe anxiety all the time except during those times it knocks me out and makes me sleepy. I have no fingernails left because I chew them up like crazy from the anxiety. Insomnia, many get this so it’s no biggie to me, I just get up and drink till I pass out. I am very lazy despite the anxiety, I used to work out all the time but now I cannot get off the couch. Related to the previous one is weight gain. Recently heart palpitations began on and off. Extreme startle response, when the phone rings I jump out of my chair. Social anxiety, I have not even posted on this forum because I am too scared to meet people, not sure why I am doing it now? Perhaps because I almost died and that changed my perspective a little bit. Anhedonia is another effect, my family also says I don’t show emotion any more. They say I seem depressed yet I don’t really feel depressed.
Positive side effect: I have not measured specifically but I think I am drinking somewhat less than before Baclofen. The most positive side effect of all NO HANGOVERS! Even if I drink 12 beers and a whole bottle of Chardonnay and only sleep 3 hours, I wake up feeling great! I cant explain it. This is also a negative effect because I have no real incentive to stop drinking now.
I do want to quit drinking. The main reason I want to quit is so I can stop taking Baclofen. There are times I have felt in the moment that this is far worse than drinking. There was a brief moment that I kinda wished I had run off the road completely. Strangely however, I don’t really care, none of this negative stuff really bothers me all that much, neither does the positive. Right now I feel indifferent to the idea of achieving indifference. I just feel very blah.
I feel like I have been too lazy to quit. I feel like it is once again time for ME to quit rather than waiting for the magical indifference switch. I have quit many times on my own. I always did it by working out every single day. That might last for a year or two or a week or two and then I would relapse. I have quit for 30 days more times than I care to admit. I guess this time I was too lazy to do the work. Quitting has always sucked. I hate it worse than anything….or at least I used to. Now I think I hate Baclofen worse than quitting. If that is true and I am being honest with myself then why don’t I just quit? I wish I could answer that. I think I want to give it a try. I just lack motivation for some reason. Now that this has started interfering with my job and my life the only way I see it working is to go up EXTREMLY slow like 2.5 mg a week to see if that takes away the falling asleep at the wheel thing. The other way is that I can hope that 170 is my maintenance dose. Then I can quit white knuckle and skip the trip up in dose to the switch and back down to 170. The crazy thing is the whole reason I took Baclofen was to take the easy way out and avoid white knuckles. We will see what happens. I will keep you posted. Thanks for listening.
I have almost quit Baclofen 3 times but stuck it out. The worst was yesterday which may be why I am finally posting rather than lurking. I was driving 70 MPH in a 70 MPH zone on the interstate and fell asleep at the wheel. I ran off the road and almost lost control of the car. I am convinced the rumble strips woke me up and saved my life just in time. Had I not been on the interstate with rumble strips I may have been dead. I have to frequently make long trips for my job and I have no way around that short of quitting. I pulled off and got coffee and even smokeless tobacco hoping the nicotine/caffeine combo would help. Strangely it did not. I did make it back to the office with a few more stops to walk around and jump up and down. I have to drive a 5 hour trip next week and I am scared to death now. I will not be going up in dose at all until after that trip. I may take some of my Daughters Concerta. I hate stimulants like caffeine, nicotine etc because they worsen my Baclofen induced anxiety. I have never in my life fallen asleep at the wheel. I thought that kind of thing could never happen to me.
The other problems I have had are severe panic attacks (started at about 70 mg) and I have never had panic attacks in my life until I started taking Baclofen. I am required speak in front of groups for my job, been doing this for 15 years without incident. Now I have severe panic every time I am speaking. Other times I panic for no reason. Once my blood pressure shot up to around 190/120 with a pulse of about 120, I could not slow it down. 10 minutes in a warm bath with wine finally helped a little. It is very scary and at work I have no way out of it. Terrifying. I stopped all caffeine but that did not help. Benzodiazapines knock me out. Alcohol is the only thing that reduces my anxiety. Last week I got pulled over for speeding and my BP shot up so high I could not see. My eyes were flashing white with every heart beat. I got an extreme pain around where my kidney is located that pulsed hard with every heart beat. I thought I was going to pass out. Crazy.
The other almost deal breaker for me was post nasal drip. I have heard some people refer to “choking” at night and that is how it feels. The mucus closes up my throat and I wake up unable to breath about every 5 minutes or so in a panic. This prevents sleep all night when it happens. I have tried every decongestant and antihistamine on the market along with constant neti pots to no avail. This past week it lessened somewhat by itself? maybe because I slowed the titration.
Other negative side effects which I have never before experienced include: Severe anxiety all the time except during those times it knocks me out and makes me sleepy. I have no fingernails left because I chew them up like crazy from the anxiety. Insomnia, many get this so it’s no biggie to me, I just get up and drink till I pass out. I am very lazy despite the anxiety, I used to work out all the time but now I cannot get off the couch. Related to the previous one is weight gain. Recently heart palpitations began on and off. Extreme startle response, when the phone rings I jump out of my chair. Social anxiety, I have not even posted on this forum because I am too scared to meet people, not sure why I am doing it now? Perhaps because I almost died and that changed my perspective a little bit. Anhedonia is another effect, my family also says I don’t show emotion any more. They say I seem depressed yet I don’t really feel depressed.
Positive side effect: I have not measured specifically but I think I am drinking somewhat less than before Baclofen. The most positive side effect of all NO HANGOVERS! Even if I drink 12 beers and a whole bottle of Chardonnay and only sleep 3 hours, I wake up feeling great! I cant explain it. This is also a negative effect because I have no real incentive to stop drinking now.
I do want to quit drinking. The main reason I want to quit is so I can stop taking Baclofen. There are times I have felt in the moment that this is far worse than drinking. There was a brief moment that I kinda wished I had run off the road completely. Strangely however, I don’t really care, none of this negative stuff really bothers me all that much, neither does the positive. Right now I feel indifferent to the idea of achieving indifference. I just feel very blah.
I feel like I have been too lazy to quit. I feel like it is once again time for ME to quit rather than waiting for the magical indifference switch. I have quit many times on my own. I always did it by working out every single day. That might last for a year or two or a week or two and then I would relapse. I have quit for 30 days more times than I care to admit. I guess this time I was too lazy to do the work. Quitting has always sucked. I hate it worse than anything….or at least I used to. Now I think I hate Baclofen worse than quitting. If that is true and I am being honest with myself then why don’t I just quit? I wish I could answer that. I think I want to give it a try. I just lack motivation for some reason. Now that this has started interfering with my job and my life the only way I see it working is to go up EXTREMLY slow like 2.5 mg a week to see if that takes away the falling asleep at the wheel thing. The other way is that I can hope that 170 is my maintenance dose. Then I can quit white knuckle and skip the trip up in dose to the switch and back down to 170. The crazy thing is the whole reason I took Baclofen was to take the easy way out and avoid white knuckles. We will see what happens. I will keep you posted. Thanks for listening.
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