Baclofen hell - please help

[ifulovelife2]

Baclofen hell - please help

ClearHead247;1375757 wrote:
So I've decided to check myself into a private psychiatric hospital

Very sensible move. I hope you get the help you need.

[Xadrian]

Baclofen hell - please help

Dear Anna,

How come you titrated the Baclofen up to 150 mg? I thought you went well on 90 mg.
Sorry to hear you have severe anxiety attacks.
Like some people suggest, it might be the combination with other drugs.
After hitting the switch at 90 mg on April 30, I titrated down every month and I'm doing well at 45 mg at the moment.
No need for alcohol. I tried a beer at a party and I found it tasted disgusting. Unbelievable.

The only side-effect I experienced when titrating down is a change in mood for the first few days.

But what can I say, everyone reacts different to any drug and if you feel you have to stop the Baclofen, no one would stop you.
However, stopping suddenly can cause psychosis, anxiety attacks, delirium and what so ever, so I wouldn't advise stopping immediately.
Maybe you should take 90 mg for a while, which was the dose that worked for you without the trouble you described.
Whatever you do, be aware that the adaptation to a lower dose will take up to a week.

Anyway, if you decide to stop immediately, stay with your parents or at someone else for a week or so, but don't do it alone. It can really be very dangerous.

Hope you get well soon.

[Greg]

Baclofen hell - please help

Otter;1375211 wrote: My advice is stay away from SSRIs and SNRIs. There are a lot of reports of them not being effective in alcoholism.
There are good reports for mirtazpine in alcoholism even as a stand alone treatment in reducing drinking. From personal experience it is very good in combination with baclofen and has a sedative effect. You may be able to reduce your dose of baclofen. Mirtazapine seems to be very effective from quite early on and the dose is about 15 mg mornings and 30 mg at night. I know someone who had huge problems with SSRI's and bac but stopped drinking completely once they switched to mirtazapine, no relapses, and total loss of cravings, able to reduce baclofen from 150 to 60 mg per day. I am not a doctor but this is a combo that others have used and is now being used by our doctor.

Hi Otter, this is something I am quite interested in now. I have read of mirtazapine alone being useful as a craving reducer in the literature when I looked it up via PubMed, and as I am able to get both drugs without having to order online and worry about Australian Customs all the time, it is something I want to give a try. A specialist in Sydney is willing to prescribe baclofen in approved doses (up to 100 mg/day) and my GP is willing to prescribe mirtazapine, so it may be a practical method for me.

If I have any success with it, I will post on the forum about it.

[ClearHead247]

Baclofen hell - please help

Back in the real world

Hi all,

I wanted to update you now that I checked out of The Priory psychiatric hospital this morning.

I was supposed to be admitted on Monday morning but the psychatrist was so concerned by the extreme anxiety being caused by the Baclofen that he admitted me on Sunday evening. To my surprise he was aware of Baclofen being taken off-label for alcohol dependency - he was currently treating two other people in the same situation as me.

Like me these two other patients had read 'The End of My Addiction, researched Baclofen and asked their GP to prescribe it. On being told no they then ordered it online and like me started on a small dose - 10mg - and titrated up very gradually, around 10mg a week or two, over several months. As was my experience the main side effect they experienced was sleepiness and they noticed that they didn't want to drink alcohol so much.

However at a certain high dose - 150mg for me, 130mg for another female patient and 170mg for a male patient, all hell broke loose: constant extreme anxiety and total insomnia. Like me they were desperate to get professsional help and checked into The Priory at a cost of 6000 pounds a week.

My psychiatrist explained that Baclofen is a very powerful and potentially extremely dangerous drug. He wanted to get me off it as soon as possible. 100mg on Sunday was reduced to 30mg on Monday, 20mg on Tuesday and Wednesday 10mg on Thursday and Friday.

To combat the horrendous anxiety and insomnia I was given benzos and other anti-anxiety drugs four times a day and strong sleeping pills. I am now Baclofen-free and feel amazing, my anxiety has completely gone. My psychiatrist has given me a script for a week's worth of sleeping pills and anti-anxiety drugs just in case but thinks now it's out of my system I can start to get better.

Please, please be extremely careful with this drug. Myself and the two other patients took Baclofen as suggested - in very small doses at first and increased very gradually yet all of us encountered utter hell at a high dose. I was very close to jumping off a tall building when I found myself in Accident & Emergency at hospital last Friday.

It will take me around a year to pay off the 6000 cost of the Priory stay but it saved my life, I could not have survived much more of the hellish anxiety and insomnia. I am very glad to be here today. Please do not ignore this account. This is happening to other people and my psychiatrist is extremely concerned about the consequences of Mr Ameisen's book and people thinking that they know better than trained medical professionals. If I had not had 6000 pounds available on my credit card to get me into a safe place where I could be treated quickly I honestly do not believe I would be here now.

Thanks to all those who offered advice during this hellish past fortnight.

Best wishes

[StuckinLA]

Baclofen hell - please help

Anna, I'm so thankful that you are OK and doing well now. Thank you so much for updating to let us all know.

I've been thinking about you a lot these past few days, I'm sure all of us have.

[ClearHead247]

Baclofen hell - please help

Thank you very much

I don't know what I would have done without the support of you and others on this forum. I really appreciate it.

Best wishes,

Anna

[Xadrian]

Baclofen hell - please help

Seems to me that all drugs are potentially extremely dangerous when overdosed.
In my opinion, Clearhead, you should have stayed at 90 mg. and I really don't understand why you titrated all the way up to 150 mg. but yeah, who am I.
Anyway, I hope you will stay well, but you should expect to experience some side-effects by Tuesday or so (I don't want to scare you, but in my case everytime I titrate down, I get a litlle anxious after a day or 4). If possible, stay somewhere where you are not alone.

Anyway, 45 mg Baclofen in combination with a lot of stress, turned out just a little too low for me and last Sunday I drank 8 beers, the first since months. They didn't taste as well as before, but still I drank them all.
Monday I corrected to 50 mg and as usual, no thoughts of alcohol.
I guess I'm stable and didn't experience the problems as Clearhead described. But then again, I hit my switch at 90 mg and weigh twice as much as Clearhead (or should I say "weighed", because I dropped 26 pounds in 4 months).

But let the experiences of Clearhead be a lesson for all: Baclofen (like any other drug) is no chewing gum and should be taken with care and, if possible, under supervision of a doctor.
Titrating up should be done slowly and with care and if you are already at higher doses, give your brain some time to adapt and adjust to the higher dose. The effects might not be noticeable right away.

My story is completely different than that of Clearhead and Baclofen surely cured my alcoholism (If Clearhead is honest, it did the same to her at 90 mg).

Anyway, always be careful and don't overdo. You didn't become an alcoholic overnight, so don't expect to be cured overnight either. Reprogramming of your brain will take time and Baclofen will help so much in that process by really taking away the cravings.
According to my psychiatrist, without Baclofen it normally will take over a year before the thoughts of alcohol will disappear a little.

[Raven2012]

Baclofen hell - please help

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.
I can't believe this drug is not a controlled substance.
If I take one I'm asleep within two hours. There is no controlling it.
Its my belief thats how anyone might control their alcohol consumption. If one is asleep, one can't drink.

[YouKayBee]

Baclofen hell - please help

Anna

I just want to say you aren't alone, I too had a bad time with Baclofen. I'll admit to being haphazard with my titrating, mostly because I was all over the place with alcohol and baclofen affecting my mind and body. I got up to around 180mg which I held for a fair number of weeks, and without drinking but I had such awful thoughts, paranioa, depression, feeling sick, falling asleep I just had to stop taking it which I finally did at the advice of Dr Chick. Whilst taking HDB I often had days where like you I thought I was going to die, if not then that aliens were coming to abduct me.

Glad you got help although I always thought the Priory was a minimum 4 week stay, which I couldn't afford and I always chose cheaper treatment centres to try and break my alcohol habit.

Glad you are feeling better and hope you can stay off the booze. I think Baclofen just doesn't work for everyone, some people just have a very bad time on it so bad it is dangerous for them.

[Xadrian]

Baclofen hell - please help

Dear Raven,

Of course this drug is a controlled substance.
The problem is that a lot of doctors refuse to subscribe the drug, so people get it another way and use it without supervision of a med.
In my opinion people tend to titrate up way too fast to extreme high doses, because they think they still will improve, even if it's clear that the Baclofen already had a positive effect.
I wouldn't recommend anyone to go over 2 mg per kg of body weight per day.
It's obvious that a lot of people begin to experience bad side-effects at higher doses.
It's like a car: If you want to be somewhere fast, you can drive 75 miles an hour and reach you destination quickly, but not immediately. But if you decide to speed up to 150 miles an hour, thinking yoy will be there faster you will probably have an accident before you reach your destination.

It's better to just be thankful for the improvement you got with the help of Baclofen on lower doses, than to overdo and blame the Baclofen instead of yourself.

Moreover, even while Baclofen takes away the cravings, it doesn't make it impossible to drink anymore. You have to be motivated and do some effort yourself too.

Like they say "drink responsibly", one should take Baclofen also responsibly.

[spacebebe01]

Baclofen hell - please help

Xadrian;1381066 wrote:
It's like a car: If you want to be somewhere fast, you can drive 75 miles an hour and reach you destination quickly, but not immediately. But if you decide to speed up to 150 miles an hour, thinking yoy will be there faster you will probably have an accident before you reach your destination.

Good point

[cammo]

Baclofen hell - please help

I must add my two cents worth. I started with baclofen and found the same results as Anna albeit at a much lower dose. I read a lot and ordered my bac from Inhouse and titrated up to 65mg over about 6 weeks. At 65 I felt calm and well adjusted with less cravings, although i did not sleep well that night, different to previous nights at lower doses.

However on the second 65mg day I expereinced extreme panic and anxiety. I titrated down and still found the extreme anxiety for all that time. Titrating slowly over about a week I did not sleep for over 4 days no matter what sedatives I took, and when I had finally gone cold turkey, the paranoid after effects were evident after a week.

Mid way through my downward titrating I visited my doctor and got some mitrazapine, which helped, and still take this now.

Now I am not saying this as a pay out on bac, but it should be viewed a bit more thoroughly as a drug, that could cause unpredictable results in some people. To this end it is very necessary to take bac under a supervised regime. At least tell afriend you are doing this.

It was a scary time, and made me feel like the worst of times that I had experienced in the past.

I do not believe it was a result of titration speed as I regulated very slowly and cautiously. The baclofen information does advise against use if suffering from abnormal mental issues. Interestingly bipolar and similar conditions are also linked to Gaba issues, so I cannot wonder if my response to bac coud be caused from something like this.

Just my thoughts, and I am glad you made it back Anna.

I too am glad I made it back.

C

[ifulovelife2]

Baclofen hell - please help

That's a very good point, Cammo. People with mental health issues shouldn't be self-prescribing drugs, any drugs not just baclofen.

[spacebebe01]

Baclofen hell - please help

It is a good point IYLL but a lot of people with mental health issues have been self medicating with alcohol, so what are they supposed to do. And a lot of people who self medicate with alcohol have mental health issues.

[playland]

Baclofen hell - please help

Good Point Space, I would say everyone who self medicates with alcohol has mental health issues to some degree.