Colin, 65

[Hippyman]

Colin, 65

Colin;1437485 wrote: London Zoo opens gates to colony of snappers for annual animal census | World news | The Guardian

LOL :H :H :H

[Hippyman]

Colin, 65

Colin;1435409 wrote: Baclofen has been constant at 125 mg per day.

Had a few days with 30 mg amitriptyline and that was definitely too much - very sleepy all day and almost asleep in the evening. On dropping back to 20 mg the clear mornings reappeared along with better awareness during the day. The amitriptyline is primarily for the nerve problem in my legs and since it has had no noticeable effect I'll taper off it. Next in line will be gabapentin, pregabalin or whatever else the GP dreams up.

I am regularly waking up after 7 or 8 hours sleep and getting up, feeling ready for anything. It's a big pity that the first bac pill squashes this fine feeling. The last time I regularly got up so early was 20 years ago when I was working in Oakland CA. I'd wake early after a night's drinking, shower, get dressed, drive to the all night poker club in Emeryville, have a couple of beers, play a few hands and drive off to work. It wasn't long before I collapsed under this regime and scurried off back to Holland with my tail between my legs. They never asked me to come back to Oakland - I wonder why. How did I get away with this sort of behaviour for most of the last forty five years?

Tomorrow will see me start trying to rush up to +- 200 mg baclofen. 12.5 mg more every 4 days. I'm getting tired of waiting around.

WOW, why such a high dose? What are you expecting to have happen?

[Colin]

Colin, 65

Hippyman;1437502 wrote: WOW, why such a high dose? What are you expecting to have happen?

Ameisen wrote about a controlling dose, often referred to here as the switch dose and a maintenance dose. The controlling dose is when indifference to alcohol kicks in and the later, lower maintenance dose is where indifference is still present or not quite present and the side effects are absent or at least acceptable. Ameisen's controlling dose was 270 mg and his maintenance dose was 120 mg. In comparison my 125 mg is not high.

Whilst I am experiencing little or no problem with cravings I don't believe I have reached my controlling dose. My problem in the past was not the first drink but the second or third - once past this threshold the sky, or bottom of the barrel, was the limit. I want to reach a verifiable indifference and the verification will be to drink 4/5 beers and see if I stop. Wouldn't life be dull without silly challenges?

[joanna_d]

Colin, 65

have you tried yet Colin? (just wondering. maybe you wrote about this before, i might have missed on some reading)

[Hippyman]

Colin, 65

Colin;1437526 wrote: Ameisen wrote about a controlling dose, often referred to here as the switch dose and a maintenance dose. The controlling dose is when indifference to alcohol kicks in and the later, lower maintenance dose is where indifference is still present or not quite present and the side effects are absent or at least acceptable. Ameisen's controlling dose was 270 mg and his maintenance dose was 120 mg. In comparison my 125 mg is not high.

Whilst I am experiencing little or no problem with cravings I don't believe I have reached my controlling dose. My problem in the past was not the first drink but the second or third - once past this threshold the sky, or bottom of the barrel, was the limit. I want to reach a verifiable indifference and the verification will be to drink 4/5 beers and see if I stop. Wouldn't life be dull without silly challenges?

Alcohol is one challenge I can gladly do without! Once you reach the controlling dose does that mean you are forever on baclofen? I wasn't sure what would happen so I went of bac and soon started drinking again. Then I started on antabuse to keep me from hurting me.

[Xadrian]

Colin, 65

Hippyman;1437574 wrote: can not beat alcohol by myself. I need all the help I can get. With help I can stay sober...this time 4 sure!

Alcohol is one challenge I can gladly do without! Once you reach the controlling dose does that mean you are forever on baclofen? I wasn't sure what would happen so I went of bac and soon started drinking again. Then I started on antabuse to keep me from hurting me.

I could not have beaten the need to drink alcohol by myself either without the help of baclofen.

After 8 months on baclofen, for a few weeks now I have done it without baclofen and so far so good. But maybe I am an exception to the rule and most people have to take the maintenance dose for the rest of their lives, or maybe can taper it off a bit.

So what? If you have the choice to remain an alcoholic or to be able to live without alcohol with the use of a medicine. What would be your choice?
Exactly.

Compare it to insulin for a diabetic or high blood pressure medicine for people who suffer from high blood pressure. If they take their medicines, they can have a normal life. That's how you should consider baclofen.
Alcoholism is a chronic disease.

But off course, you could try to do without baclofen some time, like I did. So far it works for me and I don't have a problem to stay oof the alcohol.
But I can't tell you if it stays so. It's too short a period to judge that.

[joanna_d]

Colin, 65

yeeeey good for you X!!

[Hippyman]

Colin, 65

joanna_d;1437910 wrote: yeeeey good for you X!!

I agree!~ Good for you. I will stay on Bac for life. if need be! Alcoholism is a chronic debilitating disease that left untreated KILLS people. Unnecessarily SO.

[Colin]

Colin, 65

Additional Baclofen Positives?

During the past 12 days I've gone fairly quickly from 125 up to 162.5 mg baclofen in steps of 12.5 mg per day every 5 days. The somnolence during the day and sleep disturbances at night have been much easier than my earlier increases some months ago.

I am following the French doctors' advice https://dl.dropbox.com/u/59463672/Prescribing-Guide-for-Baclofen-in-the-Treatment-of-Alcoholism-Don.pdf with 4 nearly equal doses at 8:00, 13:00, 18:00 and 23:00. I find this easier than 5/6 doses with the last 2/3 hours before bed.

As well as the continuing highly unusual increase in muscle performance I believe I am noticing improvements in the nerve and cartilage pain. Perhaps both are beginning to respond to the increased human growth hormone caused by baclofen? Rats seem to be benefiting at 2 mg/kg Changes in GABA and GABA(B) receptor expressions are... [Synapse. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI which corresponds in my case to 130 mg. Probably wishful thinking but stranger things have happened.

My squat, lunge and high step exercises are limited by kneecap cartilage and leg neuropathy. I can increase the repetitions fairly easily and that is a very welcome change.

EDIT: Next physical ref is

Colin;1443795 wrote: There are some MWOers ...

[Diver]

Colin, 65

Colin - I just started on Bac and am currently taking three doses of 20mg each, every 8 hours. I plan on introducing a a 4th dose as you mention when i move up. It seems to me that the last afternoon dose should perhaps be the largest since that is the normal "witching hour" for the drinking to comence.

You mentioned a connection between HGH and BAC, this is the first that I have heard that mentioned. Could you expand on that?

[Colin]

Colin, 65

Diver;1443787 wrote: Colin - I just started on Bac and am currently taking three doses of 20mg each, every 8 hours. I plan on introducing a a 4th dose as you mention when i move up. It seems to me that the last afternoon dose should perhaps be the largest since that is the normal "witching hour" for the drinking to comence.

You mentioned a connection between HGH and BAC, this is the first that I have heard that mentioned. Could you expand on that?
There are some MWOers already taking skewed or biased doses where all or most of the daily dose is taken at a smaller number of the daily doses. e.g. if you go for 10, 10, 20, 10 you would be anticipating a drinking urge. There is no doubt that baclofen helps almost immediately to reduce the cravings. Until you get closer to your higher controlling dose the craving reduction will not be complete.

The HGH thing might be that exercise with baclofen is much easier and more productive and generates more of the goodies such as endorphins and human growth hormone which in turn might be improving muscles, nerves and cartilage regeneration. Then again, of course it might not.

Next physical link:
Colin;1452750 wrote: The Wikipedia link is ...

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Colin, 65

Colin;1443795 wrote: ...
e.g. if you go for 10, 10, 20, 10 you would be anticipating a drinking urge. There is no doubt that baclofen helps almost immediately to reduce the cravings. Until you get closer to your higher controlling dose the craving reduction will not be complete.

I'm really not sure about any of that. At least not in my case. Taking baclofen to try to preempt or control urges never worked for me. In fact, just the opposite happened. The more erratic I was with my dosing schedule, the more discombobulated I became. And I drank just about the same amount, day in and day out, until I didn't any more.

When I started to really look at the way medicines (in general) work, what I found is what other people around here had found: Half-lifes make a difference. And so does personal chemistry, but just a bit. The bottom line? There really isn't a medication that can be prescribed, and ingested, in the way that some people take baclofen--all at once. It just doesn't work like that. Which is not to say that it doesn't work like that, because obviously a couple of people do it!

My experience taking doses at different times of day when I was still titrating up, and drinking, was horrible. There are a bunch of scientific reasons for that. It helped enormously to take it more often, rather than less often. Again, there's science behind that, plus it's just rational.

My experience after indifference didn't change much, and I still took it regularly throughout the day. Until about 6 months ago when I kept forgetting to take the damn pills. Finally fed up, I decided to move them into larger amounts. I remember to take them, but I have more SEs and if I take too much, I vomit. Something I never did when I was titrating up. It actually took me a couple of weeks to figure out why I would occasionally throw up shortly after I woke up.

My last physical shows protein in my urine. I am awaiting the results of further tests, but I have to wonder if the amount of baclofen I take in such a short amount of time has had an impact on my kidneys. (Maybe not. I don't know yet. And this doc doesn't know about the bac...)

The half-life may get longer the more you take, but that doesn't mean it's any easier or any better for you. And in my experience it takes a loooong time. My husband hasn't had the same issues. (I strongly suspect a gender difference in many of our experiences on here. What may be good for the gander is not necessarily good for the goose.) He also takes his later in the day now. But still spread out over a period of 8-10 hours.

Hope that helps.

[Colin]

Colin, 65

Ne/Neva Eva;1443964 wrote: I'm really not sure about any of that. At least not in my case.

Some, like lo0p, have extremely biased schemata. I am interested in being alert at a particular time of the day.

I take pills at four times of the day; on waking, 1300, 1800 and when going to bed. My planned schema for the immediate future is:-

Day 0: total 175.0: 50, 37.5, 37.5, 50
Day 4: total 187.5: 50, 50, 37.5, 50
Day 8: total 200.0: 50, 50, 25, 75

I expect this to give me a very good chance of taking all their money when I start playing poker again in twelve days time.

[TexasAg]

Colin, 65

Good plan. My son use to take all of me and my friends money at poker night because he was the only one sober. We decided to ban him. You might want to have a decoy drink at the table with you so they don't ban you. :H

Cheers!

[Colin]

Colin, 65

Ne/Neva Eva;1443964 wrote:
The half-life may get longer the more you take, but that doesn't mean it's any easier or any better for you.

I too believe that the medical half life is not the same as a radioactive half life. In any case the active baclofen is not in the blood but in the brain and who knows how that can be measured?

Other factors might also include the length of time the brain has been swimming in an adulterated pond and .... Who cares? It certainly seems to work.