Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

[Hippyman]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

Colin;1481591 wrote: The recent tales of bleep, Xadrian and TexasAg last year are all cases where confirmed alcoholics stop drinking, fall off the wagon, brush themselves down and get right back on the wagon with a minimum of fuss.

Go tell that to an AA meeting and see if they are ready to open their eyes and minds.

Good luck to all of you.

I am so disappointed in the success rate of AA. Most will relapse and many will die because they don't know about this relatively harmless med. Baclofen is certainly less harmful than Alcohol or Opiates! Wouldn't it be a miracle if some big shot from AA found their way sober thru Baclofen. The ripple effect of that could save 1000s of lives!

[Xadrian]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

Even at 20 mg it seems to be a big difference. Thoughts of beer did not re-appear and the remaining beer is still in the fridge and so far I have no interest in it.

Maybe, after I went down to 0 baclofen, only a slight imbalance in brain chemistry remained and maybe I will be able to correct it with only 20 mg or even 10 mg.

It's way too early to assess that, but I think I will give it a try and test it. I will go back to 10 mg and see what happens. If thoughts of beer will re-appear, I will go up to 20 mg and wait what happens and so on.

Maybe it is not necessary to go up to my supposed maintenance dose of 50 mg. Perhaps the maintenance dose can be lowered over time and is not necessarily a fixed dose.

As I have been a guinnee pig anyway, I will test this on myself and off course share the results.

As a comparisation: when I reached a dose of 50 mg after reaching the switch at 90 mg, a decrease to 40 mg caused thoughts of beer to re-appear, so I went back to 50 mg. But at a certain moment I felt I could do it without baclofen.

It turned out that I could for a while, but constantly had thoughts of drinking beer, which I was able to reject on will power. It weren't huge cravings. But it turned out that a lot of stress was able to tackle my will power.

At the moment, it feels like I can do fine at 20 mg or even at 10 mg. It really feels a lot different than completely without baclofen. The future will tell.

[RedThread12]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

Xadrian;1481931 wrote: As I have been a guinnee pig anyway, I will test this on myself and off course share the results.

Here, here to guine(a) pigs who test on themselves and report!! Interesting, bordering on tragic, to note that THIS IS the state of affairs regarding baclofen and addiction, huh? Thank you, Xadrian, and all the other little piglets who have and do contribute their experience and information about finding their way out. And helping others do the same. :armsaround:

[Cassander]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

RedThread12;1481983 wrote: ...Interesting, bordering on tragic, to note that THIS IS the state of affairs regarding baclofen and addiction, huh? ...

Amen

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

Hi Xadrian.

A couple (++ ) of questions for you:
When did you titrate up? How long did you stay at your maximum dose? When did you come down again? And to make sure I've got it right, you got to zero in December?

A couple of thoughts:

I hesitate to say what my assumptions were about titrating down to zero and then going back up again, prior to these latest experiments (yours and bleep's). I have only ever heard of one person (Bminor) going off of baclofen and maintaining sobriety for a year (or more at this point?). He was/is completely abstinent.
(I'd send him a PM, but my box is full and I'm loathe to clean it out. Would someone else?)

I hesitate because of course the news isn't good. But I've also never seen anyone try the guinea pig route. More that they just stop taking it, started drinking again, and then when things got out of hand, started the whole thing over again. (I mean to suggest that some went off with the intention of drinking again. Or that it wasn't so much an experiment but something else.)

I don't know much about your titration up, obviously. And perhaps you've read ('cause I've written it a bazillion times) that I am unclear about the 'testing' things too early. It's time+bac=contented sobriety. (imho)
I know you've got a good handle on where you've been and where you're going, but that statement sent little alarm bells off for me, so I thought I'd mention it.

And I'm interested in all this because I'm going down and conducting something similar, but only in that I'd like to get close to the FDAs approved dose. Definitely not going off, and not going down too low. So thank you!
And some :ls for good measure.

[Xadrian]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

Ne/Neva Eva;1481997 wrote: A couple (++ ) of questions for you:
When did you titrate up? How long did you stay at your maximum dose? When did you come down again? And to make sure I've got it right, you got to zero in December?

Hi Ne,


All of your requrested information can be found in the first pages of this thread, especially in the last post of page 1.

In December I came down from 50 and one week before Christmas i went down to 0.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

Found it! That explains a lot. Thanks, X. Hope you're feeling well.

[Xadrian]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

Despite of my hopes, going to 50 mg did not do the trick. I stayed a few weeks on 50 mg to stabilize the baclofen levels, but still drinking and again 12 beers or so every 3 days, just before baclofen.
It appears that I derailed completely, I had the bad moods again and a low self-esteem.
Man, what did I screw myself by trying to think I could do completely without baclofen.

Well, after I found out that 50 mg didn't do the trick, I rushed to 80 mg a day, waited a week and still drinking, even more than when at 50 mg.

Three days ago, I went to 90 mg a day, my former switch dose. Overnight my mood changed, feeling very confident and no interest in beer. I think I'm there again, but i don't want to draw rashed conclusions.
Eventhough I screwed up, it's quite an experiment to see if baclofen will work again (oh man, I do hope so that my mistake will be forgiven). All the more because I now knew where probably to find my switch dose, although I had hoped that my former maintenance dose would do.

One thing is for sure: If it turns out that I indeed have reached my switch for the second time, I will stay on it for a few months and then go down 10 mg every month untill I reach my maintenance dose of 50 mg. Then I will stay there for at least 3 months and then try 40 mg. If it only will look that that dose will give a problem, I will correct to 50 mg.

So, a year and 9 days after I first reached my swith, I probably (or should I say possibly?) reached my switch again.

So, here's my warning to anyone who has had success with baclofen and thinks he or she can now do without baclofen: DON'T DO IT!

By the way, the second time titrating up gave me less side-effects than the first time.
When rushing up from 50 to 80 mg, I had 2 a 2-day headache and till now, at around 2 PM I have a "dip", getting a little sleepy. This I had also the first time titrating up, but it disappeared overtime.
Another side-effect is that I sleep very well at night, which is a welcome side-effect for me.

[MaryGoRound]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

:goodjob:

Glad to hear the news!

You are lucky to have a low switch and maintenance dose. Even at your maintenance dose you are well within the normal range. So you need to take a few pills. It could definitely be worse!

[Colin]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

Xadrian;1504579 wrote:
So, here's my warning to anyone who has had success with baclofen and thinks he or she can now do without baclofen: DON'T DO IT!

Perhaps your warning should be "Don't be in a hurry and don't drink at all". I believe there are cases where zero baclofen is successful after a long teetotal + baclofen period but only when succeeded by abstinence.

[Xadrian]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

Even when I was back at 90 mg, I still had need for beer.
Maybe I needed more than 90 mg to switch this time, because I already was kind of used to baclofen? That didn't sound logic to me, but hey, if I had to go higher, then I had to do what I had to do.

Then I asked myself what I had done different this time and it turned out that at my 1st switch, I took the pills in 3 doses a day (30-30-30) and now in 4 (30-20-20-20).
So I took them in 3 doses a day and guess what?

The rest of the beers still are in the fridge since a week. F*ck them.
I'm feeling way better. Not euphoric, but I feel good, I feel normal. I wish I felt like this all of my life.
Only the headache is somewhat annoying.

The above confirms my former opinion regarding the switch dose: It's the peeks that trigger the switch and not the average dose. But to be sure, I think I will do some experiments on myself again in the future. I think I'm a good subject for it, because my switch dose is relatively low, I have proven to drink again after a while of baclofen free and the experiments probably won't harm me and my family very much. I can oversee the complications.

If I could help other people with it, then I will do it.
Maybe I will issue a poll to see if there could be additional proof in my theory.

Anyway, so far I seem to have switched again at 90 mg.

[MaryGoRound]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

Excellent news.

[Xadrian]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

After 3 days of 90 mg (30-30-30) I decided to continue my experiment and see if my theory of the peak holds, so I went to 60 mg, divided in 2 doses (30-30), in the morning at 8 AM and in the evening at 8 PM.
So far it works.

I tried drinking beer 3 days ago, when I had been working in the hot sun. The first tasted good, the second had a dirty taste. After that I drank soft drink and water.

Yesterday I tried again, the first 2 sips of the beer tasted very good, after that again the dirty taste.
I threw the rest of the can away.

By the way, 60 mg is still 10 mg more than my former maintenance dose, which I divided in 3 doses.

It's clear to me that the half-life of the baclofen blood-levels do not resemble the half-life of the effects of baclofen on the brain.
Now I wonder if I could have reached the switch at 60 mg, but in 2 doses. Could be an experiment for the future. First see what happens if I stay on 60 (30-30). It's too early to draw conclusions.

I will keep you all posted.

[dundrinkn]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

I am going to try this at home...
My daily dose has been at 140 since the weekend, broken into three doses (50 50 40). I have been 17 days AF. As of yesterday, my thoughts/feelings about alcohol seem to have completely vanished. Weren't much before then. But looking for the switch. However, since going from 110 to 120 I have had weird pain in my legs when I bend them and my skin stretches. Painful and annoying.

I am going to start to switch today to (50 30 60). If I don't suffer for it, I will go to (60 20 60) tomorrow. Then start to lower my mid day dose 10 mg every 3 days to 5 days until it is eliminated. I am hoping my leg pain goes away if I lower overall amount, but keep peak dosage up past where it is at switch. I can add on to the two doses if needed.

Will keep you posted. I love this idea! Thanks for doing the initial trail.

[Colin]

Xadrian's Baclofen Experience

dundrinkn;1512401 wrote:
I am going to start to switch today to (50 30 60). If I don't suffer for it, I will go to (60 20 60) tomorrow.

I believe that Dr. Levin's schema is something like (2x, x, 2x) which is close enough to your (50, 30, 60).

My current dose is (37, 25, 25, 50) and I am moving slowly towards Dr. L's schema in an effort to minimise the daytime somnolence.

The effect of the small dose in the middle of the day will be to ensure that the daily minimum doesn't drop to far. This might be a Nobel prize winning observation - then again, it might not.