Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

[Lo0p]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

Ahh, now I remember. NE just mentioned it on another thread. Some people do have problems with bac and snoring. Or at least I remember one case where it caused someone severe and scary sleep apnea (we think). And I bet Neva's hubby complains about her snoring and she blames it on the baclofen...rgr that, we have correlation, which in turn effectively establishes causation.

NE, come and set me straight. I'm sure there's more complaints than I'm remembering, aren't there?

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

I know, Lo0p. You're probably right.

A couple of things happen with baclofen that may cause snoring. One is that it causes a runny nose. (This is listed in the information packet you get with the medicine.) It can be very annoying and lead to a sore throat and all that other fun post-nasal drip stuff. (A cough, and if it's really bad, chest congestion.) It stops. You can take OTC stuff to deal with it. Or use a neti-pot, which is a great no-med solution. Especially if it's related to sleep apnea, which can be more serious.

If you've got some other risk factors for apnea (weight, smoking, drinking etc) then you'll want to keep an eye on it. Or rather pay attention to it, because it can lead to a really lousy night's sleep. Some of the best advice I ever got (from Lo0p) was to guard my sleep. In the beginning that can mean making sure that you are getting a good night's sleep when you're actually sleeping.

Bac may cause apnea or apneic symptoms from muscle relaxation, or some other mechanism we don't really know about. Sleeping on your side may also just make it go away. And if you don't have sleep apnea, it might be transient.

The reason I'm offering this relatively lengthy explanation is that not getting a good night's sleep can really exacerbate the whole process of getting sober, with or without bac. Fortunately, bac also tends to help with sleep in the beginning. Such a conundrum, right?

EDIT: oh. And you could just be a snore-er and never knew it.
Good luck, and thanks for posting.

[Diver]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

NE/LoOp,
Thanks for responding, I didn?t realize that post-nasal drip could be a SE. Since I got the flu shortly after I started my Bac regime, I thought that my running nose was from that. I have noticed that I have a fair amount of drainage so maybe that is the cause for my snoring.

I have another question, I just completed week three on Bac and I am up to 150mgs per day. Other than the snoring, running nose and a bit of spaciness :confusedmonkey: (probably not a word) I haven?t had any major SE?s. Is there any reason that I should slow down my titration schedule? I am planning to continue to add 20mgs a day until I hit the switch, could this be dangerous?

[Diver]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

A quick update I am on day 3 at 170mgs of bac, my journey started 25 days ago so if you do the math I titrated up fairly quickly. I also have continued to follow TSM. I am still having some SE’s mostly extreme grogginess in the late afternoon, runny nose, snoring at night and some nighttime sweats. I am planning to stay at 170 for another 4 or 5 days, I am starting to feel a change and hope that I am getting close to the elusive switch.

One thing that I noticed is that I have gained five pounds, which I can’t explain. My workouts have been consistent and I do not feel like my calorie intake has increased. My only thought is that maybe I am retaining more H2O.

Has anyone else ever experienced this????

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

Diver;1452151 wrote: Is there any reason that I should slow down my titration schedule? I am planning to continue to add 20mgs a day until I hit the switch, could this be dangerous?

Yeah, I think that's nuts. I know of some people who have done something similar-ish, and I think they're nuts too. But I also think of them as friends. Still, I'm glad you're going to take it easy.

It depends on what you mean by dangerous, btw. Will it kill you? Highly doubtful. Could it lead to the ER? oh yes. Will they find anything actually wrong with you? Maybe not. Baclofen'll mess you up. So even as you have found a more moderate titration schedule, I would encourage you to continue to practice a bit of caution. One level is not necessarily like the next. You could look up a thread started by bleep_69. He had a few adventures. And Terryk, too. Please read them if you have a chance.

The weight gain? I dunno. There was one woman who had a lot of trouble w sleep apnea, snoring, and weight gain. They could go hand in hand. Dunno.
I do know that spaciness is a word. At least in terms of being a legitimate descriptor when taking baclofen.

[Diver]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

I can't believe that it has been over five weeks since I have checked this forum. Life got very busy, I ended up having to do a bunch of work travel over the past three weeks, one week I lived in airplanes 13 flights in 6 days. I hope that I never have to do that again.
The good news is that my snoring seems to have stopped, which my wife is very happy about. I have had a lot of joint pain which I know is a established SE of Bac. I just completed week 10 and I am at 280mgs divided up into 5 doses. My alcohol consumption has been up that last couple of weeks due to all the heavy travel. Nothing like a couple of free drinks in the airline clubs to help make the travel a little more bearable. Of course there would be a few more on the flights and more at the hotel. Ugly :argh but surprisingly I was able to function at a high level during day.

I hope to get caught up on my thread reading this week and have finally been able to go AF today for the first time in over three weeks.

[StuckinLA]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

Hey congrats on the AF day! For real. And all that travel would make just about anyone drink. Glad you handled it well, and are handling the 280 well. My hat's off to you!

[bleep]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

Just a theory, with nothing at all to back it up other than what happened to me:

A fairly rapid titration, which yours is, could see you going past your switch dose. That's not really a problem if the SE's aren't bothering you though. It just means you will be able to reduce once you get there. I think that the time you are on baclofen also makes a difference to reaching indifference, as well as the actual dose.

As I say, I can't back that up with anything though.

[Diver]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

LA,
Thanks and it looks life today will be AF number 2!!!!
Bleep,
I do have some SE's but they are not kicking my ass at the moment. I wonder how I would know if I hit my switch dose or passed it?

Thanks both of you for your replys.

[bleep]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

Passing it and/or hitting it are the same thing, in that the desire to drink will suddenly be gone. I'll give you mine as an example - I went pretty quickly up to 400 - later I was able to go back all the way to 240, and indifference held. I am pretty sure that if I had gone slowly to 240, it would have worked that way as well, but my approach was take as much as possible, as quickly as possible - sort of what got me into this trouble in the first place!

I don't know, back to my 'theory' again - As Eve put it in another thread, the brain is plastic, and baclofen can remold it (I'm paraphrasing here). I think it starts doing that from the moment you take it, even in small quantities, and so time plays a role as well. Obviously (or maybe not, maybe taking a really low dose for years would get the job done?) the dose required depends on your brain, and so that also plays a role.

None of these theories actually matter though; what counts is that it works. These just sort of made sense to me given my experience. It is quite probably very wrong from a scientific POV.

[Diver]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

Time for an update, as I stated in an earlier post I have continued to titrate up and I am now at 310 per day and plan to go up to 320 tomorrow. I weigh about 194 right now and I wonder how high I can go safely? :anyonethere:

I did let my wife in on the fact that I was doing this and of course she is worried about my high dose, so if there is any literature out there about how high a person can go that I could share with her that would be helpful.

I also wrote earlier that I was off of the Xanax and Ambien, however about 10 days ago I got hit with some nasty insomnia, so I have started taking one or the other at bedtime to help me get a decent night's sleep. This has helped tremendously, I am thankful that I have a good supply of both.

I posted on another thread that my cardio workouts haven't been as intense as they were at lower doses so I have gained a few pounds but that is a very small price to pay if I can finally get the alcoholic GORILLA :shockedmonkey: off of my aching back!

Thanks for reading and for all of the invaluable input so far.

[MaryGoRound]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

How is your AL intake? Have you noticed any changes? Do you have different feelings about AL? i am just wondering.

I have heard people going beyond 400 but I have no direct experience.

[bleep]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

You can go much higher than that if you need to. I know that Dr A took someone to 550 before, and I have personally taken more than that, so from a health point of view it's ok.

One thing to be aware of, is that indifference can be around you, but you just carry on as normal without realising anything has changed. It takes a couple of AF days, and suddenly you realise the world has altered. Something to try out perhaps?

[Diver]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

One thing that I should have mentioned in my ealier post, is that about a month ago I decided to stop TSM, I had some improvement through TSM but it didn't get me to where I needed to be. I stopped taking NAL because I was titrating up rapidly on BAC and was somewhat concerned about all the meds that I was taking.

DUMB ASS :argh: My units have gone up to near Pre-TSM levels, so a week ago I restarted TSM and hopefully that will help keep my units under controls until I hit the switch.

I have upped my dosage to 320 mgs. of BAC today. A string of AF days is probably a great idea but alas it is the weekend so I am not strong enough to go for an AF days on Friday and Saturday.

Thanks for the responses.

[joethelion]

Diver's TSM and Baclofen Journey ... ???

I also think stopping TSM is not good, especially after using for a while. I experienced that one tends to go back to where he was really fast, also possibly as the number receptors have increased during the blockage.

Do hang in there Diver; TSM works in subtler ways than bac, but it really works. But it takes more than 2-3 months. In our case it took more than 8. Bac + TSM are a great combination.