baclofen and blacking out

[Eagle1234]

i started baclofen about 3 months ago, im up to 120mg a day now, tritating up slowly. I havent hit my switch dose yet and still have the compulsion to drink so im still drinking. i notice that when i drink i have a partial blackout which never happened before on similar amounts of alcohol.

A story to show what is happening, a few days ago i purchased a house and i received a phone call saying the owner had accepted my offer, a very happy moment indeed. My partner the following morning was celebratory to me and I said to my partner "we dont even know if we have the place confirmed yet". She looked at me strangely and told the story of the phone call. I dug deep in my memory and realised that ah yes there had been a call but i completely forgot about it. I dont remember the contents of the conversation at this stage but when she said that i realised i did remember some of it.

This scared me given how important the news was, the only time i have blacked out like that was when i was taking xanax.

Is this a normal SE of baclofen when consumed with alcohol?

[YouKayBee]

baclofen and blacking out

Alcohol can make baclofen SEs worse.

I had a couple of incidents where my legs just went from under me whilst drinking and taking HDB. It was really scary, didn't black out though, did temporarily damage my lower back which luckily healed eventually.

[Corleone25]

baclofen and blacking out

Even without alcohol, I had some pretty scary blackouts when I was at the 140ish range. There were some pretty frightening driving episodes in particular. When my insomnia was at its peak I found myself realizing I was on the freeway, and had no destination whatsoever. Another time, I was headed to see my mother, and didn't notice that I had driven right past her exit until I was 20 minutes down the road. It's very important to monitor yourself to the best of your abilities on this drug.

[flyer]

baclofen and blacking out

Booze and Baclofen can be hard going. Antabuse might help to titrate up without having to worry about the drink.

Regarding driving... I just had to stop. I would drive somewhere and not even remember how I got there. I walked home from the shops one day and forgot that I'd drove there and had to go back to get the car

I wouldn't totally blame the Baclofen as my memory is shot to pieces from from booze, benzo's and lots of other drugs.

[Colin]

baclofen and blacking out

flyer;1549305 wrote:
I wouldn't totally blame the Baclofen as my memory is shot to pieces from from booze, benzo's and lots of other drugs.

That's about right. There have been suggestions that baclofen may be responsible for some short term memory loss; mine is significantly worse since starting baclofen some seventeen months ago.

The baclofen somnolence won't help with memory problems so who knows?

[Eagle1234]

baclofen and blacking out

Corleone25;1549302 wrote: Even without alcohol, I had some pretty scary blackouts when I was at the 140ish range. There were some pretty frightening driving episodes in particular. When my insomnia was at its peak I found myself realizing I was on the freeway, and had no destination whatsoever. Another time, I was headed to see my mother, and didn't notice that I had driven right past her exit until I was 20 minutes down the road. It's very important to monitor yourself to the best of your abilities on this drug.

wow that sounds scary, is it better now?

[Corleone25]

baclofen and blacking out

Eagle,

I'm not currently on it, and I'm deciding whether or not I'm going to give it another try. I'm afraid of suddenly running out of pills and enduring the god awful withdrawals. When my doc took me off it, he didn't titrate me down, and seizures ensued. The crazy thing is that I still feel that the benefits of baclofen outweigh the side effects and withdrawals --- as long as titration up/down is done slowly and your pill supply doesn't run out.