Baclofen, a personal journey.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

oops. Must read all the way through before asking questions! Sorry!

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

MissIndygo;1590712 wrote: Haha no thank heavens lol.

To answer some of your questions Neo:

I started taking Bac in August and I used Ameisen's dosing schedule of going up every 3 days by 10mg (I think that's what it was from memory, I've lend the book out so I cannot check).
Aargh. People do this all the time, but OA was taking bac for a year before he titrated down and then back up again. (I have lent my books so many times that I finally ordered 12 of them so I can stop lending the one that saved my life!)

MissIndygo;1590712 wrote:
Caused by bac?

Maybe. Mine was.

I had a similar experience in the ER. Those fuckwads. I'm still pissed off about it and it's been 3+ years.

I was scared to death about taking meds I'd ordered online since I didn't take meds in general and I had certainly never thought of ordering them without a doc's prescription. (Oh how things have changed! :H) I was very cautious when I started. There weren't really any guidelines back then, so when I had a vacation I decided to titrate up quickly and had a complete meltdown. (I went from ~25mg to ~75mg in one week. That coupled with an inordinate amount of booze because that's what I used to do when I had a vacation. I am so grateful I made it out of that hell. Can't wait until you have! :l)

I've got to run! Family descending for the big holiday tomorrow and I've got cooking and cleaning to do. Couple that with the fact that I decided to completely redecorate and bought some new furniture and curtains. Add to it that I had a couple of glasses of wine last night, and it's going to be a loooong day. (Don't be too disappointed about the wine. You can make up your mind about what you want to drink and when and why after you're free. I did. But that doesn't mean that even two glasses is free from repercussion. It's not, for me anyway.)

Cheerio or whatever you Dutch Australians say. G'day mate.

[Alky]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

I ended up in the ER after my wife called emergency services after I nearly choked on my own vomit while passed out. ERs are very callous places. They don't see a passed out drunk as a legitimate medical emergency. Remember when Dr. Ameisen fell and broke a rib and they wouldn't give him any pain medication? I received zero medical care. They just kept me "under observation" me until my BAC was under a threshold that they could release me. Nothing for the withdrawals. One nurse callously said it should be as unpleasant as possible so "I'd learn my lesson."

[MissIndygo]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

Alky;1591024 wrote: One nurse callously said it should be as unpleasant as possible so "I'd learn my lesson."

Oh my god, that is just unbelievable!!

Here is what I have been drinking and what I am drinking at the moment. Hopefully I can add to this in the future with lowering numbers, as I get along in this bac adventure.

When I have gone through phases were I could be a fairly controlled alci I would drink at least 6 cans of Bourbon and coke on weeknights.
Each can would be 2.4 standard drinks or units (I like them strong).

Standard drink in:
Australia is 10 grams or 12.7 ml
USA is 14 grams or 17.7 ml

So 1 Oz unit is: 0.714 US unit.
(I have just quickly pulled this of the internet, so not a 100% of its accuracy).

6 cans = 14.4 Oz units and would be 10.3 US units (by the above calculator).

Sometimes I would throw a few beers down for good measure as well.

On the weekends this would just be a starter and I would most likely end up drinking at least double the units, if not more.

On a side note: I started drinking pre-mixed cans about 15 years ago instead of buying it in a bottle, which would be cheaper, so as to control my intake. Haha I just kept buying more and more cans.

Anyways our financial situation changed dramatically and we couldn't afford the good stuff anymore.
Now during the week I drink cask wine (I know I never thought I would go that low either) and on the weekend it is wine and beer and maybe a couple of cans.
So about 2 liters of wine a day at the present.

Actually that doesn't sound too bad for a seasoned alci :blush:

Ill post this now, as I am too scared I am going to be timed out...

[spiritwolf333]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

Hi Indy -glad to see you on board. Sounds like you are ready for BAC action. Looks like you have got some great support in your corner already. Look forward to reading about your progress.

[MissIndygo]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

spiritwolf333;1591337 wrote: Hi Indy -glad to see you on board. Sounds like you are ready for BAC action. Looks like you have got some great support in your corner already. Look forward to reading about your progress.

Thanks Spirit. Nice of you Have you got a progress thread?

I forgot to mention the benders. Heaps and heaps of benders for normally two days, sometimes three. Probably about once every week or at least every two weeks.

I decided to change my bac scheduling just a tiny bit:
25 mg at 7 am
55 mg at 1 pm
80 mg at 6 pm.

Since being on bac (well once I had stablised on 150mg for over a month) I still drink the 2 liters a day, but I start way early. Like 11am.

I blame that more on my life situation, as I am just bored out of my brain and not many positive changes regarding employment and what not in the near foreseeable future. Also my partner works away for 4 days out 5, so it's pretty lonely.

I don't call them benders tho, as drinking 2 liters of wine over that many hours (I normally crash at about 8.30 pm) doesn't get you really buzzed.

I don't drink to ease up the hangovers either, as I don't get hangovers on bac.
Maybe a reason I don't get the horrible hangovers that people have mentioned on here is because on bac I actually eat when drinking. Whereas previously I could go for days of drinking and not eating. Now I have an appetite, which sure is a lot healthier and better for me.
Maybe that is also why I don't get drunk? Or just because I drink so slow. God I don't know.

Today I am not feeling so impatient anymore about wanting the bac to start kicking in already. I rather take my time with dosing up slowly.

The 5 mg increase once weekly seems to be going well so far.
Whenever I dose up I have noticed that I get what I call "the wobbly knee syndrome", where it feels like my knees might just give way all of a sudden. Never happened though.

All through the last months I have had extreme night sweats. Where I will wake up and it is literally dripping of me. Not nice. I believe though that that maybe due to the combination of bac and alcohol, because on the few occasions that I haven't had a drink it does not seem to happen. So that's something for me to look forward to in the future.

Anyhow I will leave it at that for today,

Cheerio

[neophyte]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

hey Indy, have a read of the prescribing guide created by Dr L

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/59463672/Prescribing-Guide-for-Baclofen-in-the-Treatment-of-Alcoholism-Don.pdf

it will answer a few of things you are going through. One thing that the guide mentions is that initally drinking often increases when baclofen is started, this happened to me. the not getting drunk like before on bac is also normal, i beleive its why i would try to drink more because i was not getting the same kick.

[MissIndygo]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

neophyte;1591387 wrote: hey Indy, have a read of the prescribing guide created by Dr L

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/59463672/Prescribing-Guide-for-Baclofen-in-the-Treatment-of-Alcoholism-Don.pdf

it will answer a few of things you are going through. One thing that the guide mentions is that initally drinking often increases when baclofen is started, this happened to me. the not getting drunk like before on bac is also normal, i beleive its why i would try to drink more because i was not getting the same kick.

Hi Neo,

Thanks for that. I had come across it before.
The increase of 10 mg every third day clearly didn't agree with me. So many side effect, so I will only list a couple here:

All the usual: extreme tiredness, tired aching body, headache, tingling sensation in feet at all times, life-like dreams.
Other: no motivation for anything, flat emotion (upped my anti-depressant by 50mg, but no difference so took that down again to my normal 150mg a day), inside sensation of trembling - a bit like jetlag, extreme dry mouth in the mornings, weak bladder sensation if taken too late at night, sore cheekbones, slurred speech - like having a fat tongue, sore knees, sore hips, heart palpitations, my nerve pain in my schoulder and arm caused by crooked disc got a 100% worse, exteme night sweating, and finally loss of libido and certainly no success in trying to get anywhere close to the big O.
Oh

They have all but gone since I stabilised on bac 150mg for about a month. Just get "the wobbly knee syndrome" when I up. Just for a few days. Oh and a bit of shoulder and neck pain at times (not connected to my disc problem, it feels more like a stiffness and tiredness), the night sweating, oh and sometimes a sore hip. Nothing too worrisome anyway
Somnolence is not really an issue anymore either. Except after dinner at night I can't stay awake. I go to sleep at 8:30pm, but that's fine for someone who always had an issue with falling asleep.

Cheerio

[MissIndygo]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

Ne/Neva Eva;1590998 wrote: Aargh. People do this all the time, but OA was taking bac for a year before he titrated down and then back up again.

I can't remember reading that in the book. Or did you find that out elsewhere?
I thought he was on Nal for the 12 months or so preceding his bac experiment?

[Alky]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

I have a revised dosing schedule from Dr L he dictated to me literally a few days before his troubles began. He revised it in a more conservative direction.

[MissIndygo]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

Alky;1591434 wrote: I have a revised dosing schedule from Dr L he dictated to me literally a few days before his troubles began. He revised it in a more conservative direction.

Hi Alky, nice to see you on board again!

Do you care to share it? Then again he revised it for you, so not sure what value it would add.
What I understand is that Dr L changed prescription protocols for quite a few people? And good for him. We're all just a tiny little bit differently wired, so we may all need a different approach?

In my case, I will just listen to my body and take notice of how my mind reacts and do it my way: very very very slow.

@Alky, I was under the impression that you weren't taking Baclofen?

Cheerio

[MissIndygo]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

Ne/Neva Eva;1590982 wrote: I heart the Dutch. So practical and reasonable! Smart, healthy, rich...The Netherlands has got it all going on. It all started with Lowcountryman. Before I met him (here) all I knew about the Netherlands was drugs and prostitutes. I lived in Asia for a while and drugs and prostitutes are not something I associate with practical, reasonable, healthy, smart and rich. (Ugh. Just the opposite.) And JoannaD sealed the deal for me. I can make assumptions about a lot of the world based on whom I've met here!...

Yes I've seen lowcountryman & JoanneD around as well. Love their contributions to the various threads.
Love the fact that other Dutchies are out here fighting the cause.
However, someone once told me that assumption is the mother of all fuck ups. I think it was my partner and unsurpringly i found it is true.

Don't ever assume anything.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

Morning, Indy. Good to have all your stats. You might appreciate it later, too. I couldn't keep it all straight when I was drinking, and it really helped to have it written down. Even now, it's good to be able to go back and search for stuff. Organization of those kinds of details was never really my forte, though. I always planned on doing something similar to what Lo0p did with his chart, so I carried a little notebook with me everywhere. The nonsensical chicken-scratch of many of those entries make me laugh and cringe today. On one memorable day my employer found the notebook and was confused by that day's entry: 30 @10, 30 @1, 30 @4 etc... I told her it was situps for a new exercise program I was starting. Oy vey.

MissIndygo;1591430 wrote: I can't remember reading that in the book. Or did you find that out elsewhere?
I thought he was on Nal for the 12 months or so preceding his bac experiment?
He started baclofen in March, 2002 (p. 147 of the hardcover). He titrated up to 180 mg over the course of "a couple of months" (p. 148). He found rat studies that indicated that more baclofen might be more effective, and he decided to experiment. On Jan. 8, 2004, he titrated down to 30 mg and then he started aggressively titrating up (p.166). So it was actually closer to 2 years.

MissIndygo;1591554 wrote:
Don't ever assume anything.

I hear you. And I was being rather tongue-in-cheek. That said, I happily make a lot of assumptions. Like the fact that most of us are here for one purpose and that we all have the best of intentions. I wouldn't be able to participate here if that weren't the case. And in 3+ years, I've found that to be mostly true.

[Alky]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

MissIndygo;1591483 wrote: @Alky, I was under the impression that you weren't taking Baclofen?

Bac was truly my last best hope. Campral sorta, kinda helped, but we can't get generic acamprosate in the USA and I decided that shelling out $200/month for something that was only sorta, kinda helping was an unwise use of my money. I considered Nal and TSM, but honestly the blackouts and the falling were getting so bad that I don't think I had the 6-12 months to spare for it to work. I honestly think I would have been dead within a year.

By the way, I am still at a much lower dose than you, but I think I may be approaching the switch. I think I'm at 75 - I don't have my chart right in front of me. But yesterday after a grueling day, I cracked open a 16 ounce beer, got about a third of the way through it and got a pleasant little buzz going and decided I didn't need to finish it. I'm going to keep going up though, until this becomes a recognizable pattern. But I'm really hoping this is a sign the switch is approaching.

[MissIndygo]

Baclofen, a personal journey.

Ne/Neva Eva;1591572 wrote: Morning, Indy. Good to have all your stats. You might appreciate it later, too. I couldn't keep it all straight when I was drinking, and it really helped to have it written down. Even now, it's good to be able to go back and search for stuff. Organization of those kinds of details was never really my forte, though. I always planned on doing something similar to what Lo0p did with his chart, so I carried a little notebook with me everywhere. The nonsensical chicken-scratch of many of those entries make me laugh and cringe today. On one memorable day my employer found the notebook and was confused by that day's entry: 30 @10, 30 @1, 30 @4 etc... I told her it was situps for a new exercise program I was starting. Oy vey.



He started baclofen in March, 2002 (p. 147 of the hardcover). He titrated up to 180 mg over the course of "a couple of months" (p. 148). He found rat studies that indicated that more baclofen might be more effective, and he decided to experiment. On Jan. 8, 2004, he titrated down to 30 mg and then he started aggressively titrating up (p.166). So it was actually closer to 2 years.



I hear you. And I was being rather tongue-in-cheek. That said, I happily make a lot of assumptions. Like the fact that most of us are here for one purpose and that we all have the best of intentions. I wouldn't be able to participate here if that weren't the case. And in 3+ years, I've found that to be mostly true.

Sorry I didn't mean to be offending to you in any way.
It's just that assumptions can create sh#t, and from my own experience (as mentioned above) I have learned the hard way to never assume anything.

Plus: I really like the saying that assumption is the mother of all f#ck ups hehe. Again imho that is so true.

Love your contribution on these boards Ne, never assume otherwise out of anything I may post here
I think it is great that some of the long-time Mwo's are still here. You give me, and I assume (hihi) many others hope!

Thank you!