How effective is a Baclofen taper, what should I expect?

[needforthc]

Hello everyone. I'm new here. I don't want to burden you all with my whole story or something of that sort so I'll try to make this as quick as possible. I took and continue taking baclofen for a minor tramadol/codeine addiction. I've been taking 50 mg of baclofen every ~2 days for the last ~2 months. The last week I've been taking 12-25 mg daily in an attempt to taper.

I had no idea I was addicted to it but noticed that once I went without for about 3-4 days, I started getting bad benzo/opiate-like withdrawals. That's when I got scared since benzo withdrawals, although not psychologically addictive to me, seem to cause a decrease in my attention, learning, basically a decrease in my IQ so to say. This is a big no-no for me since I require to be very mentally active most of the time and I consider my brain power to be my biggest attribute.

I heard that if the dosage is decreased gradually, I am going to have a very minor withdrawal. Is this true? Did anyone here who would normally get a bad withdrawal from baclofen try the taper? How did it go?

Please feel free to add anything that you feel contributes to this discussion in anyway and don't hesitate to ask for clarifications or ask me things if you feel they are essential to the conversation and I've left them out.

 

[flyhighk]

I heard that if the dosage is decreased gradually, I am going to have a very minor withdrawal. Is this true?

This is true for all addictive substances, it's a no-brainer really.


Thread moved to other drugs.

 

[needforthc]

I know flyhigh. I can remember a pretty recent time(about a year ago) when I was addicted to about 0,5 xanax daily for only 2-3 weeks! Very small dosage. I had a very bad withdrawal. Even though I could sleep and eat, I had bad depersonalization, anxiety and depression. I just didn't care if I wound up addicted to an opiate again and I did that time. Sure. I didn't taper correctly ( should have gone to 0,1 mg, slowly, I guess). The thing that really gave me hope with the baclofen ( which works on the GABA-B receptor) is something I read on another thread here.

 

[needforthc]

• Yes there is good logic in efficacy in what he is talking about (can vouch)

• Yes there is equally MAJOR concern about withdrawal issues (can vouch)

BEFORE:
Done serious serious long term 24/7 GBL (+co-incided with benzo) withdrawal (2 weeks of complete living hell) , Being the keen experimenter (I am on bluelight you get the picture) had tried baclofen out of interest at various doses - had concluded shitty drug, side effects, long effects in general. had concluded kind of like diphenhydramine - possibly useful, kind of gets you a shitty high but essentially rubish.

THEN: Recently tried baclofen very high doses for what ended up a LONG period of time. Thats when the effects the author describes do kick in.

PROBLEM: Mistakedly (more by accident), thought I can one day go without, surprised at how utterly horific the sudden abrupt withdrawal syndrome was (sudden realisation that this was something not too disimilar from gbl). Titration was definately the key! Much more so over benzos (my logic with benzos has always been get the pain over with quicker so I can start feeling normal quicker), there is something about titration with baclofen (maybe like gbl, dopamine rebound, possible unblocking of PEA, or something! dont take my word for it, I haven't looked in to it but titration definately works)

Fundamental difference between GBL and baclofen is

1) dont need ever increasing doses for sleep (which push up the daily doses), also just tend to feel sleepy anyway
2) half-life which is probably an explanation of reason 1, but in no way do you end up popping the equivalent of gel caps every hour just to survive.
3) withdrawal doesn't really kick in till maybe 12/18/24 hours of missing dose.

Mark my words though, if you have been using high doses for prolonged periods stopping abruptly will be HARSH! (not trying to over dramatise it, admittidly nothing like gbl) but I decided I am seriosuly done with that kind of horrible dependancy on a chemical. Baclofen comes as 10mg tablets, the doses you end up needing for his scheme means large volumes of tablets, you would end up e.g needing (16x14 = 224) tablets for just a two week holiday somewhere, god forbide what would happen if you misplaced them somewhere! Try explaining in spanish to a holiday dr, please prescribe me 224 baclofen tablets and I will stop shaking, feeling paranoid and generally being at risk of seizure and collapse!

His book also reminds me of the way GHB was touted as a cure for alcoholism. Sure maybe, quite possible but until such treatments are widely available and recognised by mainstream medicine, such chemical dependancies are troublesome to say the least.

Unfortunately this wont become mainstay treatment programme for a) withdrawals suck b) generic available for donkeys years c) no one has gabaB agonists ready to patent (and if they did they would have to get through the numerous FDA hurdels of proving it could not be abused d) there is an element of "getting high" in it, the public aren't allowed, they must spend their money on shitty alcohol which is safe and taxed!

Best we can maybe hope for (which would also definately rate highly in my INTEREST category) would be some kind of partial GabaB agonist. Would be very interesting.:D (possible query over GabaB's effects on seizures though I guess, but still VERY INTERESTED

 

[MocCozmiK]

Phenibut, isn't that a gaba b agonist ?