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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

gabapentin and baclofen for benzodiazepine withdrawal

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Robomarley1

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
125
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Stankonia
I have an old prescription of gabapentin and was recently prescribed baclofen for benzodiazepine withdrawal. I was wondering if I could take them together?
 
Robomarley1 said:
I have an old prescription of gabapentin and was recently prescribed baclofen for benzodiazepine withdrawal. I was wondering if I could take them together?
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Yes you can. But the Baclofen and Gabapentin will potentiate each other. And therefore help ease the Benzo withdrawal even more.

Win Win.

Careful you don't over do it though.
 
I was just planing on taking 300 mgs every 8 hours for about 3 weeks. I am not sure how often I am going to take baclofen. I know that you can become dependent on both of them.
 
BenzoBrain^^ said:
How much Gabapentin do you plan on taking and for how long?
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Robomarley1 said:
I was just planing on taking 300 mgs every 8 hours for about 3 weeks. I am not sure how often I am going to take baclofen. I know that you can become dependent on both of them.
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Some people become dependent easier/quicker than others.

I was prescribed 600 mg per day of PREGABALIN everyday for nearly 6 years and suffered next to no withdrawal, considering, PREGABALIN is said to be 3-4x more potent than GABAPENTIN. I was very lucky. Whereas I can't seem to shake the benzos... 3 months completely clean and I'll still be suffering acute withdrawal symptoms (Tinnitus, extreme sensitivity to light, sound, touch, almost constantly sweating from head-to-toe, day and night, extreme anxiety, agoraphobia, insomnia, a sensation as if you have ants crawling on/over my brain...)

Still, you should be ok.. But please be careful.
 
pally pete said:
Some people become dependent easier/quicker than others.

I was prescribed 600 mg per day of PREGABALIN everyday for nearly 6 years and suffered next to no withdrawal, considering, PREGABALIN is said to be 3-4x more potent than GABAPENTIN. I was very lucky. Whereas I can't seem to shake the benzos... 3 months completely clean and I'll still be suffering acute withdrawal symptoms (Tinnitus, extreme sensitivity to light, sound, touch, almost constantly sweating from head-to-toe, day and night, extreme anxiety, agoraphobia, insomnia, a sensation as if you have ants crawling on/over my brain...)

Still, you should be ok.. But please be careful.
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Congrats on 3 months off benzos
 
pally pete said:
I love to say thanks.... but, I relapsed a while ago now. I was just saying - the longest I've ever managed clean off them is 3 months.

Once they've got their claws into you they never want to let go!
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I totally understand and when I was reading your comment and how you listed your symptoms it brought me right back to where I was, for me the last symptom that lingered was the sudden waves of anxiety that last only a minute or so but it would come out of nowhere ,.
May I ask you when you stopped for 3 months what dose were you at ?
 
Without any thorough knowledge these two will help at least or kill at best any WD's.

Baclofen is basicly a GABA-b agonist, while Benzo's work on GABA-a. Gabapentin or in my case Pregabalin surely helped. Just watch your dose of Baclofen, if its anything like Phenibut it can get very nausseating
 
I never found phenibut to help benzo withdrawal much. In some ways the phenibut mania can make it worse. Never had much success with gabapentin either.

Pregabalin is a different matter however, though also mania inducing, offers more comfort than phenibut. Never tried baclofen for benzo withdrawal personally but i have tried f-phenibut which is very similar to baclofen. Not much luck there either.
 
Just a little pinprick said:
I totally understand and when I was reading your comment and how you listed your symptoms it brought me right back to where I was, for me the last symptom that lingered was the sudden waves of anxiety that last only a minute or so but it would come out of nowhere ,.
May I ask you when you stopped for 3 months what dose were you at ?
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My doses have been historically sporadic/high/infrequent - so I honestly couldn't say accurately... at my worst about 10 years ago I was binging through upto 300 mg Alprazolam (Xanax) in a weekend.

Ridiculous. Disgusting.

That symptom you talk about reminds me of how I'd imagine a woman going through menopause has hot flushes??
 
BenzoBrain^^ said:
I know the feeling! I have been taking benzos daily for almost a year and they are by far the hardest drugs I've ever tried stopping. My psychiatrist is tapering me off Valium and I'm drinking an insane amount of alcohol to cope with the anxiety spikes. It is draining my bank account. All I do is get drunk, pass out, wake up, and get drunk again. Wake up with cracked ribs, in random hotel rooms, etc. It's basically a disaster.
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Try your best to lay off the Alcohol as it will mess up your taper/GABA levels.

benzo.org.uk : Benzodiazepines: How They Work & How to Withdraw, Prof C H Ashton DM, FRCP, 2002

"
THE ASHTON MANUAL SUPPLEMENT, APRIL 2011

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM PROFESSOR ASHTON, JANUARY 2007

Professor Ashton would like to draw attention to the following points which are mentioned in the manual but not always heeded by doctors or patients:​

  1. It is worth pointing out to your prescriber that the withdrawal schedules provided in the manual are only intended as general guides. The rate of tapering should never be rigid but should be flexible and controlled by the patient, not the doctor, according to the patient's individual needs which are different in every case.​

  2. The decision to withdraw is also the patient's decision and should not be forced by the doctor.​
  3. Note that alcohol acts like benzodiazepines and should be used, if at all, in strict moderation as advised in this manual.​

  5. Antibiotics for some reason, sometimes seem to aggravate withdrawal symptoms. However, one class of antibiotics, the quinolones, actually displace benzodiazepines from their binding sites on GABA-receptors. These can precipitate acute withdrawal in people taking or tapering from benzodiazepines. It may be necessary to take antibiotics during benzodiazepine withdrawal but if possible the quinolones should be avoided. (There are at least six different quinolones - ask your doctor if in doubt).​
C. H. Ashton, January 2007 "​
 
pally pete said:
Try your best to lay off the Alcohol as it will mess up your taper/GABA levels.

benzo.org.uk : Benzodiazepines: How They Work & How to Withdraw, Prof C H Ashton DM, FRCP, 2002

"
THE ASHTON MANUAL SUPPLEMENT, APRIL 2011

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM PROFESSOR ASHTON, JANUARY 2007

Professor Ashton would like to draw attention to the following points which are mentioned in the manual but not always heeded by doctors or patients:​

  1. It is worth pointing out to your prescriber that the withdrawal schedules provided in the manual are only intended as general guides. The rate of tapering should never be rigid but should be flexible and controlled by the patient, not the doctor, according to the patient's individual needs which are different in every case.​

  2. The decision to withdraw is also the patient's decision and should not be forced by the doctor.​
  3. Note that alcohol acts like benzodiazepines and should be used, if at all, in strict moderation as advised in this manual.​

  5. Antibiotics for some reason, sometimes seem to aggravate withdrawal symptoms. However, one class of antibiotics, the quinolones, actually displace benzodiazepines from their binding sites on GABA-receptors. These can precipitate acute withdrawal in people taking or tapering from benzodiazepines. It may be necessary to take antibiotics during benzodiazepine withdrawal but if possible the quinolones should be avoided. (There are at least six different quinolones - ask your doctor if in doubt).​
C. H. Ashton, January 2007 "​
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Thanks for posting this , What they described I went thru,I was taking my regular dose of Valium but felt like I missed it , i reached a point where I couldn’t go on ,even though I dosed an had a several months supply worth it didn’t matter I was just sick , that’s when I knew it was time to stop.

Being a dope fiend this made no sense to me but I knew the Valium was causing it without a doubt .( I had a tramadol habit too at the time .)


WHY SHOULD YOU COME OFF BENZODIAZEPINES?



“Furthermore, the evidence suggests that benzodiazepines are no longer effective after a few weeks or months of regular use. They lose much of their efficacy because of the development of tolerance. When tolerance develops, "withdrawal" symptoms can appear even though the user continues to take the drug. Thus the symptoms suffered by many long-term users are a mixture of adverse effects of the drugs and "withdrawal" effects due to tolerance. The Committee on Safety of Medicines and the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK concluded in various statements (1988 and 1992) that benzodiazepines are unsuitable for long-term use and that they should in general be prescribed for periods of 2-4 weeks only.”​
 
Pickledlemons said:
a pretty important question here is how much benzos do you take and for how long have you?
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I am down to .125 of a mg of clonazepam a day. I was taking 2 mgs/day of clonazepam and then i would fill 30 mgs of alprazolam and go through it in about three days. I stopped taking the alprazolam in January of 2021 and started tapering down by .125mg of clonazepam every week or two at the same time. I took it for about 6 years before i started my taper. I also had gone through minor withdrawls 2 times before. And was sober from 2012 through 2014. I attempted to jump of clonazepam 4 days ago and would up going into the hospital with 170/116 blood pressure, dialated pupils, 99.6 degree tempature and pretty shaky all over my entire body. That was about 2 days after my last dose of clonazepam. I was told to go back onto the medication at that time. I saw my doctor and they gave me metoprolol 25mg and gabapentin 300mg to take for the next time i attempt to stop. I am back to taking .125mg of clonazepam.
 
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