Hi everyone,

I'm getting very frustrated with tsm. It's been 6 months and still I'm drinking too much. Alcohol is still very much controlling my life. ill end up dead or in serious trouble if I don't sort this out.I'm seriously thinking about quitting and going on baclofen as I've read so much about others success stories on mywayout forum.

Anyone out there have any advice please?

Cheers,

Galoot

Galoot, I'm sorry that TSM is not working for you. I see no problem with trying baclofen. Why don't you continue with TSM and use baclofen to control your cravings. There's no reason why you can't attack this disease from two fronts. Baclofen will reduce your drinking to manageable levels for now and TSM will work on extinguishing your addiction everytime you do drink. The main thing is that you don't give up. I know that there are many people that have had success on both medications, Loop being one of them.

galoot,
if you haven't tried upping your dosage i would try that first. my units have dropped at 100 mgs. if that doesn't work, then i agree with tambo, why not try both at once. there was one member here who had very good results after starting baclofen even tho she was unable to ever take a dose higher than 50 mgs. here is the quote from page 4 of mabelee's progress thread:

"It's been a while since I've reported my progress, and I think it's time again. Just a recap--I started TSM on May 12, 2009. Before TSM, I was drinking 50-60 US units/week. After a few months on TSM, I reduced my intake to about 30 units/week, but then stalled. In February, I decided to try Baclofen, while remaining on TSM because I did see some progress and didn't want to lose that.

Well, I had not-so-good side effects with Baclofen. I tried three times to go beyond 50 mg/day, and I just couldn't do it. I would have gone off it all together, but for one reason. When I was about 10 years old, I slipped on ice and cracked my tailbone. It took about a year for it to heal, and then it never bothered me for along time, until about 10 years ago (I'm almost 50 now). For the last 10 years I've suffered from a spastic coccyx and would wake up in the middle of the night 2 or 3 times a week with very painful spasms. Since starting Baclofen, the spasms were gone! So instead of going off Baclofen entirely, I decided to back off to 40 mg/day, where the side effects were minimal, solely as a remedy for the spasms. I had given up entirely on using Baclofen to get off of alcohol, but a miracle has taken place! It's like the low dose of Baclofen, combined with Naltrexone, has jump started TSM!! I was on Naltrexone for nine months before starting Baclofen, and only twice in all those months did I have a daily intake of 3 units/day. Never anything less than that. But here is my progress since starting low-dose Baclofen.

Image

I don't know if it will continue, but it's hopeful.

mabelee"
the graph does not show, but you get the idea.
hope this helps,
path

Thanks guys,

I've contacted a UK specialist who will prescribe baclofen and I'm waiting to hear back from him. My tsm doc said he won't prescribe bac as he's not familiar with it. It's going to be a very costly adventure initially buy at least this bac specialist is able to request my gp to prescribe it on the Nhs which will then only cost £7 a month. My biggest fear with bac is the acute withdrawal and I'd be worried about running short supply. Rapid withdrawal can lead to extreme anxiety and even hallucination! However I think its worth that risk. That's how fed up I am right now. Maybe you are right and I should stick with nal also as there has been slight improvement such as not planning my week so much around alcohol. I've reduced contact with my drinking buddies as an example although I'm happy to still drink at home.

I've decided to give baclofen a go. I'll see if the doc thinks its a good idea to continue on nal. My appointment isn't for another 2 weeks and ill keep you all posted.

I tried baclofen and it didn't work for me, but my doc refused to prescribe the amount necessary - I think it's 60mg - because he said it would make me too sleepy. He gave me just 30mg, and it wasn't enough, but I definitely began to see a difference in the cravings. Perhaps both nal and bac can do the trick. Baclofen alone seems to have worked for this doc: http://www.amazon.com/End-Addiction-Oli ... 0374140979

weird-oh,
you might want to read that book, and/or go to the my way out forums. i believe that dr. amelson went up to 380mg before he got the desired effects. baclofen is a serious drug and it is important to follow the protocol, to VERY gently increase the dose as you start and be even more careful to not stop abruptly to avoid serious withdrawal symptoms. this is just what i've read on this board and a bit on the mwo board. i am not an expert about this, so please, read up and know what you are getting into.
very sorry that the doc you are seeing does not seem to be up on the bac protocol. just as here with tsm, we need to take care of ourselves as our doc's may not know what is best.
good luck to you!
path

I probably could have talked my doc into upping my baclofen dosage, but one of the things that appealed to me about Nal vs. Bac is that I needed to take the former only when drinking, not every day. I'm a little leery of taking any kind of medication, and already have three daily pills (Celexa, Prilosec and Lipitor), so I wasn't wild about the idea of adding even more. That said, I'll gladly add bac to the regimen if it looks like nal isn't going to work. But I've been seeing some pretty consistent results with Naltrexone, so I'm going to hang in there for at least a year before I change anything. I did read a study that said that bac seemed to help with the anxiety that nal doesn't treat, so that might be a good reason to pick it up again at some point.

I'm with you Weird-oh on not wanting to take a medication for the rest of my life but as I have asthma I am already in that boat and have been taking meds for that for 16 years or so. I've not much to lose anyway but i am scardof running out of bac when I do eventually start. There is a guy in the UK called Dr Phil who has a website and his experience of acute Bac withdrawal is frightening.

If you haven't done so already hook up with illuminae-she is over at the MWO site a lot and I'm not sure how much she's posting here lately. I learned a lot about bac and other drugs at the MWO site from reading the threads. If recall correctly she was also going to start bac recently. Another consideration is adjusting your NAL dosage, some other members (joe12pack, yogagirl) have had good progress with that. The most important thing is to not give up! Have you seen any reductions in your preTSM numbers since starting NAL?