Hm, no nausea but definitely lots of vivid dreams.... I similar to what happens if I go to bed with a nicotine patch on. [Try it, it's interesting.]

Chris, thanks for pointing out Helsinki's post:

According to the wikipedia page the biological halflife of naltrexone is four hours, so four hours later the nal is at 1/2 strength, eight hours later the nal is at 1/4 strength, twelve hours later: 1/8 strength. With this in mind "another pill after six hours if I continue to drink" would appear to match the halflife data, my subjective experience, and what Helsinki is doing. The reawakening of the Beast after 8 hours was very noticable. In contrast: the first time I took 25mg and drank for about 2 hours, it slept the whole time.

I'm thinking this is important. I'm going to add drinking session durations to my log. This might be a good idea in general for tuning naltrexone intake.

-Ned

Tonight was UFC night, guy's night, hanging out with an assortment of training partners watching the fights, a situation where I would fairly often spend the next day with a horrible hangover cursing myself for saying or doing something stupid. Not this time: it was 6, maybe 7 drinks in 4 hours. I think the best way to characterise the feeling is that I was "conscious of exercising restraint but successful in doing so". This is only my third day on naltrexone: I'll take it, no complaints.

- Ned

Nal must be working on you. I get lots vivid dreams, vivid is understatement, when I stop alcohol.

Ned

I am glad the Nal seems to working for you. I read your news years post...It's simply amazing isn't it? Mabye in 4 months or or so we will have to knock down mabye two 2 drinks and discuss the AA of our youth.

best wishes

AJ_ -- THANKS for pointing out that, unlike most other drugs, it is a metabolite of naltrexone that accounts for its effectiveness, so the usual rules about half-life don't apply.

A dose of nal lasts a lot longer than we think IMO. This is due to two factors. The first is what AJ mentioned, nal undergoes significant first pass metabolism by the liver into 6 beta naltrexol which is a MUCH longer lasting metabolite than nal itself. 6BNal's plasma clearance is shown here in blue, while nal I think I put in the baby puke green:



Plasma clearance isn't the whole story. Nal and 6BNal hang on to the receptors with a pretty strong affinity and exhibit a therapeutic effect much longer than the plasma clearance time would suggest:



There is SOOOOO much info on this site that we've compiled over the last few months. Your idea ned about some kind of a consolidation thread would be great, but the task would be monumental.

Good find Lo0p. Did you interpret brain activity on Y-axis in original to unmetabolized drug?

Figure 4 of % blockade by hour captures the message but I am not proficient enouh with the board to quote it.

No. It represents plasma clearance time only.

Carfentanil (I've seen it used in other studies) is an opioid receptor agonist, like morphine or endorphins. What they did in this study was they radioactively tagged it and saw that it wasn't getting through to activate the receptors for a very long time.

I have the full PDF version of this study if anyone wants it.

I think I came across same document after reading your post but since biology was my least favorite subject in high school beating even chemistry this stuff is over my head. Last chart in the document made sense to me. Nal and its metabolite block the receptors so all endorphins from alcohol and otherwise are essentially wasted (what a shame!), and the blockade does last long time.

Okay, I buy it. I also note Dr. Sinclair's email about doing something opioidergic (other than drinking) on thurs, if you take naltrexone on tuesday, he says wednesday is a 'wash'... whatcha bet those graphs are what that is based on.

So the revised hypothesis is that The Beast operates in several different ways simultaneously; the sensation of the Beast awakening after six/eight hours is due to some entirely different mechanism.

I've had had plenty of AF days (this is typical, I'm a binger), but the good news is the drinking days have been consistently mild. This weekend I may try drinking in public... if I feel like I've got control of the leash the whole time that'll be a big triumph, and I think my chances are good.

-t