Baclofen?

[jbalsa2]

Hey guys, question for those of you that know...

I've been taking brand name Keppra for a couple of months now, and it's been working great at helping my neurocognitive state. One thing I've always experienced with my hppd has been muscle spasticity, involuntary body movements and muscle contractions and such - which has been psychosomatic (ie; caused by my brain, and is an active player in my thought/conciousness in causing my muscle movements, if that makes sense) 

 

These spasms were drastically reduced by taking benzodiazepines. Im just wondering if anyone has any experience using baclofen? Seeing that it is a GABA agonist that could be taken long term. My thinking, is that keppra gives me neurogenic improvement, while leaving body symptoms untouched. Maybe I could combine baclofen with keppra to give my muscle spasticity and shakes a rest, while also preserving my mental/visual improvement.

 

Any info or experiences are appreciated!

Thanks

Jason

[Onemorestep]

Oh boy that is an interesting drug. I have quite a bit of experience with baclofen, although it might not be what you want to hear.

 

i discovered baclofen after I developed chronic muscle clenching all over my body. It got to a point I had trouble breathing without pain and my intestinal system froze completely. This process began when I first developed hppd from mushrooms. My doctor started me on baclofen eventually.

 

the first three days it just made me sleepy after I took it and gave me great sleep.

 

then I had a SERIOUS rebound from it. I was manic looking back on it but it felt too good to stop. It was very GHB like. And this was on VERY small doses (like 5mg spread throughout the day) 

 

i kept up with it though because as i increased the dose i dose I did lose my spasticity problems.

 

Another great thing is it durastically improves my cognition to, in some ways, pre hppd.

 

And lastly, it cured me of my addiction to drugs and alcohol. After a time I just had no interest in them. In fact, even if I did imbibe or partake, they often had zero euphoric effects.

now for the bad news....

 

after 8 months on the drug I lost the ability to feel pleasure. It happened very rapidly. I had gotten myself to 100mg a day and I was traveling in Sardinia. One day I woke up, and couldn’t experience pleasure from anything. I tried to listen to music, read, exercise...everything.... and nothing. I immediately started to come off the medication.

 

the withdrawals were pretty intense. Not as bad as benzos, but baclofen increases serotonin as well and it felt more akin to light benzo withdrawal and ssri withdrawal mixed together. I cried for days at a time. Eventually I got down to ten milligrams.... but the anhedonia was still there. It didn’t alleviate with cessation. Not even a little bit.

 

heres the thing about baclofen—it’s a GABA B agonist with cholinergic functions and has a semi permanent effect on brain function in a way we don’t really understand. If you google around, you’ll find that overdose of the drug is alleviated with anticholinergics and that people who take it for alcoholism find that they can eventually stop taking it without the return of previous drug seeking behavior. It definetely does something in the brain and pleasure seeking. 

 

For some people it doenst cause anhedonia. For others it can with a single dose. The good news is it did get better, but took several years and as I felt emotionally better my memory and cholinergic functioning returned to its previous state.

 

in my opinion, it is a TERRIBLE idea to bombard GABA neurons consistently. You risk DECOUPLING. I capitalize because I hope you understand how serious that can be. You might as well have brain damage if it occurs because it’s essentially the same. Probably worse. There are some things you can do for brain damage but how do you get receptors to reconnect with each other? In my experience, the only way is a serious amount of time and forcing yourself to go through experiences that require the receptors.

 

that all being said, it’s a hell of a great muscle relaxer. I’ve never had any serious return of spasticity that has lasted for more than a few hours since I took it. For me, I would never EVER want to go through that experience again, but I would also be completely crippled if I hadn’t dealt with the spasticity. 

 

My advice to you is is to try to find out what is causing the spasticity. You might have a nutritional deficiency, or problems with methylation or who knows. I found out years later, that a lot of my spasticity was probably caused by potassium deficiency and problems with methylation (although prior head injuries definetely played a role).

 

i know that muscle spasticity is a real pain in the butt  and there aren’t a whole lot of treatments. I wish you he best of luck.

[jbalsa2]

Hmm... That's an interesting experience. I see some potential plus sides, and also some serious downsides. 

 

Im going to consider all of that, and bring it up with my doctor. If he decides it would be a good med il go through treatment acknowledging that.

I was born severely premature, and almost died shortly after birth, I was put on many different meds to keep me alive, including steroids to aid in my premature growth. Spent 8 months in the hospital post-birth. Then to top that off, I fractured my skull when I was 3 years old.

 

For the longest time I thought that my newly developed muscle jerking and psychosomatic involuntary body movements caused by improper communication between thoughts and my body/muscles were caused by the onset of hppd. But it's only after seeing as much neurological improvement on keppra that I've noticed my spasticity hasn't improved at all. 

I could be wrong, but I have an inkling of fear that some of these symptoms may be rebound effects that have only just started to appear from my trouble and trauma in my early years. For me medication might be my only aid.

On the up side, I can't see baclofen being too intensely damaging if I do a short term trial on it to see how it effects my symptomology before committing to taking it long term.

 

My situation is fucking crappy. Hppd alone is one thing, but finding out that I face neurodegenerative like symptoms from early childhood complications and trauma that are now synchronous with my hppd... Fuck me.

I've been diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder, which im almost positive is derivative from my premature birth/TBI.

 

 

Did you notice any similarity in muscle relaxant/calming symptoms between baclofen and any forms of benzos?