For those who don't know me yet...

[Lo0p]

This is who I am:

Consolidated Baclofen Information Thread I compiled this so that we might be able to take it to our doctors and have them prescribe baclofen to us.

Please somebody poke me in the eye with a red hot firepoker!! My own futile attempt to get baclofen prescribed to me (a year and a half after I was cured). In retrospect it wasn't the smartest thing to do because now, with alcoholism on my medical record I cannot obtain life insurance, medical insurance premiums for me (if I could afford them before) would probably be doubled and disability insurance is nearly unobtainable.

Consolidated Baclofen Information Thread

[Lo0p]

For those who don't know me yet...

I'm not a freakin' shill, or even a good salesman. PhoenixResearchLabs is for me and for you.

Here is how I came to acquire it from my legendary (notorious) predecessor:

I've been a food server for twelve years, and a damn good one too. I could give an entire desert presentation (8 or so desserts) and it wasn?t just a list. I would describe them to you in such detail that it would make you salivate. Gesticulating, the items with my left hand while holding your family of five?s dinner in my right (using it even sometimes as a prop). I woke up one fateful Thursday this last September and my right hand was paralyzed.

I sound like a salesman, makes me cringe a lil' bit. Just trying to clear up misconceptions. I guess I am one now, it's just not what it feels like to me. Profit is only my secondary motivation. I've been through all these hoops. Notorious ol' Bill's liquid baclofen simply was the best and cheapest out there. Until he got sick.

When he was leaving the country for bigger and better things he called me because I was the only person that he could think of to carry on "his dream". To provide anyone who needed it with the highest quality, dirt cheap baclofen. Money was secondary. He did it because he worked in a cardiology office, and there was a man who was dying of alcoholism, wanted out, and he knew how to save his life. He told my mom and I the story:

"I had a bottle of baclofen in my coat, I wanted to give it to him but I couldn't because it would put my license in jeopardy. I told my boss [the cardiologist whom he worked with intimately and knew every detail about Bill, his alcoholism and baclofen] an he reached out to the other MD's and asked "who here can prescribe baclofen to this man?" because he couldn't. That was the last time we saw him"

And he showed us the newspaper article, picture and all, of the man that inspired him to start making liquid baclofen.

I was recovering from my hand being paralyzed and trying to live on unemployment (unsuccessfully) and he called me. I didn't have a dime. My parents didn't either. I told my sister, whom I live with and then I think my mom called me. She pretty much "made it happen". Her and my dad grilled me about every aspect. How to make it, the legality, the logistics of it all and I just knew all of it already. She said "we're going Monday." It was like a slap in the face...then it became my dream. Bill was leaving the country 1 week to the day after we had the equipment and supplies loaded to be transported via commercial truck from Oregon to California.

I owe her much more than a chunk of change. She saw what baclofen did to me. I was under her roof when I went from being a suicidal alcoholic to sleeping peacefully in the pantry where they could now store wine (my DOC) 5 feet from my pillow without ever even thinking about actually drinking it. She knows the whole story. Together, we used to watch nervously the tracking information getting updated trying to get baclofen from India, Germany or wherever. "Inbound into customs"...waiting...waiting... Ughh.

She knows it'll take a lot more than a decent study out of U of Amsterdam before American doctors will turn their heads.

We talked about everyone's story and journey together. I used to read them to her. She tells anyone who'll listen.

The day after I woke up with my hand paralyzed we went for a car ride together. She couldn't help me at all. "You're dad won't have a job after Dec 31st and we're going to have to file Chapter 7". And not in a good "fresh start" kind of way.

That's why I didn't bring it up to her when Bill made me the offer to carry it on. It was going to take a significant initial investment.

She called me.

If it weren't for her I wouldn't be able to do this for us all. I haven't asked her where she scraped up the resources for this. I'm sure it came from whatever she's trying to stash away for her and my dad. She did it for me, and for you.

My laboratory right now is set up in the store that her and her sister (my aunt) ran for 10 years together, before she was killed by a drunk driver. It's been closed since then. It's on the same property as my parents house.

It's open now, in a different sense I guess. But it makes sense to me. I haven't really talked to her about it, but I'm sure it make sense to her too. Until the bank man comes to take it away that is...:H

[matt2d2]

For those who don't know me yet...

thanks for the naltrexone link loop

[Lo0p]

For those who don't know me yet...

NP buddy. I've got so many charts, graphs, studies and articles up my sleeve. It's just a matter of finding them.

Oh and :welcome:

[kuya]

For those who don't know me yet...

I was reading through your research etc .......fascinating. I have been AF for 3 months and am loving it but am drawn to all the science stuff.

Your enthusiasm is so infectious I almost want to fall off the wagon as an excuse to talk with you !

[Lo0p]

For those who don't know me yet...

No need to fall off the wagon, talk away!

[soberwannabe]

For those who don't know me yet...

I love geeks!

..looking forward to knowing/reading more about your new endeavor Lo0p.

Thanks for all the wonderful information you put together for MWO. It's the starting place, IMHO, for any serious alkie looking to recover. RTFM is always the best.

[Alcoholic]

For those who don't know me yet...

Loop: I recently heard someone telling me she is using baclofen for ultram (tramadol) addiction. Are you familiar w that usage? What about anything for usage of benzo or barbiturate addiction? Any info would be appreciated!

[Lo0p]

For those who don't know me yet...

Alcoholic;1421071 wrote: Loop: I recently heard someone telling me she is using baclofen for ultram (tramadol) addiction. Are you familiar w that usage? What about anything for usage of benzo or barbiturate addiction? Any info would be appreciated!

Many, people use it on the French forum (link anyone?) for heroin addiction. How about a personal anecdote?

The first time I entered rehab it was for addiction to Vicodin at age 18, two years before I became an alcoholic. I lasted 8 days and after hearing all of the stories, left only with the certainty and knowledge now firmly cemented in my head that I was going to die. I didn't know how long it would take, my guess was 10 years. I was right on the money. 10 years later I was trying to throw myself at cars.

Throughout the years I had a very powerful addiction to all narcotic pills that was controlled only by 2 things, money and availability. OMG the withdrawals...at work too. My face covered in scabs and otherwise white as snow with sweat pouring so thick I looked like the walking dead.

Cue: 10 days in hospital 6 months after I was cured by baclofen.

I was in there for ten days because they had to treat me with IV antibiotics for a weeks before they could get the size of my gall bladder down enough to surgically remove it. Save the 2-3 days leading up to the operation I was hooked up to a PCA machine loaded up with dilaudid (hospital heroin), I was shot up at least 2mg every 2 hours of dilaudid 24 hours a day (sometimes 3mg + 1mg morphine) because the pain was so intense I never slept until the PCA machine.

I was released with 60 10 mg immediate release oxycontin pills. My mom and I looked at each other with fear in both our eyes. I HAD to have them.

I took them on schedule (1 every 5 hours even throughout the night) for two days. On the third night, either I forgot to set my alarm for the pill on my watch or didn't wake up to it. I slept in, woke up felt my scars and thought to myself:

"It's been 18 hours since my last pill. I'm not in withdrawal, this hurts but not that bad. Let's see how long this lasts."

2 weeks later I was cleaning my room and found my bottle of pills. Again, 6 months cured by baclofen, I thought to myself:

"If this were 1 year ago, there would not be a chance in hell I wouldn't have known exactly where these were, had them hidden in 2 stashes and known exactly how many I had in each with a plan to take xx amount in x hours...wtf the fuck is going on?"

I finished cleaning my room.

1 month later I was cleaning my room and I'll be damned if it wasn't deja vu, but it wasn't. I found the same bottle of pills, untouched and forgotten...again. I tossed them in the trash and it felt just as if I was throwing away a tissue that I had just blown my nose with.

[Alcoholic]

For those who don't know me yet...

Thanks for the info! You have been very helpful!

[soberwannabe]

For those who don't know me yet...

Loop, my hamster is interested in this medication. She is small and does not need a lot. Would this be a suitable product for Cutie?

[Lo0p]

For those who don't know me yet...

I take xanax, am currently easily tapering to a lower dose, and only need to take it when I'm having a bona fide anxiety or panic attack. I have never experienced any kind of craving for it. But I also have never taken it while not on HDB.

Dr. Levin told me 2 weeks ago he has never once seen a case of addiction to xanax in one of his patients under treatment with baclofen.

I haven't heard of anyone trying to use HDB for barbituate addiction.

Sure does kick the shit out of a daily addiction to good ol' Mary Jane though, anecdotally at much lower doses than alcohol.

[Lo0p]

For those who don't know me yet...

edited this post to finish the rest of the story: https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...ml#post1420947

[soberwannabe]

For those who don't know me yet...

Hi Lo0p,
Just thinking about you and your hand issue. Have they determined how/why it happened? What comes to mind is a Bell's Palsy type thing with your hand. Hopefully you are working with a specialist.

[Lo0p]

For those who don't know me yet...

It was a repetitive stress injury caused by, well, carrying 5 plates in that hand for 12 years. I decided it was a pinch of both my ulnar (pinky and ring finger) and median (thumb, index and middle fingers) nerves, somewhere either in my wrist, elbow, shoulder or cervical spine (neck).

A family friend is a myofasical expert, which is someone who works on the fasica (sp?) which supposedly is a real tissue that surrounds a penetrates all the muscles in your body and it has a tensile strength of 2000 lbs per square inch. I never put stock in any alternative therapies before. I also distrust medical doctors and , in general, think of them as myopic and limited in their role because of it.

One year though, my dad had a case of sciatica that his $800 medical insurance paid MD's and staff couldn't do anything for. It was so bad and he was in so much pain that he could not walk and could not sleep. One home visit with this lady and she made him walk again. It was almost like something straight out of an evangelical church type thing.

Anyway, I had no money, and she was willing to treat me for free. It was an eye opening experience. She could push on a knot of muscle in my lower back and I could feel it in my pinky more than if I were to feel a hammer hitting my pinky. I regained control of my median nerve fingers almost completely in 3 weeks. My pinky and ring fingers I could still only feel and move about 50%. We had both decided after about week 2 that it was cubital tunnel syndrome. Both of my nerves were getting pinched in my elbow. Narrowed my treatments to target it (which still included breaking up knots of muscle in odd, far away places) and was back to about 95% in 5-6 weeks.

I was able to go to a clinic 3 weeks post-injury and the same nurse practitioner who denied me baclofen a couple of years ago said I had carpal tunnel syndrome (which affects only your median nerve that I had almost complete control of at that time). He threw me a wrist brace and told me to come back when I had the "indigent" insurance again.

All I know is I can't return to the same line of work, which is the only thing I know how to do. After being cured I've been thinking of finishing school to become a pharmacist. But that takes $$, and right now I still owe last months bills.

I still work for the same place. But I used to be one of only two full time dinner servers and I was replaced. Now they just throw me enough work to un-earn the unemployment I'm supposed to get...convenient.