Spasticity

I’m so glad you have Mikeq to commiserate with, Garcia. I don’t have a pump and I only took Baclofen for (hmmm, not sure) about a year and a half. I have spasms, too,...sometimes strong enough that I have to hang onto the arm of my wheelchair to stay in it. But I treasure my brain, so I won’t take Baclofen. Since I’m paraplegic, I have my hands and arms to stop myself from being thrown out of my wheelchair or to get my leg back into bed when it goes for a walk without my consent. I understand that you will both continue to take Baclofen, but I will still tell you what I do that reduces my spasticity.

Any parasites in the intestinal tract can trigger spasticity. I have no scientific support for saying this, though there may be research on it somewhere, Constipation can also trigger spasticity. I say this from my own experience. I use a zapper. It kills bacteria and parasites in the intestinal tract. This encourages a smooth bowel movement within a few hours, which, in my case, also effects a major reduction in spasticity. The zapper is not FDA approved. Mine is a SyncroZap.

I also take Kratom. You can get it, Garcia, here in Texas. Top quality. To start out, I suggest Green Maeng Da strain. It’s legal and will come in the mail. I order 8 ounces at a time, every few months. I will PM you the name of the place where I order and the phone number. Kratom is not FDA approved. Kratom is outlawed and unavailable in the UK.

So, there you have it. This helps me survive with a better quality of life than I would otherwise have.

There may be some new physical problem causing increased spasticity. Always best to check for that.

Garcia have you tried taking a few puffs of some weed? When my legs get gnarly I'll have a few puffs and they are calm. It's like a warm blanket enveloping you and telling you things are going to be ok and puts a smile on your face. Drinking water to stay hydrated help with mine as well and lessen the sodium and caffiene intake helps too.

I take 25mg x 3 times a day baclofen and 200mg x 2 times a day carbamazepine. Baclofen alone didnt do it for me. Somehow I went the first ten or so years post injury without any medications after tendon release surgery in the groin and Achilles tendons. Then for some unknown reason things just went south.

that's the problem with implanted devices, they can go wrong. I'm so dependent on my baclofen pump that I worry about calamities interrupting supplies of baclofen, such as a nuclear war between North Korea and America. I know it seems ridiculous, worrying about events that are probably never going to happen. But without intrathecal baclofen my spasms and the subsequent blood pressure would kill me. It's horrible to be dependent on a mechanical object that can go wrong. I'm on my fourth pump. I hesitate to say that none of them have ever gone wrong. You see I have even becoming superstitious about tempting fate. I know many patients whose pumps have failed or the catheter has blocked or fallen out of position. They have been lucky. Most of them were on very small doses and the effects of the pump failing just gave them extra spasm, put them back where they were. My problem is the device itself has caused a negative reaction with my body, a trigger for extreme sensitivity and autonomic dysreflexia. I was better off before, just spasming and not getting all the A.D. Had I known how my body would react to the implant I would never had it. But like Tetra said, clinicians only tell you of the benefits. They really explain the negative consequences. My pump was supposed to be a 'cure all' device. Turned out it was anything but. One other thing worth mentioning about intrathecal baclofen, is the sheer severity of the spasms if the device fails. It's like the spinal cord suddenly wakes up and for a short time the spasms come back with a vengeance before calming to their original status. That's what makes it so frightening for me. I know what it was like when I had my first bolus of 50 micrograms injected into the spinal cord before having the pump fitted. The next day, when the bolus wore off, the spasms were unbelievable. I was literally clinging to my wheelchair for around eight hours, my legs leaping all over the place and my body slamming backwards.  A horrible experience and one that I never want to go through ever again.