Naltrexone

Yes,thanks Joanna

I had liver tests done last sept and I'm told everything was very normal.Im having another test on Friday so will know soon if everything is still ok .

I'm just sceptical that all these years of drinking is not showing up in my liver as I do get pain in that area and I'm sure my complexion had changed but my case worker today said I don't look jaundiced so I will have to take his word for it.

I will wait to have my blood test then take my first tablet that evening.

Will keep you posted

Am going to private message you a couple of hints and suggestions of how to begin the first couple of days - keep any side effects to a minimum. 

Anything else, just ask :-)

"..severe reaction and coma for 4 days..."

Eeeek!

 

I've told my husband about the pills and showed him the literature to put his mind at rest as I was a bit mad and not myself on Baclofen.

Will pm you

Got it thanks.

Just out of interest, what anti-craving drug were you after? Was it the Naltrexone or something different? And are you looking to cut it out completely or bring it down to a safe manageable level?

I was looking at Nalefene originally but I read the side effects are worse and as I'm paying for it privately it's more expensive.

I'd like to cut it out completely but feel happy doing it and not white knuckling it.Trouble is I like the taste of wine to much!

That will fade. Your brain may get a bit snippy with you as you take away it's favorite toy, but the nice thing that i"ve been noticing is the less I anaesthetise myself, the more my brain rediscovers perfectly fine toys that it used to be happy with.

I would think that the chances of your liver being okay 5 months ago, to being poor enough now that you shouldn't take naltrexone are fairly slim.

If it should turn out that way, then yes nalmefene would be best.  Both medications do the same thing so yes, you can just switch from one to another without any issues.

Glad you have nothing in the way of side effects so far.

When you take the first drink, it should feel sort of 'flat' - like something is missing.  That will be the endorphin rush that is missing.

Remember to drink mindfully, asking yourself if you really want the drink, or the next drink, and then when you get the signal that you are satisfied, you need to act and put the drink down.  Do something else and then see how you feel 20/30 minutes from then.

The process can take a while so keep patient.  As long as you can recognise that the special 'something' that appealing about drinking before, is missing, then you have begun on the right track..... :-)

Thanks Joanna,Friday is when I took my first half tablet and went out for lunch.The first 2 glasses went down very slowly and I could have stopped then but didn't and had 5 or 6 large glasses so I really need listene to my head.Sat I had one bottle of wine at home and wanted more but made myself not go round the shop

Naltrexone CAN have an effect on the liver but it is nowhere near as bad as the effect of large amounts of alcohol.

When we assess people for their suitabilty for The Sinclair Method, we have to establish if their liver is ok before we tell them that it is ok for them to continue drinking. If a person had late stage liver disease, the only thing we could advise is that they must not drink alcohol at all and that would mean that TSM wasn't suitable for them.

With Nalmefene, we ask people to get a Liver Function Test done before we can prescribe and, for Naltrexone, we ask them to do this as well, but also that they do repeated tests every two or three months.

Hi Paul,I bought the LFT kit and will use it 2 to 3 months into this treatment,all being well with my most recent test

I wouldn't even want to see the results of mine. I'd be interested to know how accurate they are and what they test for.

Do you mean the online test?

I meant the kit. Is a complete home kit, or is it a take blood and send it off and wait for the results.

It's a take blood and send it away kit

They are very accurate and tested in a proper lab and viewed by a doctor before being given to you. What they test for depends on what test you order from them. The choices are:

Liver Test

Cholesterol Test

Prostate Test

Low Testosterone Test (2 versions, not sure what the difference is)

Thyroid Test

HIV Test

Blood Sugar Test

Blood Iron Test

Full Blood Count Test

Gonorrhoea Test

Chlamydia Test

Full Sexual Transmitted Disease Test

It's amazing you can get all those tests now.Back in the day if you asked for an hiv test it would affect your insurance if they asked,even if your test was negative

Well, apart from the first one, I reckon I'm pretty okay. my cholesterol is 4.2. I had a postate check with an ultrasound about three years ago.

HIV, been with my partner for 25 years, although when I went to the Coventry walk in centre, because my secondary GP was not diagnosing the problem, and he (at the walk in) tried to get me to have a test for HIV and STDs, I had to tell him no thanks about three times. But because I went to have a varicocele confirmation, I was on that floor of the building, where virtually everybody has some sort of test.

Blood sugar, I did just get up to the non diabetic/pre-diabetic boundary on the Hbc1a test, but gave up sweets and pulled that right back down. No one ever tells you that most alcohol contains a lot of sugar and ex-alcoholics/heavy drinkers can get a sweet tooth and think, well at least I'm not putting alcohol down my neck, whilst turning themselves into a type II diabetic.

I know the hosiptal did many full blood count tests as did the hepatologist, My blood iron was very high, so high that the hepatologist sent some blood off for a cancer test - blood cancer I think, because he asked me if I'd ever had a blood transfusion, which I did have.

So I think I've got most of that covered.

As per my post, I had to be fairly blunt to get them to stop trying to get me to have an HIV and STD test.

Mind you, Coventry walk in centre is now like Beirut. Very different to when I first went there about 15 years a go.

Yes. I went to work in Saudi Arabia in 1996 and they insisted on an HIV test for anybody going there to work. I had to have the test done privately in Harley Street (they paid for it) as any HIV Test, no matter what the result, was cosidered to mean that you must in a high risk category and your life insurance premiums could increase or you could even be refused insurance.

You are not that far from me then RHGB. I am about 15 miles from Coventry.

Well, you'll know the hospital I spent my two months in then, Walsgrave or Coventry University Hospital as they call it these days. I had one night in Warwick, CT scan, blood plasma transfusion under GA and then off to Cov the next day.

Yeah, I did three days in Coronary Care there after a heart attack in 2012 They saved my life and I now run around and play tennis etc with no remaining ill effects

And here was me thinking you were a young whippa snapper 😀

3 days! How did you get out in 3 days for a heart attack. I was there 2 months, and I would have been there longer if I hadn't threatened to discharge myself - they wouldn't give me a leaving date.

I tried to escape at least 6 times, twice from the one step down ward. Which is no mean feat when you've lost the use of your legs and most of your right arm.

It got a bit embarrasing when I went to see the consultants at CERU, two of them reminded me (on individual ocassions) that they were there (they do both CERU and Cov) when they had to call security for me.

I am, Nicole, for a heart attack, anyway I was 47 when it happened.

The heart is mechanical. It's easy to see the problem and often easy to fix. I was rushed straight into theatre and they went in through my wrist, along the artery to my heart, cleared the clot, left a stent in there (little coil of metal that keeps the coronary artery open) and had me rest for a couple of days then sent me home telling me to take it easy for 6 weeks. 2 months later I was beating my 21 son at tennis It was just a blip Never had a problem since

Jeez, they used to do obs (observations) on us every four hours, so like, 10:00pm, wake us up at 2:00am and then 6:00am and following throughout the day. Then we had Dorothy across the corridor, who a nurse was with constantly, she had alcoholic brain disease, I didn't know it at the time.

But Cov used to have four mental wards (I think they are gone now) and we (the four of us in the ward opposite) always used to wonder why she wasn't in one. It was only after I left hospital and starting reading up on alcoholism, that I realised why she was done near the same ward as us.

Also, the Addaction nurse said, that if you have some health issue (not mentally related) they won't put you in the mental wards because they have no facilities for health problems in them.

Have a heart attack next time, it was easy

and I'm only in Derby not far from paper fairy!!

Wow! That's a neat trick!

Did they put you under general for that or was there a "big screen" you could watch?

There was a screen (standard computer monitor size) but the angle of it was such that I couldn't see it. The doctor did turn it and show the 'before and after scans' of my right coronary artery after he had finished. It was completely missing on the first photo (as the dye they injected had not been able to get past the blockage) and fully visible on the second. I was awake throughout and there was no real pain at all, although it was a little uncomfortable where they entered through my wrist. Amazing procedure really.