Imagine your muscles feel constantly stiff, tight, or even painful—almost impossible to relax, making every movement a challenge. That’s the reality for a lot of Aussies with conditions like multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, or cerebral palsy. But there’s a little white tablet that’s been changing how these folks get by: baclofen. It’s often handed out like a golden ticket to looser, more manageable muscles, but what’s actually going on behind the scenes? Let’s pull back the curtain.
Baclofen isn’t some trendy new arrival; it’s been around since the 1960s, originally developed for epilepsy but famous now for relaxing muscles. The science bit: it’s a GABA-B receptor agonist, which sounds a bit spooky, but all you need to know is that it mimics a calming chemical in your brain called GABA. When baclofen does its job, it tones down the zap-zap-zap of excited nerve signals shooting through the spinal cord. The result? The constant signal to