Low dose naltrexone or LDN

I don't know anything about this, but found some people talking about Low dose naltrexone on a facebook group pertaining to food allergies. There are studies about low dose naltrexone on pubmed in relation to crohns, MS, fibromyalgia but not Meniere's. But the articles I have read said it works on any disease with an autoimmune component and Meniere's Disease is listed on articles about Low dose naltrexone.
Just thought I would pass this info along.

http://suzycohen.com/articles/the-medicine-your-doctor-never-told-you-about-but-should-have/

Low dose naltrexone or LDN is the prescription medication that every doctor has heard of, but never prescribes. Regular naltrexone (not low dose) is used for heroin addicts, alcoholics and opiate withdrawal. I think that’s why doctors don’t really think about it, it’s for people with drug addiction. That said, the low dose version of the same drug has undeniable applications for autoimmune conditions, chronic infections and pain syndromes. Consider it an affordable adjunct especially because Remicade, Imuran, prednisone and other immune drugs come with hefty side effects and outrageous price tags.

LDN has two functions in your body:

1) It helps you tolerate your self.
2) Reduces inflammation in your nervous system.

Let’s start with number 1, tolerating yourself. Even if you can’t tolerate your annoying brother, you still need to tolerate yourself! I’m being facetious, but seriously, you must have the ability to tolerate your self, otherwise your immune cells attack your self. We call that an autoimmune disorder, and it means you’ve lost self tolerance. Think of rheumatoid, Hashimoto’s, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s, and others. When you take LDN, you better tolerate “self.” It happens because LDN turns on “T regulatory” cells and those smack down your immune system. So yeah, forget everyone else, tolerate your self first, if you want to have good health. Your T reg cells help you do that.

T reg cells have their own job which is to make sure that inflammatory chemicals are secreted appropriately to help you when injured, and then to stop that inflammation after you’re healed. If you don’t stop production of inflammatory chemicals (termed cytokines), then your body starts attacking everything in sight, pollen, dander, mold, dust mites (then you lose self tolerance) now it’s attacking your thyroid, your joints, adrenals, heart or myelin sheath around nerve endings. Again, LDN acts like a referee and blows the whistle on this attack.

Now, number 2 on my list is how LDN reduces inflammation in your nervous system. This is a huge advantage if you suffer with thyroid disease, depression, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, Lyme or neuropathic pain. Several papers written on this topic have shown that LDN blocks microglia in your central nervous system. These microglia are just immune cells in your brain and spinal cord that, when hyperactive, produce pain-causing chemicals, fatigue, unstable mood, insomnia and cognitive dysfunction. To your microglia, LDN feels like a cold compress does to a sunburn.

If you have any of the following conditions, I urge you to ask your physician if you can try some LDN for a few months at a very low dose, and gauge response:
•Rheumatoid arthritis
•Crohn’s disease
•Celiac
•Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
•Graves’ hyperthyroidism
•Multiple Sclerosis
•Lupus (SLE systemic lupus erethematosus)
•Sjogren’s
•asthma
•Raynaud’s
•Eczema
•Vitiligo
•Ménière’s disease
•Parkinson’s disease.

LDN works by blocking receptors on your cells that allow natural endorphins in. Endorphins are compounds you make when you feel good, eat chocolate, experience a runner’s high or have sex. Endorphins increase your pain threshold. You want them inside the cell. With LDN blocking the cells, they become short on endorphins and send a chemical signal to your brain to say, “Hey, crank out more endorphins because I have none!” Your body generates more endorphins in response to the perceived deficiency.

You probably get more endorphins in that moment, than a Black Friday sale at DSW! Emerging studies regarding dosage suggest that lower is better, such as 1 to 3mg at bedtime. Side effects are minimal and may include vivid dreaming or sleep disturbance which improves if you reduce dose or take during the day. As a pharmacist, this medicine is one of my all-time favorite drugs because it has few if any serious side effects. Remember, it is a prescription so your doctor has to call it in to a compounding pharmacy, I get notes all the time from irritated people who say “My doctor called Walnuts pharmacy and they said they don’t have it” or “Have Suzy call me and explain how to get 1.5mg out of a 50mg tablet!”
Right, lol, that would be a big mistake! I’m not recommending you ever have a conventional pharmacy attempt to make this for you out of their 50mg tablets (standard for people using it for narcotic withdrawal) or from their injectable suspensions. No, I’m referring to the type of LOW DOSE naltrexone that is mixed up at professional, inspected awesome compounding pharmacies every day!

LDN is compounded all the time, every day at pharmacies who specialize in making teeny weeny doses of it (and those are the types of doses you want since you are a not a crack addict!)


Of course retail pharmacies don’t have it! I said this has to be called into a compounding pharmacy, so look in your phone book (do they even print those anymore?) or Google it online. Do like I do, and ask Siri she’ll find you a compounding pharmacy. I just tried it on my iPhone and she found 3 of them near Denver and Boulder. Many compounding pharmacies can ship LDN to you home, so if there isn’t one in your city don’t give up. LDN is shipped all over the country, every day!

LowDoseNaltrexone.org
That’s a great site with more answers to all your questions since I can’t answer all of you personally. It’s impossible for me to teach one doctor at a time as this will eat up hours of my day, each day. Please understand I get hundreds of emails a day, into the thousands if you count all the different places people can ‘talk’ to me via social media, my newspapers, and so forth.

The dosage starts around 1.5mg taken once at bedtime. Vivid dreams can occur as you titrate upwards to 3 or 4.5mg. While some disagree with me, I feel that taking it in the daytime is okay if you can’t tolerate it at night, like … if you get nightmares or insomnia. Then in that case I would definitely take it in the morning, and also I recommend you stay at the lower dose, like approximately 1.5 milligrams.

 

http://lowdosenaltrexone.org/

Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) may well be the most important therapeutic breakthrough in over fifty years. It provides a new, safe and inexpensive method of medical treatment by mobilizing the natural defenses of one’s own immune system.

LDN substantially reduces health care costs and improves treatment of a wide array of diseases. Unfortunately, because naltrexone has been without patent protection for many years, no pharmaceutical company will bear the expense of the large clinical trials necessary for FDA approval of LDN’s new special uses. It is now up to public institutions to seize the opportunity that LDN offers.”

LDN Website Contents

> On this page you can find answers to these questions:
•What is low-dose naltrexone and why is it important?
•How does LDN work?
•What diseases has it been useful for and how effective is it?
•How can I find a reliable compounding pharmacy for LDN?
•What will it cost?
•What dosage and frequency should my physician prescribe?
•Are there any side effects or cautionary warnings?
•When will the low-dose use of naltrexone become FDA approved?
•What can I do to spread the word about LDN?
•Who sponsored this website?

> You can go to more detailed information on these linked pages:
•The Latest News Concerning LDN
•Clinical Trials for LDN
•Community-Driven Research for LDN
•LDN Editor’s Blog New!
•LDN Events:

 

Thanks for your input postbag, yes I am interested as well to hear if anyone knows anyone taking this. I too have read positive accounts but from people on other sites, which I am not familiar with.

 

Thanks for this, vicki. Lots of promise here. Can't go wrong with lots of endorphins.

Btw, vicki, do you ever sleep? You provide so much valuable information. Thanks for all you do.

 

LOL Maggie and you are welcome
yes I sleep a lot at least 8 hrs a night and very well. My husband said if a bomb went off I wouldn't hear it.

I did find this which has a lot of good info on LDN

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3962576/
its too long to paste so I will just paste the conclusion, but worth reading, it seems to be an accurate assessment of LDN
Clin Rheumatol. 2014; 33(4): 451–459.

Published online 2014 Feb 15. doi: 10.1007/s10067-014-2517-2
PMCID: PMC3962576

The use of low-dose naltrexone (LDN) as a novel anti-inflammatory treatment for chronic pain


Jarred Younger,corresponding author Luke Parkitny, and David McLain


Author information ► Article notes ► Copyright and License information ►



This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.



Go to:

Abstract
Conclusions

The totality of the basic and clinical research to date suggests that LDN is a promising treatment approach for chronic pain conditions thought to involve inflammatory processes. The clinical data supporting its use are very preliminary, and more research is needed before the treatment approach can be widely recommended. Critical parameters such as dosing still need to be refined. LDN may emerge as the first of many glial cell modulators that could be used to treat chronic conditions, with more specifically targeted medications developed in the future. As conventional anti-inflammatories have poor blood brain-barrier permeability, we expect centrally active immune modulators to be an area of interest in the future.

 

I joined a FB research group for LDN just to learn more and they have info packets to show doctors, list of Drs that prescribe LDN, and many more pdf files. If anyone interested in getting more info on this drug this is the FB group I joined

https://www.facebook.com/groups/LDNRT/?ref=br_rs

 

for those whose MM is not connected to an HSV it may be something to look into.. Not every person with MM has an HSV causing their symptoms.

Thanks for your input JOH, as always enlightening.

 

very true nicmger