Naltrexone in its regular dose (50mg) is used in the treatment of alcohol and opiate addiction. As is the way with most groundbreaking medical discoveries, Naltrexone in a much lower dose (1.75-4.5mg) was accidentally discovered to greatly improve MS symptoms. It has also been shown to rapidly reduce the duration and severity of MS relapses for relapsing-remitting patients.
I decided to begin LDN at a 3mg/day dose and I'll tell you, this medication works for me in a big way. I was smack in the middle of a major relapse when I took my first LDN pill and within 3 days, I noticed that my bladder control was getting better. Within a week I had near-normal bladder control and those Poise pads were relegated to the back of my closet.
Within two weeks I noticed that my foot numbness and walking was much better and voila, that was the beginning of the remission I'm in now. Thank you LDN!
If you're thinking of beginning LDN for your MS, I'll share with you some things I've learned about it:
If you have any kind of spasticity in your limbs, you should take no more than 3mg/day; any higher is shown to possibly worsen these symptoms. LDN works to boost your immune system and is best taken between the hours of 9pm - 2am because of the body's natural cycles. You must take the normal form (quick-release) of the drug for it to work; not the slow-release formula. You can not take any kind of opiate while using LDN as it is an opiate antagonist and will nullify the effects of the drug.
LDN is usually always made by grinding up the larger dose and making it into capsules at your specified dose (this is called "compounding"). You can find compounding pharmacies all over the place; I used Google and then just called them to see who was most familiar with LDN for MS. They all were! You can also have it made into a water-soluble powder that you mix for drinking.
When being compounded, the pharmacist will fill the capsule with a filler material as well as the LDN. The most common filler used is lactose and this doesn't affect the LDN. If you're lactose-intolerant, ask your pharmacist to fill with rice powder instead; just make sure if they're using something other than this that you check it doesn't affect the absorbancy rate of the LDN.
I go directly to my G.P. to get my prescription for LDN as he has other MS patients on it with good results. This is called an off-label prescription as Naltrexone has been approved by the FDA in it's higher dose of 50mg for opiate/alcohol addiction and we're using it for something else. My neurologist won't prescribe it for me because she will only give out the ABC inject-able medications and referred me back to my G.P. anyway... Hey, I'll go where the drugs are!
If you're having a difficult time with your doctor regarding this drug, I've attached some information that you can take to them or read over yourself to get up to speed (see links below). If you have any other questions or comments about LDN, let me know in the comments below or send me an email and I'll do my best to help you out.
Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) is also showing great success in treating other diseases such as lung cancer, lupus, fibromyalgia and arthritis among other auto-immune disorders. If you know of anyone suffering from these ailments, feel free to pass on this information and maybe you can help someone else outside of the MS community too.
http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/gazorpa/LDNFAQ.html
http://lowdosenaltrexone.org/
http://www.ldnscience.org/
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