Are you as ready as I was to try LDN?

The best place to start is with your doctor.

Do your research and print out information that will help you make your case that this is a cheap, approved drug that has zero side effects at the tiny dose that is used for treatment for MS. This works well for many.

If you get a prescription for compounded LDN, the best pharmacy is Skip's Pharmacy in Florida. Dr. Skip, as he is known by the LDN community, has worked tirelessly to increase the awareness of LDN, and is always available to help on the LDN newsgroups.

If you cannot get a prescription from your doctor, LDN is available over the internet at this pharmacy, for instance: NaltrexoneRx.com.mx. That is where many of us get it and they have excellent quality at a great price. They are associated with the "Clinica de Cuernavaca de la Vida y la Salud", the "Cuernavaca Clinic of Life and Health".

The Naltrexone is shipped almost instantly and you can make up your own solution. They are even happy to send instructions on how to disolve a 50 mg tablet in 50 ml of water and then drink the appropriate amount each evening. One tablet lasts from 10-30 days depending on the amount you are taking, so 10 tablets should be enough to get you started. If you have questions, they have exceptional Customer Service in English.

Side Effects and Effectiveness

Taken directly from the Low Dose Naltrexone Forum

As usual, I need to emphasize that seldom is LDN a stand-alone treatment, but accompanies other strategies their body needs, especially a healthy diet. No sugar, dairy or gluten.

If you are having adverse symptoms caused by LDN....

Would you be willing to stop all casein (milk products) and gluten (wheat, rye, barley and oats) for a week and see if you feel better? A study done several years ago showed that 30% of us have some degree of celiac disease(intolerance/allegy to wheat) even though the clinical symptoms may not be obvious enough to alert most people to that. When anyone in that 30% of persons stops eating wheat, they feel a lot better. The LDN may be acting like the opioid antagonist it is and causing a withdrawal reaction from taking away your fix, even if only for a few hours.

JAQUELYN MCCANDLESS wrote:

Brenda: Celiac disease (allergy to gluten protein) which most people do not know does not come in an "all or none" fashion; there are many degrees of celiac intolerance. Untold numbers of people eat wheat since it is a staple food in our society and never feel good - they have indigestion, stool irregularities, weight issues, and never know that if they would eliminate wheat and casein they would feel like new people. Many people who eat wheat and milk do not even know what "feeling good" is like untill they remove these foods from their diet. As I have said many times before on this board, anytime someone has a negative reaction to LDN the first question I would ask is, "What is the diet like?" If I had a disease such as ALS or MS, I would be more than willing to see if my dietary exogenous opioids could be causing the negative reaction to a drug that is helping most of these people get off all their other drugs without progression of their disease. The reason this is a worthwhile trial is that this intolerance is affecting their general health and immunity in a negative way. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes up to 6 months to get gluten out of the system, so it is not so easy to test. Food is so emotionally entrenched in most people's notions of love and inner security, you would be amazed at what people will endure to eat the foods to which they are addicted! I have a huge respect for the power of addiction to foods and the difficulty in making radical changes from the diet we are accustomed to. Usually it takes an evaluation in the context of a serious illness for people to even consider changing, and even then many will not.

Dr. JM

It takes some people longer to respond to LDN, and they may be colonized with pathogenic yeast and bacteria that could be slowing response.

These setbacks usually do not last long unless something like a yeast infection is stubborn without specific treatment.

There is a phenomenon that happens to some people that as the immune system is shifting (usually from T2 to T1) right after starting LDN, the immune system drops and people get an infection, cold, flu, cold sore, etc. which is usually short lived. Candida tends to overgrow or a virus will flare up. These infections are usually short-lived unless something like candida and gut bacteria needs treatment.

As usual, I need to emphasize that seldom is LDN a stand-alone treatment, but accompanies other strategies their body needs, especially a healthy diet. Are you a big bread/carbohydrate/sugar eater? Ever been tested for candida (yeast) or gut bacterial infestation? Ever been checked for hypothyroidism? Would you be willing to stop all casein (milk products) and gluten (wheat, rye, barley and oats) for a week and see if you feel better? A study done several years ago showed that 30% of us have some degree of celiac disease (intolerance/allegy to wheat) even though the clinical symptoms may not be obvious enough to alert most people to that. When anyone in that 30% of persons stops eating wheat, they feel a lot better. The LDN may be acting like the opioid antagonist it is and causing a withdrawal reaction from taking away your fix, even if only for a few hours. Try to hang in for awhile longer, and it will probably get better. These setbacks usually do not last long unless something like a yeast infection is stubborn without specific treatment.

LDN has been noted to aggravate yeast infections and other latent pathogens, viruses, etc. as the immune system is making early adjustments. It is good to have natural yeast remedies on board when LDN is started (grapefruit seed extract, Candex, lauricidin, hi-potency probiotics, etc) to help offset this possibility. (And of course a good dietary regime that does not encourage gut inflammation which is usually the predecessor to pathogen invasion).

The only way to know for sure if you have candida yeast overgrowth is to get a urinary dysbiosis test (measures by-products of yeast in the urine) - stool tests can often miss yeast, but the urine will show it. This is part of the Organic Acid Test (OAT) and is done by Metametrix, Great Plains, and Genova Labs - it must be ordered by a physician. The entire OAT (metametrix calls it Organix) tells you what vitamins you are missing and is a very good guage of your overall metabolic process, including toxicities and deficiencies. The dysbiosis part only measure the by-products of yeast and bacteria, and does not cost as much as the full test. This is one of the routine tests I get on all children with autism, as they have many metabolic disorders and most have yeast and bacteria and need to be treated for this to help them improve their health.

Any licensed physician can open up an account at Metametrix (www.metametrix.com) and order the organic acid test (OAT) kits to be sent to their clients to their home, he/she supplies a first morning urine to place in the test tube in the kit and mails that back to the lab which analyzes the results and sends them to your doctor. The retail cost is $538 but if you send your check or credit card in with the urine sample that is called "rapid pay" (they don't have to try to get insurance to pay, which unfortunately very seldom does for these specialty tests) and costs $323. It is an excellent test for showing what kind of vitamins you need, where your shortages are, and whether you have bacteria or yeast in your GI tract. To get sensitivities so you know what kind of anti-fungals or anti-bacterials you need, a comprehensive stool test is necessary, and I use Doctor's Data for that - (www.doctorsdata.com), this test costs $235 (also for "rapid pay"). This is also a kit that the lab sends to you and you mail it back with your sample and payment. Hope this helps.