Over the years I’ve become less and less interested in what MDs say and think and more or less hostile to pharmaceuticals. I focused my energies on finding the root causes of my illness and tried to avoid anything that could be considered a Band-Aid. For 10 years I’ve been thinking about writing a post about my experiences with MDs. Maybe I haven’t because it’s too painful.
BUT.
Every once in a while there are important exceptions. Low dose Naltrexone is probably one of them. Typically, I would avoid even reading about anything with such a pharmaceutical ring to it as LDN has. But I got interested in this one for my wife. She has Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and I’ve been trying to help her for many many years, but striking out with everything we try.
One more thing about pharmaceuticals before I tell you about LDN. I’m mostly opposed to taking medications because I believe antibiotics, sleep medicine and proton pump inhibitors (stomach acid lowering drugs) are substantially to blame for my long difficult illness. So when an M.D. wants to write me a script now, I get fearful.
But think back to when you were a kid – were you relatively healthy at some point? And what happened to change that? Most likely you were exposed to heavy metals, toxins and pathogens.
These things are still in your body, stuck in your organs and they are affecting your immune system, metabolism, mood and methylation system. So to the extent that pharmaceuticals can either counteract toxins and pathogens, or help us eliminate them, they can be good things.
And, it seems that for many with Hashimoto’s LDN can be a miracle cure.
I got more and more excited as I read more about low dose Naltrexone and watched YouTube videos, starting with an interview with Dr. Bihari, the MD who discovered that small doses of Naltrexone, dramatically boosted endorphin levels. The higher endorphin levels seem to normalize immune function, which turns out to be a life-saving trigger for people with countless immune related diseases like AIDS, MS, cancer, Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel, psoriasis, lupus, ankylosing spondylitis, ALS and many many more. three words caught my eye on that list: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. That’s me!!
Okay, I don’t believe in chronic fatigue syndrome, you probably know that. But sometimes it’s useful to have a label as lame as it may be.
I listen to quite a few interviews with LDN patients on YouTube and became more and more convinced that low-dose now tracks on would help my wife and I both. Watching Dr. Bihari, I had a strong intuition that he was a very genuine, deeply conscientious and gifted researcher, a real gem. Then, listening to his widow, really cemented my enthusiasm when I heard that the family members of many patients cured of ‘ incurable diseases’ have been taking it prophylactically.
Why wait for cancer to start taking it? Well, check it out and decide for yourself. You’ll hear that it has virtually no side effects and works forever, but I have encountered some who were not able to take it, or who took it successfully for some years and then found it stopped working…
My own observations watching my wife titrate her dose after about 10 days:
- yes it causes crazy vivid dreams
- she has trouble sleeping on dose increases
- she’s been in a better mood than I can remember for eons
Some random links I’ve collected for friends:
- LDN and colds/allergies
- LDN and depression
- LDN info for your doctor (if you talk to your doctor about it, read this advice first)
Watch these and let me know what you think:
Eric, how is you wife doing with LDN, did you plan trying it yourself in the future ?
Hi Evgeni, we’ve both been taking it for three or four months now. She did very well at first and had to reduce her thyroid hormone dosing, but then she hit a patch of increased stress and I had to increase it back up. Fortunately, the side effects we experienced in the beginning have subsided. Will keep going with it.