Fibromyalgia Support Group
You're not alone in your pain. Fibromyalgia is a condition that can be difficult to diagnose and manage. If you're trying to cope with pain throughout your body, sleep problems, general fatigue, or other common fibromyalgia symptoms, you're in the right place. The community is here for you to talk about therapies and share your challenges.
I have been taking the LDN, with no side effects. I'm a little cautious to attribute any positive feelings to it, because I'm aware it could just be suggestion right now... but I do feel ever so slightly better in the morning and today when I stopped to shop after my college class, I wasn't so knocked out tired later on. Seems to have given me a bit more stamina.
I'll keep you posted every so often...
I'll keep you posted every so often...
http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/
Low Dose Naltrexone
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FDA-approved naltrexone, in a low dose, can boost the immune system helping those with HIV/AIDS, cancer, autoimmune diseases, and central nervous system disorders.
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An Important Chance for LDN
Letter from the Editor:
A unique opportunity has arisen to reach the goal of genuine medical acceptance for LDN. A physician named Tomasz Sablinski, with a very strong background in the pharmaceutical industry, has committed himself to breaking through the barriers that block important but ignored discoveries such as LDN.
He has joined with Daniel Reda, founder of the online site CureTogether, to form a plan for LDN, with the help of the Internet and the members of the LDN-Yahoo Group.
Please read their proposal, which can be found here.
David Gluck, MD
Editor, www.ldninfo.org
[N.B. The editor has no formal affiliation with and no financial interest in either TLS or CureTogether.]
Welcome to the Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) Home Page
Updated: Nov 4, 2010
The authors of this website do not profit from the sale of low-dose naltrexone or from website traffic, and are in no way associated with any pharmaceutical manufacturer or pharmacy.
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For announcements and discussion about Low Dose Naltrexone,
subscribe to the LDN Yahoo Group:
Join
The LDN Yahoo Group is an announcement and discussion group for those interested in LDN, and who wish to be notified about updates to this website. We expect that official announcements to the group will be fairly infrequent, typically not more than one per month. Group members not wishing to receive general discussion e-mail from other members may set their message delivery option to "Special Notices" when joining, or by logging on to the LDN Yahoo Group site and clicking on "Edit My Membership."
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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 ones 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 LDNs new special uses. It is now up to public institutions to seize the opportunity that LDN offers.
David Gluck, MD
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Latest Results from Clinical Trials of LDN
March 2010
Around the globe, there has been a quantum leap forward in the number of ongoing research studies on LDN.
Latest developments include:
A multi-institutional clinical trial of LDN for Primary Progressive MS in Italy, which includes endorphin measurements, published in September 2008.
Two Phase II placebo-controlled clinical trials of LDN for Crohns disease at Penn State.
Continued progress on the first scientific study of LDN for HIV/AIDS in Mali, Africa.
A study of LDN in the treatment of MS at the University of California, San Francisco, published in February 2010.
A clinical trial of LDN in the treatment of fibromyalgia at Stanford Medical Center, published in May-June 2009.
Click this box for details on all clinical trials of LDN.
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CBS News Reports:
Naltrexone May Treat Other Diseases
By Dr. Max Gomez
NEW YORK (CBS) May 26, 2008 Twenty years ago, Ronnie Raymond began losing her balance and strength. But now a medication that's used to treat alcohol and heroine addiction is working to provide relief. [Click to read the article or view the linked video...]
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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 NEW!
LDN Events:
Fourth Annual LDN Conference: Report & Multimedia
Third Annual LDN Conference (2007): Report & Multimedia
National Cancer Institute Conference (2007): Summary Report
Second Annual LDN Conference (2006): Report & Multimedia
First Annual LDN Conference (2005): Report & Multimedia
The Developing Nations Project
LDN in the Treatment of Autoimmune Disease
LDN in the Treatment of Cancer
LDN in the Treatment of HIV/AIDS
In-depth historical reports on LDN for HIV/AIDS:
"Low Dose Naltrexone in the Treatment of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome," a paper presented in 1988 to the International AIDS Conference in Stockholm, Sweden, describing in detail the 1986 LDN HIV/AIDS clinical study.
"Low Dose Naltrexone in the Treatment of HIV Infection," an informal description of the results in Dr. Bernard Bihari's private practice through September, 1996.
LDN in the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis
What Others Are Saying About LDN updated
What Others Are Saying (Archive)
LDN Research Funding
Further Questions and Answers about LDN
Reliability Problem With Compounding Pharmacies
Curriculum Vitae for Bernard Bihari, M.D.
Excerpts from Patient Interviews:
LDN and HIV
The Developing Nations Project
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ABC News Reports:
LDN a "Wonder Drug?"
By Ali Gorman
Hershey, Pa. - May 21, 2008 (WPVI) -- It's a drug already helping thousands of people battle addiction, but many people believe it also has the potential to help tens-of-thousands of patients with diseases like Crohn's, multiple sclerosis, Lupus, parkinson's and even HIV.
It's called low dose naltrexone or LDN. Many patients who've tried it said it works and doesn't have bad side effects. But getting it to a pharmacy near you could be difficult. [Click to read on or to watch the linked video...]
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What is low-dose naltrexone and why is it important?
> Low-dose naltrexone holds great promise for the millions of people worldwide with autoimmune diseases or central nervous system disorders or who face a deadly cancer.
> In the developing world, LDN could provide the first low-cost, easy to administer, and side-effect-free therapy for HIV/AIDS.
Naltrexone itself was approved by the FDA in 1984 in a 50mg dose for the purpose of helping heroin or opium addicts, by blocking the effect of such drugs. By blocking opioid receptors, naltrexone also blocks the reception of the opioid hormones that our brain and adrenal glands produce: beta-endorphin and metenkephalin. Many body tissues have receptors for these endorphins and enkephalins, including virtually every cell of the body's immune system.
In 1985, Bernard Bihari, MD, a physician with a clinical practice in New York City, discovered the effects of a much smaller dose of naltrexone (approximately 3mg once a day) on the body's immune system. He found that this low dose, taken at bedtime, was able to enhance a patient's response to infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. [Note: Subsequently, the optimal adult dosage of LDN has been found to be 4.5mg.]
In the mid-1990's, Dr. Bihari found that patients in his practice with cancer (such as lymphoma or pancreatic cancer) could benefit, in some cases dramatically, from LDN. In addition, people who had an autoimmune disease (such as lupus) often showed prompt control of disease activity while taking LDN.
How does LDN work?
> LDN boosts the immune system, activating the body's own natural defenses.
Up to the present time, the question of "What controls the immune system?" has not been present in the curricula of medical colleges and the issue has not formed a part of the received wisdom of practicing physicians. Nonetheless, a body of research over the past two decades has pointed repeatedly to one's own endorphin secretions (our internal opioids) as playing the central role in the beneficial orchestration of the immune system, and recognition of the facts is growing.
Witness these statements from a review article of medical progress in the November 13, 2003 issue of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine: "Opioid-Induced Immune Modulation: .... Preclinical evidence indicates overwhelmingly that opioids alter the development, differentiation, and function of immune cells, and that both innate and adaptive systems are affected.1,2 Bone marrow progenitor cells, macrophages, natural killer cells, immature thymocytes and T cells, and B cells are all involved. The relatively recent identification of opioid-related receptors on immune cells makes it even more likely that opioids have direct effects on the immune system.3"
The brief blockade of opioid receptors between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. that is caused by taking LDN at bedtime each night is believed to produce a prolonged up-regulation of vital elements of the immune system by causing an increase in endorphin and enkephalin production. Normal volunteers who have taken LDN in this fashion have been found to have much higher levels of beta-endorphins circulating in their blood in the following days. Animal research by I. Zagon, PhD, and his colleagues has shown a marked increase in metenkephalin levels as well. [Note: Additional information for Dr. Zagon can be found at the end of this page.]
Bihari says that his patients with HIV/AIDS who regularly took LDN before the availability of HAART were generally spared any deterioration of their important helper T cells (CD4+).
In human cancer, research by Zagon over many years has demonstrated inhibition of a number of different human tumors in laboratory studies by using endorphins and low dose naltrexone. It is suggested that the increased endorphin and enkephalin levels, induced by LDN, work directly on the tumors' opioid receptors and, perhaps, induce cancer cell death (apoptosis). In addition, it is believed that they act to increase natural killer cells and other healthy immune defenses against cancer.
In general, in people with diseases that are partially or largely triggered by a deficiency of endorphins (including cancer and autoimmune diseases), or are accelerated by a deficiency of endorphins (such as HIV/AIDS), restoration of the body's normal production of endorphins is the major therapeutic action of LDN.
Anyway, I may have spoken a little too soon... today is not such a good day after yesterday's over doing. And I just did a "quick" raking... didn't do much but enough to be too much.
Today I am dragging. Not a whole lot of pain, but a real weakness and exhaustion. And I have things I must do today.. doc followup for my daughter, who was eval'd for FM and given a blood workup. Seems all is well. I 'll find out more later.
I like your snowfamily, Sunsetzzs! How are YOU doing?
I'm glad that so far everything is coming back good on your daughter's test, however, I realize that this does not provide you with answers as to how she's feeling. Saying prayers!
You can almost count of overdoing the second you even think you're feeling better. (like a racehorse chomping at the bit)
You've been deprived of a good amount of your life source for so long, all you want to do is GO and get things done.
Just keep telling yourself,"Whoa!"
Stanford's research paper - Low-Dose Naltrexone Reduces the Symptoms of Fibromyalgia:
http://snapl.stanford.edu/research/ldn.html
PubMed - Fibromyalgia symptoms are reduced by low-dose naltrexone: a pilot study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19453963
Medscape - Low-dose naltrexone for disease prevention and quality of life:
http://www.medscape.com/medline/abstract/19041189
Medpage Today - Low-Dose Naltrexone Eases Pain and Fatigue of Fibromyalgia:
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Rheumatology/Fibromyalgia/13785
WebMD - Naltrexone May Ease Fibromyalgia Symptoms
http://www.webmd.com/fibromyalgia/news/20090417/naltrexone-may-ease-fibromyalgia-symptoms