Rheumatoid Arthritis Support Group
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, inflammatory, multisystem, autoimmune disorder. It is a disabling and painful condition which can lead to substantial loss of mobility due to pain and joint destruction. The disease is also systemic in that it often also affects many extra-articular tissues throughout the body including the skin, blood vessels, heart, lungs, and...
I'm guessing no, but there are a lot of MS patients here on Daily Strength that are on this medication. It has only a test group of 10 people with RA that it has worked wonders for. Any of you heard of it?
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This isn't really bipolar related but there is never anyone on the parenting groups, this is the most active group I've been in.My 6yr old son has really bad seasonal allergies and they're in full force right now. He gets a terrible cough; he coughs all day and all night, making it hard for him to sleep, and his nose runs.I've tried every allergy medicine, OTC and RX, and none of them affect his...
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Is anyone here allergic to Sulfa that is currently taking Diamox? I have been diagnosed with IH now for almost 2 years. I am allergic to Sulfa drugs meaning that my throat will swell up so my Neurologist put me on Topamax. I was suffering from major loud whoosing noises and the topamax helped that but everyday I still hear those mainly between 6 - 12 pm. I am at my wits end and have not went...
Licensed from naltrexone
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What is the most important information I should know about naltrexone oral?
Your doctor may recommend that naltrexone oral be given to you by a family member or other caregiver. This is to make sure you are using the medicine as it was prescribed as part of your treatment.
Do not use narcotic drugs or alcohol while taking naltrexone oral. Never try to overcome the effects of the medication by taking large doses of narcotic drugs or alcohol. Doing so could result in dangerous effects, including coma and death. Ask your doctor before using any prescription or over-the-counter medicine to treat a cold, cough, diarrhea, or pain while taking naltrexone oral. These medicines may contain narcotics or alcohol. Naltrexone oral can cause side effects that may impair your thinking or reactions. Be careful if you drive or do anything that requires you to be awake and alert. Carry an ID card or wear a medical alert bracelet stating that you are using naltrexone, in case of emergency. Any doctor, dentist, or emergency medical care provider who treats you should know that you are using this medication.
Additional forms of counseling and/or monitoring may be recommended during treatment with naltrexone oral.
What is naltrexone oral?
Naltrexone oral is an special narcotic drug that blocks the effects of other narcotic medicines and alcohol.
Naltrexone oral is used to treat narcotic drug or alcohol addiction..
Naltrexone oral may also be used for purposes other than those listed in this medication guide.
What should I discuss with my health care provider before using naltrexone oral?
Do not take this medicine if you are allergic to naltrexone, or if you have:
an addiction to narcotics;
a history of alcohol or narcotic drug use within the past 7-10 days; or
drug or alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
Before taking naltrexone, tell your doctor if you are allergic to any drugs, or if you have:
kidney disease;
liver disease; or
a bleeding disorder such as hemophilia (if you are using naltrexone oral injection).
If you have any of these conditions, you may not be able to use naltrexone oral or you may need a dosage adjustment or special tests during treatment.
FDA pregnancy category C. This medication may be harmful to an unborn baby. Tell your doctor if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant during treatment. It is not known whether naltrexone oral passes into breast milk or if it could harm a nursing baby. Do not use this medication without telling your doctor if you are breast-feeding a baby.
How should I use naltrexone oral?
Use naltrexone oral exactly as it was prescribed for you. Do not use the medication in larger amounts or for longer than recommended by your doctor. Follow the directions on your prescription label.
Take the naltrexone oral tablet with a full glass of water. You may take the naltrexone oral tablet with food to decrease stomach upset.
It is important to take naltrexone oral regularly to get the most benefit.
Your doctor may recommend that naltrexone oral be given to you by a family member or other caregiver. This is to make sure you are using the medicine as it was prescribed as part of your treatment.
Carry an ID card or wear a medical alert bracelet stating that you are using naltrexone, in case of emergency. Any doctor, dentist, or emergency medical care provider who treats you should know that you are using this medication.
Additional forms of counseling and/or monitoring may be re
In brief, this medicine was originally developed to get heroin addicts off heroin. It's an opioid antagonist. Which means it makes any opioid not work.......hence pain killers, heroin, alcohol, etc. Normally the dose for getting a person off of heroin would be 50mg. It can be dangerous for a heroin user if they're still on heroin because immediately it gives them withdrawals which could turn into shock. In high doses, such as 300mg for people who are obese, it has been helpful, however it is harmful to the liver at that dosage. In a low dose form, between 1.5mg and 4.5 mg., recommended for people who have M.S., HIV, and other autoimmune diseases, it improves the immune system, but the process begins with the endorphins. You take it at night when you create the most endorphins, between 10 and 3 a.m. By blocking the endorphins during these hours of sleep, your body tries to overcompensate and thus creates more endorphins. As a result, your body's immune system improves. For MS patients, this drug has worked wonders and you can speak to them yourself if you want to as there are many on Daily strength who are on this drug. If this drug works, then it proves Dr.Bihari's theory that RA as well as many other auto immune diseases are not in fact caused from an over active immune system. Instead it is just an immune system that has gone haywire. Dr.Bihari went to medical school at Harvard and began testing the low dose drug on HIV patients because many of the heroin addicts were getting HIV. When he saw that it was helping them, a friend who had a 17 year old daughter who had MS and was suffering, as none of the drugs were really helping her, he decided to test the drug on her. Supposedly it's worked wonders and she's been on it for years now. As we know, there is always the possibility that this could always be an urban legend, but when I saw that Daily Strength has numerous people taking this drug and their response to it, it furthered my belief that this is no urban legend. After all, I heard of the drug through an MS patient who was also suffering from RA here on Daily Strength. So, hope for me that this drug works! It will be a while before it comes in the mail! ((HUGS))!!!!
There is some speculation that the reason is because it's such a cheap drug. It costs about 15 cents a day. why would pharmaceutical companies want to spend money on testing a drug that's so cheap? Well, that could be one answer.
The other answer is it has been tested for purposes of addiction, not for auto immune patients. What I can tell you is that there are test groups out there. Although it's been FDA approved, that doesn't mean it's the choice of meds for an insurance company. Right now there's a clinical trial in San Francisco for Low Dose Naltrexone for Fibromialgia patients. It's also being tested in another country to try and help HIV patients. I do believe that because RA has a line of meds that are extremely expensive and work for the most part, it will probably be a long time before a drug like this is even suggested for a clinical trial. For diseases like MS, Fibromialgia and HIV, there hasn't been a break through that I know of, so I think it is more likely to be used on them. But, what do I know?
Here's some more info - it seems because the drug is so cheap to produce the drug companies aren't interested in spending $$ for clinical trials & FDA approval for uses other than substance abuse. This was funded by Penn State.
MedInsight(SM) Announces Clinical Trial Results Of Low-dose Naltrexone; Potential Breakthrough For Crohn's Disease Patients
Main Category: Crohn's
Also Included In: GastroIntestinal / Gastroenterology; Clinical Trials / Drug Trials
Article Date: 31 Jan 2007 - 0:00 PST
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The forthcoming edition of the American Journal of Gastroenterology (early release now online) reports the results of a successful clinical trial using low-dose naltrexone (LDN) to treat Crohn's disease.
In 1982, Dr. Ian Zagon and Dr. Patricia McLaughlin at Hershey Medical Center, Penn State University College of Medicine, discovered that naltrexone - approved by the FDA in 1984 for treating substance abuse - also triggers the production of higher levels of naturally occurring opioids (also known as endorphins) when used at a fraction of the usual dose. This prompted Dr. Zagon and his team to research the application of naltrexone in treating various other conditions.
In 2004, Moshe Rogosnitzky, director of research at MedInsight Research Institute, presented evidence to Dr. Zagon that increased endorphin levels could have a beneficial effect in treating Crohn's disease. As a result of this information, Dr. Zagon and Dr. Jill Smith, Professor of Gastroenterology at Hershey Medical Center, launched a preliminary clinical trial using a low dose of readily available naltrexone.
Backed by seed funding from Penn State University, the results of the clinical trial demonstrated the treatment to be remarkably effective. Eighty- nine percent of treated patients experienced significant improvement in their symptoms, and two-thirds experienced remission.
"This is a novel, yet effective, approach to treating a common disease," says Dr. Smith. A follow-up controlled trial, sponsored by the Broad Medical Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, has been launched by Drs. Smith and Zagon to confirm the results of the first study.
Dr. Zagon, study co-author, is also encouraged by the findings. "I am delighted to see this study published," says Dr. Zagon. "Although it is a preliminary investigation, and its findings need to be verified by controlled studies, it points to the efficacy of low-dose naltrexone in treating patients with Crohn's, a devastating and debilitating disease."
Co-author Moshe Rogosnitzky agrees. "Once the results of this study are confirmed," he says, "we will have perhaps the safest and so-far most- effective overall treatment for Crohn's disease."
Ironically, the low cost of LDN treatment - less than $100 per month - could prove to be a disadvantage. At that pricing level, few drug companies have the incentive to invest the funds necessary to obtain FDA approval for this new indication.
Nevertheless, Dr. Smith remains confident. "We have already been approached by biotech companies with an interest in licensing this therapy," she says. "Because naltrexone is already approved for other uses, it should be a relatively inexpensive process to obtain FDA approval for its use in Crohn's disease."
I'm still looking for further info - wouldn't it be a huge blessing to find an effective treatment for under $100. per month!!
The Use of LDN for MS, Crohn's, and Other Autoimmune Diseases
Elaine Moore
Jun 7, 2007
Clinical trials and anecdotal reports suggest that low doses of the opiod antagonist naltrexone offer promise to patients with a variety of different autoimmune diseases.
Used in low doses, the pure opiod antagonist Naltrexone (LDN refers to low-dose Naltrexone), a mainstay for treating opiate and alcohol addiction since 1984, has been reported to provide significant benefits for patients with autoimmune diseases, HIV infection, various cancers, and neurodegenerative diseases. The use of LDN in treating patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) was first proposed in the mid-1980s by Dr. Bernard Bihari, a New York City neurologist. In his clinical practice, the Harvard educated Bihari found that a low dose of naltrexone (1.5 to 4.5 mg daily) taken at bedtime offered benefits to patients with MS and other autoimmune conditions including rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. Since, additional studies and anecdotal reports have confirmed Bihari's findings and demonstrated the effectiveness of naltrexone for Crohn's disease, Parkinson's disease and other conditions.
Naltrexone Dose
The usual dose of naltrexone used for opiate addiction is 50-300 mg daily and in autoimmune diseases the dose ranges from 1 to 10 mg daily and, according to recommendations, the dose should always be taken at night. Naltrexone is a very inexpensive medication, with a reported cost of less than 50 cents daily when low doses are used. Side effects are rarely seen when doses less than 300 mg daily are used and have been limited to rare reports of insomnia.
Naloxone
Naloxone, an opiate antagonist often used in emergency settings to treat opiate overdoses, has also been researched for its use in autoimmune disease. The drawback of naloxone is that it cannot be administered orally. However, studies regarding low dose naloxone show effects similar to those of naltrexone.
Clinical and Anecdotal Reports
The results of clinical trials on LDN to date have shown remarkable improvement in patients with Crohns disease and patients with MS. In the last decade there have also been numerous anecdotal reports of MS patients worldwide, particularly in the US and UK, experiencing relief from symptoms, a decline in disease progression, and remission from the use of low dose naltrexone. In addition, there are anecdotal reports of improvement in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, autoimmune liver disease and rheumatoid arthritis.
Immune System Effects
Used as a low dose, Naltrexone is able to block the mu opiod receptor but does not affect the other opiod receptors. In blocking the mu opiod receptor, low dose Naltrexone re-establishes the normal balance between the mu and delta opiod receptors, which is necessary for immune competence. Naloxone has also been show to increase Th1 and decrease Th2 cytokine production, decrease IL-4 production, and increase IL-2 and interferon gamma levels. In many autoimmune diseases, for instance Graves disease, low Th1 levels are related to the proliferation of autoreactive T lymphocytes and the ability to produce autoantibodies.
The effects of naltrexone are also thought to be attributed to the removal of the regulatory effects on the immune system exerted by endogenous opiod peptides, which could activate Th2 and suppress Th1 cytokines. Naltrexone is reported to increase production of endogenous opiod peptides.
Biochemical Effects
Studies have suggested that naltrexone reduces apoptosis (cell death) of the myelin-producing oligodendrocytes. It accomplishes this by reducing inducible nitric oxide synthase activity, which cause a decrease in peroxynitrite formation, which, in turn, prevents the inhibition of glutamate transporters. Consequently, the excitatory neurotoxicity (cell destruction) of glutatmate on neurons and oligodendrocytes is prevented. Studies also show that naltrexone reduces inflammation in neurons.
Clinical Trials
several studies in people with MS have begun:
The MindBrain Consortium and the Department of Psychiatry of Summa Hospital System of Akron, Ohiotogether with the Oak Clinic for the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosisare conducting a 16-week, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover-design analysis of 36 patients with either progressive or relapsing-remitting MS. The study, under the direction of Dr. David Pincus, is examining symptom severity as well as any changes in quality of life, sleep patterns, and affective (emotional) states. Results are expected in the summer of 2008.
Patient advocates with MS have funded a 17-week, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover-design study at the University of California at San Francisco, under the direction of Dr. Bruce Cree. This trial, which will involve 80 people with MS, is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2008.
more stuff:
http://lowdosenaltrexone.org/ldn_and_ai.htm
hhmm maybe this could treat my RA and help stop smoking?