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I'd like to introduce Hazel from Ireland who takes LDN for Crohn's disease. Thank you for joining me, Hazel.
Hazel: Okay.
Linda Elsegood: Could you tell us about your Crohn's disease when you first started to notice symptoms?
Hazel: Oh yeah. Well, it was about 15, 16 years ago when actually, just prior to being diagnosed, I had been travelling to Asia with my husband. We had been married just recently, so we decided to move to Australia. So we went to Asia for three months, and it was glorious. As soon as I landed in Australia, I started getting very mild symptoms. But my brother-in-law, who was a doctor said, Oh, you better go to a doctor to be diagnosed, there's something wrong, you know? So I was diagnosed originally with ulcerative colitis, but it was extremely mild. And I was fine until about three years ago. So I had a good spell of being excellent, with very limited disease, and I couldn't relate to anybody who was sick with inflammatory bowel disease.
But then my daughter was diagnosed after being sick for about three weeks. She was diagnosed with Crohn's about three years ago, and it really affected me. And I just had an absolutely huge flare and I actually didn't know what's going on because I'd never experienced it before. But I was extremely sick by the time I got to the hospital, and I was both in and out of the hospital for about two months. It was just terrible.
And then, eventually, I got it under control with the whole treatment dedicated to it, between the steroids and every single drug they gave me. And I just went from there and plodded along for a while. I kind of started doing some research and came across diets and things like that, and I was actually on a diet, super carbohydrate diet.
I actually started to come across people who were taking this drug called low dose naltrexone. And I just didn't do anything about it at the time. I was kind of concentrating on the diet, but it just kept on coming up in Google searches and in people's posts about inflammatory bowel disease and LDN. And I just said, you know, I'm just going to really try and get this because I did so much research, and I really wanted to try it because I wanted something to get my daughter because she was on immunosuppressants and I was really anxious to get her off that. And I just felt that anything I do, and if it works, and it has got little or no side effects, it's something to give my daughter as well. So it was kind of like a mission I had. So I eventually got LDN, and I started this about ten months ago. So I've been on it since with a diet, and I'm absolutely perfect. It's been brilliant.
So I've been absolutely thrilled. It's just really turned my life around, and no, I wouldn't use LDN really as such on its own, but I do use it with the specific carbohydrate diet. But I do think it helps because I was extremely sick. I had another flare after the first one and I was very sick again, and I just decided I have to do something. So I'm a year and three months now down the line of the diet and using LDN for ten months. And I really, really have not looked back. It's been fabulous. So, yeah it's been great.
Linda Elsegood: Did your own doctor prescribed LDN for you and your daughter?
Hazel: Nope. I had to ring a pharmacist in Galway that processes and compounds it. It’s in County Galway, I can't remember the name of the pharmacist - Brendan Quinn. And they put me in contact with the GP that is about three-quarters of an hour from me. It's the nearest GP I could get, who would prescribe it. Unfortunately, my own GP wouldn't do it. She never heard about this, and my consultants refused as well. So I decided well if they don't give it to me, somebody else will have to. So I actually got it from Dr Maeve Bradley in Macroom. She had used it for fertility - she has a fertility clinic. And she was great. She had no claims about giving it to me, and she knew all about this, and she's having great success with it, she said. So I just said, this has to be tried. So it's been brilliant. It's been great. And I get it from Skip's pharmacy in America, so it’s legal.
Linda Elsegood: And how about your daughter? How has she been?
Hazel: Yeah, she's been fine. I'm just one of these people who does believe in diet restriction for Crohn's. I mean, it's a digestive disorder. I just rely on research I've done, that diet really does help. So she's been really well. And you know, they were quite negative about her too, when she was diagnosed. So it's been a great relief to see her well, and she's growing, she's tall, and she's had no problems really since the diet. And I'm hoping long term, with LDN - she only started about four months ago, so we're still going with that. But it's great because she was getting headaches from the immunosuppressants and this long term, I would be very nervous about leaving her on it when there is LDN that’s just perfectly safe. There's no toxicity. There's no such thing as a mild drug. Compared to the standard treatment for Crohn's.
Linda Elsegood: What dose is she on?
Hazel: She is on three milligrams, which is what I take as well.
Linda Elsegood: And you also said your son takes LDN and he's got really bad allergies.
Hazel: Yes, he does. It just started off as seasonal allergies, and it just seemed to keep on going, and it was getting worse. He would just have it during the winter, as well as just wake up and his nose was streaming, his eyes were streaming; and sneezing, coughing, and sometimes it would go to his chest, and we tried just so many things. And this year he has his junior cert, so I just felt he can't miss school the way he did last year.
So I decided after trying lots of things, I've said, you know, LDN could work for him too, because it does work on the immune system. And it's obviously an immune response he's going through, and it's been brilliant. He actually has been really well. I still give him supplements. I give him strong vitamin C, but he has been great. He has not looked back. He's had no attack in a long time. He will still every now and again get a very slight kind of a runny nose or whatever, but nothing compared to what he had.
So it definitely worked for him, because I suppose out of all of us, we can see that he was worse, he was constant every week or every two weeks he'd have an attack. So he hasn't had any major attack since he started LDN.
Linda Elsegood: Well, that's amazing, isn't it?
Hazel: Yeah. I do. I do think LDN is helping a lot think it's really worth the try for anybody. who's got a chronic illness, and it has no side effects, and it's quite reasonable too if you can get it. We're here in Ireland, and I get it from America, And the dollar to Euro exchange kind of help as well. So yeah, it's been great.
Linda Elsegood: Well, thank you very much for sharing your experience with the title.
Any questions or comments you may have, please contact us. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for joining us today. We really appreciated your company. Until next time, stay safe and keep well.