LDN Video Interviews and Presentations

Dr Kat Toups, LDN Radio Show 15 March 2017 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Dr. Kat Toups is an MD from California in the US,  a functional medicine doctor and a psychiatrist.

After graduating, being a psychiatrist I ending up working in a research centre, found trials and studies on psychiatric medications, and came to see the answer really wasn't in a pill. The kind of illnesses that my patients had could not be fixed just by giving them a medication.

They were multifactorial reasons and that the pharmaceutical route was not the answer. Maybe some of the medications did help relieve suffering for people, but they didn't solve the problem of why they were sick.

So like many people that have come to the functional medicine table, I came into it with my own illness. I had immune problems sort of on and off most of my adult life and finally crashed and burned with some serious immune illness. As a physician, I knew the limitations of what traditional medicine had to offer me.

They could give me steroids to suppress my illness, but that wouldn't cure things. And so I started learning functional medicine at that time. And I suspect a lot of your listeners are familiar with functional medicine, but the basic idea of functional medicine is that we want to understand the root cause of why someone is ill, and it usually causes are plural.

 And then as we address all of those factors and bring those things into balance, we can restore health and get people well.

I went through all the training courses with the Institute for functional medicine and subsequently became certified there.

I would say in my practice a large majority of people have immune type illnesses or infection type illnesses. Many with Chronic Fatigue and then, of course, all kinds of mood symptoms that go along with immune illness.

So some of my patients kind of have the double whammy. They have immune illnesses, and they have a brain component, either psychiatric or cognitive problems.

So I would say that I've ended up with a pretty complex set of patients and I really enjoy working with very sick people because it's so much fun to help them on that path to getting better and getting their health back.

The first thing that I look at is a timeline. So I have patients fill out quite detailed questionnaires that I can start to see what has been happening. So I start back with when your mother was pregnant, did anything happen? You know, did she have illnesses?

What happened at the delivery? Was it a vaginal birth? We know that people who are born by C-section and subsequently are not breastfed may have lower levels of healthy probiotics.

We know that the gut microbiome and our healthy probiotics are what controls our immune system in great part. So if we don't have a healthy gut microbiome, then we can predict problems with chronic illness down the road. So then I'll look at the factors all through their life. What happened in early childhood? Did you have your infections? Did you have allergies? Did you have colic?

And then I look at the stressors happening and all those various factors. What were your teenage years like? Was it pleasant or was it a time of struggle and conflict and what was happening in your family? Was somebody a drinker?

Was somebody impaired by psychiatric disorders? Did a parent die or abandoned the family? We know now that when people have a lot of those factors, we can see immune disorders developing at higher rates like 20 or 30 years later.

So the notion of PTSD Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, you don't have to be beaten or raped.

I'll ask about tick bites. I'll ask about mould exposure.

Those were, of course, things that can affect the brain and the immune system.

 And testing, of course, testing is a big part of what I do.

I also test for SIBO, Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, and people with SIBO have a lot of GI issues. They typically have a lot of bloating and a lot of gas and people can have a lot of Irritable Bowel Syndrome, either constipation or diarrhoea or both. And what happens with SIBO is we have a lot of bacteria in our colon, and that is normal, but we shouldn't have such a high level in our small intestine, but when the bacteria get out of balance they can grow into the small intestine and overtake that. And so when you eat certain foods that are fuel for those bacteria, that will just have a little party with all that food, and they give off gas and bloating, and some people can appear six or seven months pregnant with the magnitude of the bloating, with the SIBO.

And so, as a psychiatrist, it's very clear. When people have SIBO and  there's a disruption in the gut that causes leaky gut or increased permeability in your gut, that allows food particles to get through into our bloodstream and then sometimes bacterial or viral or parasite components and all those things activate our immune system. And so when that immune system gets activated, it release's these inflammatory chemicals called cytokines and they'll travel around, and they freely cross the blood-brain barrier, and they turn on the immune system in the brain.

And when there are these inflammatory cytokines turned on in our brain, it causes psychiatric symptoms. And kind of the first thing that I'll see is anxiety.

 And then it can have depression ramifications. It can have cognitive ramifications and even people who never had ADD can have ADD symptoms with trouble paying attention and being distractible and can't focus.

 SIBO is where I learned about LDN. As part of the regimen for SIBO treatment, LDN is used theoretically as a prokinetic agent. And so the thinking was that you probably have some kind of GI infection.

Your immune system turns on to fight that infection. And so the thinking with LDN is that it somehow settles down that immune reaction so that people can quit suffering from constipation or diarrhoea.

I use LDN  in a variety situations. It's been probably best studied with immune disorders and Cancer. Cancer is really kind of the ultimate failure of your immune system. So cancer is certainly one place that I have used it.

And I've used it for Hashimoto's thyroiditis, unfortunately, a condition we're seeing so much more of these days. For some people, it can help the Hashimoto's so quickly that I always warn my patients that are on thyroid medication. If they start feeling hyperthyroid, like they're on too much medication, you can feel jittery, heart racing.

Then, when you're on too much thyroid medication I advise them to let me know immediately, and I give them blood lab order to get their thyroid tests right away because what I find is for some people they can reduce their thyroid medication because of treating with the LDN. And I've had people that have completely resolved their thyroid antibodies.

I've used it for psoriasis and I started taking LDN myself because I have psoriasis and I would say within days, I stopped needing to use topical steroids on my scalp, which is where I have the worst symptoms.

I've used it with Parkinson's patients, multi-system atrophy, with a lot of Fibromyalgia's patients and Fibromyalgia is one area where people say you should watch the side effects of LDN that sometimes it might flare it up in the beginning and you might have to go start lower and go slower.

And I really haven't seen much of that. I usually let my Fibromyalgia patients know that that's been reported but I still go ahead and start with my standard dose titration.

I use it for pain conditions. We know that when you, take a dose of LDN that, it's reported that it temporarily blocks your own opiate receptors, and that causes your own brain to make opiates.

So your own brain is reported to make six times more opiates with a dose of LDN. Of course, there are feel-good hormones and that is also the component of narcotics that helps the pain. So LDN can be quite useful for pain conditions.

I spoke with one woman who told me she had been on high doses of narcotics for many years, for Regional complex sympathetic.

It's a neurologic pain disorder that can be quite disabling. And she told me that by using LDN, she was able to get off of her high doses of narcotics because it had controlled her pain.

I've seen it really help people's depression and anxiety.

I have used it with veterans with PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder and typically we've given it at night time because that's the time when you're sleeping that your brain reportedly makes a lot of opiates but some people end up moving the medication to the daytime because of vivid dreams although they are temporary side effects. So we have the idea of giving this a couple of times during the day to see if we can get that endorphin increased during the day when these patients are really stressed and triggered by the PTSD symptoms. So they started splitting the dose and they have some very lovely results with that so I learned that I had shifted a lot of my patients who do have anxiety or PTSD symptoms to taking it in the daytime.

Lyme disease and the co-infections with Lyme are another areas that LDN is definitely put that on the first line. What I think because it happens with Lyme disease is it shuts down the immune system.

And so LDN then becomes a mechanism to help support the immune system so that it can detect and clear that infection.

I've had some discussions with one of my friends and colleagues who works with pandas, and that's the pediatric autoimmune neuro-psych disorders. Typically it's been reported in children that they'll have an infection most often strep, but it can be caused by mycoplasma.

It can be caused by other infections that trigger that child's immune response. And then the immune system starts attacking the brain and these children can develop the pretty acute onset of severe obsessive-compulsive disorder and behavioural problems. And I had recently worked up a 12-year-old for his pandas and discovered that he had an infectious source with active mycoplasma. I had started that child on Low Dose Naltrexone.

The thing about infectious diseases we have a beautiful design that is supposed to work for some kind of acute infectious diseases with a short course of antibiotics that may knock things out. The problem that we get into is with the people that have chronic infectious diseases. That is chronically triggering their immune system. And those are some of the kinds of patients that I see.

And they come in, when I take their symptom history, they have, 20 or more active symptoms that are troubling them. A traditional doctor will look at that many symptoms and say, "Oh my God, there's your neurotic, you're a psychiatric patient." I am the psychiatrist, so from my perspective, I can say you have all these symptoms. This is not in your head. It's in your body. There's something happening in your body that is triggering the symptoms. The answer for me isn't giving the psychiatric meds because those don't get them well.

I may use psychiatric medications in the short term as a bandaid.

The LDN definitely is one part of the toolkit to start helping support the immune system.

They are written about dental infections. This is a really tough area where people have a root canal because they've had an infection in a tooth and the dentist take out the roots, and they fill them up with material. What I've learned is beyond those roots stars, the infection can get into those microtubules and maybe it's a low-level infection, but it can be enough to keep turning on someone's immune system.

And some people with immune disorders just won't get well until they pull those root canal teeth, because it's triggering this chronic infection.

I took part in a Lyme disease documentary and they have so many different symptoms. And even though these people are really obviously very ill, unable to move, function, the pain, cognitively, etc and the doctor says "It's all psychological. It's in your head. "And how devastating when you feel that low to be told it's in your head and being offered antidepressants and things. I empower people and get them to believe that they can get well. And that these symptoms really are of a physiologic nature and that once we can find all the causes and support their nutrition and support their immune system, that they can get better.

My website has the information. My practices called Bay Area wellness.

So the website is www.bayareawellness.net. And my Facebook It's called Bay area wellness dash functional medicine psychiatry.

Summary of Dr. Kat Toups interview. Watch the YouTube video for full interview.

Dr Jordan Atkinson, LDN Radio Show 12 May 2017 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Dr Jordan Atkinson shares his Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) experience on the LDN Radio Show with Linda Elsegood.

Dr Jordan Atkinson, based in Vancouver, has utilised LDN for a variety of autoimmune conditions and cancer with excellent results. As a Naturopathic doctor, his clinic does extensive testing to evaluate the patient before prescribing diet, exercise and medical solutions. 

He takes the time to know each patient's situation and then, he custom formulates a resolution. He believes in being proactive, not reactive and getting to the root of the problem before it becomes serious.

This is a summary of Dr Jordan Atkinson’s interview. Please listen to the rest of Dr Atkinson’s story by clicking on the video above.

Dr John Sullivan, LDN Radio Show (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Dr John Sullivan shares his Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) experience on the LDN Radio Show with Linda Elsegood.

Dr John Sullivan first heard of Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) around 15 years ago when he received a call from a doctor from a medical research centre looking at the benefits of LDN. 

He first began prescribing LDN to his cancer patients, but following their great success he moved onto autoimmune patients with equal success. Dr Sullivan’s LDN success rate is in the high nineties. 

In this interview he praises LDN for its remarkable ability to help patients recover from their respective diseases and how shocked he is that mainstream medicine is yet to adopt LDN as a mainline treatment.

This is a summary of Dr John Sullivan’s interview. Please listen to the rest of Dr Sullivan’s story by clicking on the video above.

Dr John Kim, LDN Radio Show 07 Dec 2016 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Linda Elsegood: Today we're joined by Dr John Kim. Thank you for joining us, John.

Dr John Kim: Well, thank you for the invitation, Linda,

Linda Elsegood: For those people that haven't heard you on our Vimeo channel, would you like to tell us what it is you actually do in medicine?

Dr John Kim: I'm actually in-between transition, as some people may know. For the last ten years, I've been working in Georgia where 50% of my practice is in pain management, and then the other 50% is solving complex medical puzzles; especially autoimmune conditions. I actually discovered LDN as a part of the second part of the practice, and the second part of the practice actually came about because I had wonderful techniques to help patients with chronic pain, except for patients with autoimmune disease pain. Those pains just were harder and tougher, and I had to change my paradigm and look for other tools other than what I had, and kind of open the door through LDN to treat the whole bunch of other conditions, especially autoimmune conditions with a great deal of success.

Linda Elsegood: Would you like to tell us what it is you have trained in?

Dr John Kim: So the original training in medicine began with family medicine, and I chose that because it was the most holistic of all areas. But I wanted to train more, so I actually changed my career to a speciality; to preventative medicine, and then from there I learned medical acupuncture, and then went on for a fellowship in integrative medicine with Dr Andrew Weil as a residential fellow. That kind of sums up my traditional training, but I've also done extensive basic science research in biochemistry and pharmacology.

Linda Elsegood: What would you say the outcomes have been for the patients that you have prescribed LDN for?

Dr John Kim: LDN for me hits even closer because the LDN originally was brought to me by one of my favourite patients. I'm not supposed to have favourite patient, but the patient is a favourite because she one day said, ‘Hey,I have this condition called Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and the prognosis is really depressing. I get to take medication and as Hashimoto's thyroiditis destroys more of my thyroid I get to take more and more, and you never get off it’. And she said, ‘I found something interesting called low dose naltrexone, and would you please do research?’ And I said ‘sure’ and when I did research about it, that was about ten years ago, there were fewer research articles, but even then, it really looked like the risk-benefit profile, meaning how much risk is there and how much benefit is there, was very, very limited; small, and the benefits sound so incredible. So, I prescribed the medication and what happened was that her disease went into remission, full remission, and did not require any further use of hormone treatment. Then what had happened was that within several years she got pregnant and, retained her baby, because before she was having issues with, I think miscarriage, and then she gave birth. And then after the birth, her disease returned, almost like Graves and we again used low dose naltrexone very successfully and helped the illness to go into remission as well. 

Linda Elsegood: And did she take the LDN throughout her pregnancy?

Dr John Kim: Yes. LDN through pregnancy is a very interesting topic and I had them talk to their doctor, but you know, part of the acupuncture practice I have, a small part of it is fertility. And I've noticed that LDN helps patients to get pregnant. For those I think who have issues with their ability to get pregnant it’s often coming from an autoimmune condition, and I think that LDN can reverse that.

Then I've seen LDN reverse endometriosis, and again, I think that a lot of the illnesses that we have seen have an autoimmune basis. We don't use the word autoimmune, what I like to use is the dysfunctional or stunted immune system. The immune system is no longer being intelligent, and I think the LDN corrects it.

That's why I think that LDN is such an interesting drug because LDN seems to be what we call an adaptogen, which means that it brings a system into balance. So if it's too much, it brings it down. If it's too little, it kicks it up. And I think that's how LDN works for from everything. From autoimmune diseases to HIV, to cancer.

And LDN, I think is like almost a class of its own, because it does so many nifty, therapeutic actions with some limited side effects. 

Linda Elsegood: What side effects have you noticed with your patients?

Dr John Kim: There are at least two people that I've seen that had a severely depleted state of endorphin.

They’d been ill for a long, long, long time, and their resilience is very, very limited. And for those people, I've noticed that even with one microgram of low dose naltrexone, they have a hard time taking it. And. If there was a homoeopathic pharmacy, I wondered if they could make a nanogram dosing of low dose naltrexone for these people, but these people are few and far between.

For most of the other people who have side effects, they find it easier to handle. Like some people, instead of it helping them to sleep, it has the opposite effect. So, if that's the case, it's pretty simple, they just take it at dinner time or in certain cases, I just tell them to take it with lunch or even at breakfast time.

Linda Elsegood: Well, we did have a question, which fits in quite nicely with what you're saying, and it's from Deb, and she has her own thyroid group with LDN, and she says, ‘have you seen a patient with a genuine allergic reaction, not just a side effect on  1.5 milligrams of LDN?’

Dr John Kim: So I think that the allergic reaction if they're talking about an anaphylactic reaction, that's probably due to the filler, not necessarily to do with LDN. As I said, the two people that I have seen a reaction, even one microgram, those people, I think probably had the reaction that they're describing, which is closer to an allergy, however, I've not seen the typical, what they call anaphylactic or IgE mediated response to naltrexone, and it's theoretically possible, but I just haven't seen it at this point.

Linda Elsegood: We have a lady called Lynn from Australia who has been using LDN for two and a half years for graves' disease in kidney neuropathy, and it’s inactive now, but she does have small, reoccurring, low-grade bladder cancer.

Her naturopath suggested that she should take a test to show nutrients, which would affect the cell line of cancer patients, so she's asking ‘would this test be worth having in regard to bladder cancer and LDN?’

Dr John Kim: I think that's a wonderful question, and it also happens to be a complex question. And the reason why I say this is that the low dose naltrexone effect on cancer, I think that is very beyond theoretical. I think that we are beginning to have case series of studies that would be the basis of one day doing a randomized control trial using LDN to use either as an augmented complementary to the conventional therapy or standalone agent. In terms of the nutrition testing, which is very popular we call this approach ’functional medicine’, within the integrative medicine spear. And in that philosophy of testing everything that you can pass on, or micronutrient testing, or even testing of the agents that are a part of the Krebs cycle, and testing those intermediate, biological functional markers to be useful.

And I think that to be honest with you, that the research just is not yet fully there. Spectracell is one company that will basically test different types of antioxidants and vitamins, and I think that it's a reasonable thing to do for cancer patients.

I would not recommend it for everybody who is in good health, but for cancer patients, if you asked me six months ago, I would say, I'm not sure, but I think that because cancer is such a debilitating and life-threatening illness because the conventional medicines alone don’t have full control over cancer.

Because even with LDN, looking at Dr Biharis’s study, that wasn't a hundred per cent. I mean, he did not get a hundred per cent either. So, I think that we have partial answers, but with cancer, we have room for improvement. I think that some types of micronutrient testing for cancer patients makes sense.

Again, that’s not recommended on a healthy person, but for cancer patients, because the stakes are so high, and because of the latest protocol by Dr Berkson, who combined alpha-lipoic acid with low dose naltrexone to help stage four cancer patients to go into remission.

So, if you look at that, then, all of a sudden what else are we missing? I mean, are there systematic studies? No. So then if there are no systematic studies, then you have to become a study of one. And how do you do that? Just like what the natural path is suggesting. I think that it is reasonable for cancer patients, but unfortunately not for everyone.

I think there's part of us that can be narcissistic and say, I want to test everything on you; genetic markers and nutrients, but I think that moderation is often a good way to go, but with cancer, I think that my answer has changed in the last year; the more I think about it, and the more I read, and the more new studies come out.

Linda Elsegood: Okay, we have a question from Christina, and she says ‘I have postpartum thyroiditis from pregnancy in 2011. My thyroid has never recovered and is very large with hypothyroidism. I do not have Hashimoto's. Should I start off at a very low dose because of my thyroid issues?’

Dr John Kim: So that's the wonderful thing about low dose naltrexone. Like I think I've shared earlier, the patient who introduced me to LDN, in the beginning, had Hashimoto's. But then she had postpartum hypothyroidism and LDN works for both, and some people would think, how can that be?

How can LDN increase the function of the thyroid and also decrease the function of the thyroid? If you look at it as LDN is an adaptogen for the immune system, meaning LDN restores the balance of the immune system, then everything makes sense. It's because the low dose naltrexone can increase the overall balance of the immune system that it can help with hyperthyroidism. It can help with hypothyroidism because the mechanism in both cases is exactly the same. Decrease the abnormalities within the immune system, and it does this it seems through glial cells binding through glial cells to There is a certain type of receptor that is responsible for releasing pro-inflammatory molecules. So, LDN binds to that site and does not allow for the release of inflammatory molecules. So, I think that the answer would be yes for somebody in that area, who is capable and is familiar with using LDN for those circumstances. And the other thing is that in such circumstances, I think aggressive testing makes sense.

So for me, if I had patients like that, I’d keep a very close eye on them, and I would test them even monthly to see what their labs are doing.

Linda Elsegood: Oh, she then goes on to say that she's actually been on LDN 1.5 milligrams and she had to take it every other day in the morning because she got very jittery.

She said she built it up to 1.5 milligrams daily and felt better. But then, after three or four weeks, her symptoms suddenly came on strong. She says, ‘does LDN bring out the disease and make you worse before you get better? Should I increase if I start to feel worse? And how long should I expect to feel worse before I start to feel better?’

Dr John Kim: I think that it's very rare. With my patients, I have seen or heard of those reactions. And I think that in one of the emails you sent me, I think that person had a similar reaction, were that there seemed to be a sudden release of catecholamines, which means molecules like epinephrine norepinephrine get released. And in such cases, you really have no choice but to go slowly, and to utilize incremental increases. I think whenever people have like a complex reaction, I will recommend them to consider having more than the standard use of LDN. I would say, you need to use more of a shotgun approach and utilize multiple assets. And I think that seems to be a good example because she's having a complex reaction; it's not a typical reaction. And so, for that, more diagnosis is needed, to see if there are any kind of issues of catecholamines being higher in her body than they should be. There's a test that they can do over 24 hours of urine collection. They can measure the overall amount of catecholamines in the body, and that indicates other problems that can be present. But if she wants to solve the issue, I think the best thing to do is branch out to other tools, and that's where I really love having more than just one tool. So, for example, I would use the LDN, I would use acupuncture because it also increases endorphins and decreases inflammation. Supplements that can also reduce inflammation, as well as immunotherapy that I talked about and those five things are what I recommend people to try before going to the conventional medications. In some cases, I see that even combining all those is not good enough, and then they have to use number six, which is conventional medications and conventional approaches. I think that it's just important that conventional medicine is not our enemy. It is neither a friend nor an enemy.

It's supposed to be our servant. We don't want it to be a master. We don't want it to be a dictator and create all kinds of problems.

Linda Elsegood: Okay. Well, we'll get ready to go into a break. If anybody out there would like to phone in and ask your questions to Dr John Kim, if you want the numbers, just go to www.ldnradio.org.

Linda Elsegood: Now we will take a call. Hello? Can you hear us?

Caller:  I can hear you, yes. Can you hear me?

Linda Elsegood: Fantastic. I can indeed. Yep.

Caller: Getting that somehow, right. Well, I refer to the guy that Dr John said had had a cancer diagnosis three years ago, bowel cancer. I haven't been using naltrexone yet, and I've had some chemotherapy, but on-base occasions I had Capecitabine to start with, and then I had Fluorouracil, and both of them threw me into A & E, so I've gone off the idea completely of conventional, well, what's it called? Chemotherapy. I'm just looking for alternatives. We've changed our diet. We’ve done all sorts of things and are feeling very positive, but just want to find out from you whether you think that I can be helped by LDN.

Dr John Kim: May I ask you what stage of cancer you were diagnosed with?

Caller: Oh, I think it was one.

Dr John Kim: So, then you are cancer-free at this time?

Caller: No. I had a CT scan a couple of weeks ago in November, and that showed that the tumours that they found, that showed up in April, have actually got bigger on my liver and in my right lung. I did have an operation to remove tumours from my left lung. So, I had the left upper lung removed and also I had about 30% of the liver removed.

Dr John Kim: So, when cancer that starts in one area goes to different areas such as liver and lung, it’s considered metastatic or stage four cancer. So the use of low dose effects for cancer that I've read about and that inspired me to use it actually are twofold. One is the original physician who made it popular or known to use LDN. Dr Bihari used low dose naltrexone for treating cancer very successfully and he had documented it. Now there's a second physician. Dr Berkson, who is in New Mexico, who is utilizing low dose naltrexone and alpha-lipoic acid, and in his case he does injections very successfully. So both parties have written about it. Dr Berkson has published his work. So, right now, all of my patients that have cancer, who come to me, pretty much, I recommend them a protocol of low dose naltrexone as well as alpha-lipoic acid, as well as other supplementation.

Now as for stage four cancer, fighting it just using low dose naltrexone generally, you know, I don't recommend it. I recommend using all the tools that you have because of the grade of the diagnosis. Using all the tools is what I recommend. Now, having said that, Dr Berkson does have documented patients who have used low dose naltrexone, and alpha-lipoic acid and the other protocols that he utilizes.

And my recommendation is to find someone near you who has utilized that protocol to success.

Caller: Wasn’t it Professor Dalgleish in the UK?  He's been fairly active I think in the LDN and cancer field. Have you come across him?

Dr John Kim: There's also Professor Liu, with whom Linda has connected me with. And you are part of the LDN research trust on Facebook, right?

Caller: No, I don’t do Facebook.

Dr Kim John: I'd like to highly recommend you to join. It's a really wonderful community to ask other people, especially in your circumstances. In general, I recommend for patients for fighting cancer for integrative medicine, low dose naltrexone, to use all the tools that make sense to them at their disposal. Because really, in my experience at least with stage four cancer, it's really difficult to make peace with stage four cancer. Cancer wants to grow, continues and there is no 99%, it has to be a hundred per cent because if you leave even 1%, it's alive.

It will double, and double. We call that tumour burden, and after the tumour has grown to a certain size, it puts a tremendous amount of burden in or way.

Linda Elsegood: The next caller now, if not, we won't have a chance to get through the queue.

Caller: Oh, sure.

Linda Elsegood: Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your call.

Caller: Thank you very much, Dr John.

Dr John Kim: Yes sir.

Linda Elsegood: Okay. I think we have another question here that may be cancer. Hello? Hello? Are you there?

Caller:  Hello? Are you talking to me?

Linda Elsegood: Yes, I am.

Caller: Okay. This is still us. No, this one wasn't cancer-related, but I can probably find one if you want.

Linda Elsegood: No, that’s fine.

Caller: This is about mast cell activation disorder, and if Dr Kim has ever prescribed or treated anyone with that condition. Has he prescribed LDN?

Dr John Kim: I have not seen one prescribed as such, but I've seen many patients who have the symptoms of this, and I think mast cell activation disorder is closer to what the physician's call IGE, mediated allergic reaction. You know, the mast cells release histamine, and some of the interesting things about that are the speed at which it can occur. It’s very rapid. In some people, you just have to scratch their skin, and you can see a welt developing very quickly.  Is your symptom like that?

Caller: This is a question and from a group member. Not me personally.

Dr John Kim: The answer is that yes, I have utilized LDN, but the utilization of LDN in such cases is an excellent question. I think LDN is a wonder drug for autoimmune diseases, but I don't think LDN, in many cases, should be utilized alone; like the previous caller wanted to use LDN for stage four cancer.

I think that of course, it can be done, if he can find a physician willing to do it, but I think that the better approach in this case and I’ve had patients with similar symptoms, is that LDN combines wonderfully with another immunotherapy, which is more common in Europe. It's called allergy drops, and what you do is you test the person for offending agents from the environment, as well as food. And mostly if IGE with food IGG can also be included. And the wonderful thing about is once you are armed with information, what things can trigger them, you can utilize allergy drops and LDN together to allow the immune system to be reeducated.

So, I'll give you an example. One patient came to me with a mast cell activation, and hers would begin with eating fruit, whatever kind of fruit, she would just not be able to breathe. And she loved fruit, but for ten years, she couldn't eat fruit. And so, I put her on LDN, and it made her symptoms a little bit better. In a year of allergy drops plus

LDN she was able to eat fruits again, and she has no reaction. So in that case, can you get that reaction just by using allergy drops? I think it's possible, but usually allergy drops alone it takes five years. Whereas in this case, within less than a year with both LDN and allergy drop, we were able to get that rapid reaction.

So, I think that LDN is a wonderful tool. Anytime the immune system is not behaving, if it’s hyperactive or sluggish, I think LDN is a wonderful tool, but I think there is this idea, a temptation almost, to view LDN as a single agent for everything. I think that everything has a tool and for some of the patients that have had severe symptoms, I'm not afraid to use LDN and Montelukast, which is also sold under the name of Singulair, and is a prescription medication, or some of them I ask to take Zyrtec and then the allergy drops. And the wonderful thing about LDN is that it seems to re-educate the immune system, so it's almost like an intelligent approach, and it compliments the allergy drop because that is also an intelligent approach.

Caller: Understood. I guess this question probably has the same answer. I’ll just ask it in a different way. Can LDN work to help histamine inflammation? So, would that basically be the same answer?

Dr John Kim: Well, I think the answer is, I think, that I would be more careful to use histamine because what we’re talking about is that what happens after the mast cells have released histamine. So, in this case, what you're looking for is rapid response. Can LDN be used to stop an anaphylactic reaction? I don't think anyone has done the study, but I don't recommend that clinically. If someone is having an acute reaction, I think the proper response would be either Benadryl shot or Benadryl liquid.

Caller: You use the word inflammation. I don't know if that's different from a reaction.

Dr John Kim: The histamine inflammation is very rapid, and I would say if you're in that rapid phase of inflammation and the answer, I think it's similar when you're having rapid phase reaction of inflammation, I think that you have to use all the tools that are required, including steroids,  in case of histamine reaction, an anti-histamine, and then use LDN long term to get gain control. And we basically create another equation, change the equation because LDN can change the basic equation, but at the time, the house is burning down. You want to use everything. LDN is a wonderful tool to redesign the infrastructure so that the immune system just only has one response, inflammation, inflammation, inflammation. LDN can change that, and it's very interesting, because people who have a reaction, in that situation, often their immune system is actually depleted, so that means they get sick easier.

I tell them that's very similar to police being told by naughty teenagers twenty-four-seven that they can't do their job. Whereas the well-rested, police force can respond to emergency calls quite adequately.

Linda Elsegood: Okay. Yes.

Caller: Thank you.

Linda Elsegood: Okay. We're back. And what I would like you to do now John, is could you answer some of the emails that were sent in, please?

Dr John Kim: Absolutely. I really love the questions from your readers or your Facebook group members. They are just so intelligent and wonderful. One of the questions that I had was from a patient who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

She's taking Tramadol for pain, and clinic basically is agreeable to put her on LDN. I'm sorry her or him. But the thing is that they want the person off Tramadol and the person is asking what do you do? I've often seen this sort of question regarding Tramadol or Ultram, which is a brand name and is basically a form of synthetic opioid that's not a full-on opioid. What I mean by that is that it's got two different activities. Number one is that it does bind to the mu-opioid receptor, but it also works as a serotonin and norepinephrine uptake inhibitor.

And I think that it seems to me that this has multiple answers. So, part of the answer is that if the clinic says no, you can't take LDN and Tramadol together, I would say that the person can explore a herb which is very effective, known as corydalis. Corydalis does not use opioid receptor but has high effectiveness for controlling pain.

That is my go-to herb to control pain. The secondary herb can be something like curcumin, and especially if they can find long-acting curcumin, it can be helpful for controlling pain. Another tool that I find exceptionally well-suited that works in conjunction with low dose naltrexone is what I call neuroanatomical approach to acupuncture and is a new way of using acupuncture using scientific principles. And it works on strengthening the endorphin system and reorganizing the neurological signals that are pain prosthesis. The underlying question to this is, can you combine narcotics and LDN? And I think the answer is yes.

I formulate this from research done using what we call the microdose, dosing of LDN. So instead of using the normal dose, LDN use is 1.5 milligrams to 4.5 milligrams, but in micro-dosing, you use microgram doses. A thousand times less than one milligram would be one microgram, and that, even in my clinical use when people are using narcotic agents, my to-go game is to utilize a microdose gram dosing of LDN, and it seems to actually help patients to get pain relief longer. Then what I do is increase the dose of microgram dosing of LDN to push it up. And then what happens is similar to them not taking the medication you're just doing backwards.

By increasing the inhibitor strength, you're basically taking down the amount of narcotic that is effectively available and just two different approaches. But I think that it's more humane and I'm not convinced, because the effective dose for the naltrexone to overcome narcotics is about 5,200 milligrams anyway.

I don't think adding 1.5 milligrams or five milligrams will make a difference in the majority of people. Now I have to say, that because I know that in literature, there are people who are exquisitely sensitive, that even utilization of anaesthetic during surgery didn't work. They had to use massive amounts, and then at the end of they said, what on earth is going on with you? Why is it that I have to use massive doses on narcotics? They say ‘oh, yeah, I'm taking the LDN’. And so in that case, you know that in those people the LDN, is working so well, or probably what is happening to those people is that their affinity; the LDN attraction to the receptor, is exceptionally stronger than the general population.

But in general, I think that LDN, especially micro-dosing naltrexone or very low dose naltrexone, is safe with utilizing narcotics. I think that was a wonderful question.

Linda Elsegood: Do you have time to answer another one?

Dr John Kim: Oh, yes. Oh, there was another question of RSD or the CR, complex regional pain syndrome. That is a really heartbreaking condition.

‘My neurologist started me on 3 milligrams, then 4 milligrams and then 4.5 milligrams. I had some pain relief for six weeks, but the burning pain has returned to the same level. Do you know? Is there a reason? Is this a typical reaction? Do you agree with my doctor’s opinion that I would get more benefits after five months?’

I think that it's, it's kind of interesting because 1.5 milligrams to 4.5 is like the standard, and that's written in stone, but if you really dig in and do the research, those response studies that were performed on low dose naltrexone was sort of a convention developed over time, accepted by researchers. But I think that there are multiple ways low dose naltrexone works, and one way of course, is that it works through the immune system, and I think that the dosing of 1.5 to 4.5 often works quite well.

However, there's another way that LDN and especially for CRPS and neuropathy that LDN can be helpful is that LDN also works as an anti-inflammatory agent for the central nervous system. What that means is that in that setting, the dosing of LDN is going to be more dose-response curve, what I call linear response.

What that means is that depending on who you are, you will need more than 4.5mg. I had patients who needed six milligrams, and who do very well on 6 milligrams or even 7.5 milligrams, and obviously, I don't start a patient on that. I titrate them. And if you look at the original dose of medicine being 5 milligrams, I think even 9 milligrams is not unreasonable for the minority of people, but I think that rather than waiting five months, what I would do is push the dose to 5 milligrams and then 6 milligrams to see or and 7 milligrams to see if that's helpful. The other part is that CRPPS is a nervous system disorder, so alpha-lipoic acid would be another tool that can be very helpful, also taking a very high dose of fish oil also can be helpful, but taking a high dose of fish oil can result in bleeding episodes or even bruising episodes. So, it would be better if you are under the care of a physician or a naturopath who is familiar with that. With alpha lipoic acid you also have to be aware that you can lower your blood sugar levels so that's another a thing you have to watch out for. 

Linda Elsegood: Something we were talking about before. How important is diet?

Dr John Kim: You know, I think that there is again a very romantic idea that you take LDN and it's like a magic bullet. It works for everything. I think that diet is important because of the way that that LDN works. You know, in my own practice, what

I do when I take in patients with autoimmune diseases, in the beginning, I just say eat well, and patients would not listen, and the minority wouldn’t.  So now I just do the full food allergy testing because that way, I can see, and show them, and then lead them to not eat these groups of food.

And second, we need to do allergy drops to normalize your response to that food because obviously it's not killing off our population, but I also would say that there's something that has changed, that our people are having autoimmune diseases. It’s like an epidemic. You know this is everywhere. Everyone is having an autoimmune condition. Why is that? I think it has to do with we're doing something different. Has our genetics changed in 50 years? I don't think so. What has changed? Our diet has changed, and our pollutant exposure has changed. So, I think that we will find more than a lot of the plastic exposures they were having, we’re going to find to be harmful to our immune system.

I think that research is just beginning on that, but diet I think, is important. Why? Because everything that happens in our body biochemically is predicated by what we eat, what we put in our body. Then if we eat anti-inflammatory food then our body will become anti-inflammatory. If we eat pro-inflammatory food then the end result is that we will be suffering from the high levels of inflammation in the body. So, I think that LDN is a wonderful tool: however, it does not give you permission to eat badly every day, smoke, and pursue an unhealthy lifestyle.

Linda Elsegood: We've just had a question come in, and it says ‘could you define allergy drops?’

Dr John Kim: So allergy drop is basically, I think that everyone has heard of allergy shots. When you have a severe allergy you give shots to people. It does work, but  I just don't like giving shots. My family members hate shots, patients hate shots.

So, what I've done, is looking for a solution that doesn't involve all shooting allergies. It makes sense to me that if it works by giving shots, it will make sense using the GI system because a big portion of our immune system is in our gut anyway. So, I've been looking for a solution to this problem for about five years. I found a solution.

I'm told that this is the more common approach in Europe to the use of allergy drops and allergy drop means that you, whatever your allergy, whether you're allergic to food or environment, you can create an antigen dose that corresponds to how much you're allergic to.

So, if you're allergic to huge levels, then you give them a minute amount of allergen, and then you systematically teach the immune system by exposure not to overreact. So, you can do that to peanuts, you can do that to wheat., you can do that to milk, you can do that for grass, fungus; the big thing that I see is yeast.

So that's the allergy drops that I talk about. I think that as I said, LDN and immunotherapy go hand in hand in my opinion, for autoimmune, and the reason is very simple; both of them are the intelligent approach to re-educating the immune system. And it seems the immune system is amazing because, that one patient I talked about that she was allergic to the fruit, what I found out was that she was allergic to grass. And grass, of course, is the cousin of fruit. So, I treated her grass allergy for about a year, and low and behold, she was able to eat fruits again, and I never went to even specific foods. I just treated grass, because that was the one thing that she was most allergic to.

So, it shows how intelligent immune system is. Of course, she was also taking LDN at the same time, which I think shortened the duration needed for her to go into remission.

Linda Elsegood: Well, I'd actually like to now talk about your LDN book that you've just managed to get published, and it's available on Amazon.

Could you tell us more about your book?

Dr John Kim: Yes, you know, it kind of began as my notes, because in the beginning, LDN was like magic. It would work. It would work. And I was almost thinking, why does it work? Why does it work? So, I started reading, and first, it was blogged on your website.

And then I just dug deeper, because of my research background I just went to the research databases and I would just read different studies, and understand better how low dose naltrexone would work. And of course, there are books already available. I think you were the editor in one of those books, but I wanted to go to the source and learn more.

And so this book is called LDN primer, and I call it primer because I feel like even after 15 years of using low dose naltrexone, I'm still a beginner. And in here I just talk about the history of LDN, and LDN as a noble anti-inflammatory agent for our central nervous system, which I don't think is utilized very often outside my clinic.

And then LDN for treating endorphin deficiency syndrome. Again, I'm looking at the conditions that LDN can treat as groups, so if you have an inflammatory condition for the central nervous system, LDN can be useful, even though it's not an autoimmune condition. LDN can be useful for people who have endorphin deficiency, and who knows if the bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety are a subset of endorphin deficiency syndrome, and I certainly treat it that way, and I have utilized LDN alongside an SSRI with great effect. And even a bipolar disorder with great effect. And then the other thing is LDN as Immuno adaptogen, and then I talk about atypical uses of LDN.

And then the last chapter I talk about clinical considerations of using LDN and share stories of my patients and my observations and ideas that I had, like dosing, you know, and how the dosing is determined. It's not scientific. It's been just supposition. I was just guessing. So then means we have the right to ask.

And what's really wonderful about your Facebook group is the interactiveness, and I see what they mean because some of the people start 0.5 and they think that's too much. I had to cut to 0.1 because.

Like in my practice, that's what I do. I look at a person and try to determine how much endorphin reserve do they have in their life.

If someone has high functionality, then I don't mind starting off 1.5 and then rapidly branch up, going up to 4.5. But if I get the sense that they are very depleted, I would start at 0.1 and then march slowly to get them to 4.5, but take my time doing it and looking for any side effects. So it's been a result of me wanting to understand LDN better and starting a blog and just continued writing.

And I kind of got caught in the web of interestingness of LDN, and I just couldn't stop writing and stop researching. And even preparing for this show, I found out there are more studies out now, and it's really a fascinating subject.

Linda Elsegood: I know a lot of people want to know how do they know how high to go if 4.5 isn't the sealing. How do they know that the dose is right for them?

Dr John Kim: Yeah. So, I think that again, understanding how LDN works is crucial. So, I call it two different dosings. One dosing is linear dosing, the other dosing is synergy dosing. So what do I mean by that? The synergy dosing; I'm referring to the LDN educating the immune system to calm down. So for most autoimmune diseases, I utilize LDN; the lowest amount of LDN required to put a patient into remission, or their symptoms into zero. So, in those cases, some patients are taking 0.5. if they're in remission. I don't want to increase it, because if their disease comes back, then I want to have a little bit of room left over to increase the dosing.

But if there are other people who have central nervous system issues, so I'll give you an example of what I mean by this. Neuropathy would be a great peripheral neuropathy. Diabetic neuropathy would be a great example. Or another example would be post-herpetic neuralgia, and LDN can do amazing things, but in those settings, we are not really counting on the LDN to reset the immune system, we’re using LDN as conventional medication, as an agent to create an anti-inflammatory effect in the central nervous system. And for that, I think that 1.5 to 4.5 dosing is a bit limited, and you have to look for ways to either make LDN work harder and then bring out the LDN synergy, and my to-go tool for that is acupuncture, especially the neuroanatomical approach to acupuncture seems to go very well with LDN. Another tool that I use routinely is alpha-lipoic acid. It seems it can enter the central nervous system with ease and works very well in synergy with LDN.

Linda Elsegood: I'm going to have to stop you there, John. We'll have to have you back on another show. And we really appreciate you being here with us today.

Dr John Kim: Thank you.

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Linda Elsegood:  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.

Dr Jill Cottel, LDN Radio Show 26 July 2018 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

The number of patients with autoimmune disease Dr. Cottel is seeing has increased, particularly thanks to her presence on the LDN Research Trust website. She also is treating more patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) with LDN than before, with very good results.

Q: In a patient with a pain disorder, on 4.5mg LDN without good result, should he increase his dose?

A: Essentially, if you’re not getting relief on lower doses, it may work increasing the dose, but it is not well studied. Linda commented on reaching opiate blockade and the need to reduce the dose.

Q: Address where a patient with Sjogren’s has GI side effects from LDN even at ultra-low doses.

A: Have compounding pharmacy prepare LDN in water at 1mg/ml and start at a very low dose eg 0.1mg and increase by 0.1mg as tolerated, slowly. Take at bedtime. Linda commented that sublingual drops work very well also to avoid GI absorption.

Q: In a patient with MS on LDN 3.0mg developed double vision, is higher dose LDN advised? What about Vitamin K2 for MS, will it re-wrap the nerves? Can Mediterranean diet decrease inflammation?

A: Always have double vision checked to be sure of cause. If from MS, increasing LDN to 4.5mg may help. As for Vitamin K2, some studies suggest K2 may inhibit inflammation of anti-microglial cells, and perhaps the body could heal itself. Yes, that diet decreases inflammation; diet is very important in treating autoimmune disease.

Q: Patient with Hashimoto’s starting LDN, what side effects should be looked for.

A: Typically, LDN is well tolerated. Perhaps headaches or vivid dreams early on, and patients with GI problems may have diarrhea.

Q: Can LDN help fibromyalgia and cancer prevention?

A: Yes for fibromyalgia, but not everyone goes into full remission. Probably yes for cancer prevention; there are animal studies to support that, as well as that LDN is used in treatment of cancer.

Q: Patient on prednisolone for polymyalgia and can’t get off steroids. Will LDN help?

A: Yes, recommend adding LDN then tapering steroids. There are complications from chronic steroid use.

Q: Can LDN and thyroid medications be taken at the same time?

A: Thyroid medications are to be taken alone, at least 1 hour from other medications.

Q: Is LDN for real?

A: Yes! There are lots of sources for information from prescribers, patients, and through small studies.

Q: Use LDN in post-polio syndrome?

A: In her one patient with post-polio syndrome, LDN has helped with the pain, but in post-polio syndrome there are many sources for pain, and as LDN is so well tolerated, she recommends its use.

Q: How do you know LDN is working (patient with Hashimoto’s)? Can gluten ever be re-introduced?

A: Clinical response is the indicator of success in Hashimoto’s. Dr. Tom O’Bryan has a series on this. Once you have antibodies to gluten, they will increase when exposed to gluten, and can interfere with how LDN works.

< Note: the LDN App was retired >

Q: Will LDN help with pernicious anemia and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and how do I get it?

A: Get information from the LDN Research Trust website to take to your doctor. LDN is an immune modulator and calms RA. Pernicious anemia is an autoimmune disorder, traditionally treated with B12 injections so use of LDN and pernicious anemia would be interesting to study.

Q: Can you take LDN and Chantix, a medication used for smoking cessation? Are there studies on LDN and vitiligo?

A: LDN may help with smoking cessation and Chantix. Linda has heard of patient using LDN for vitiligo with great success.

Q: Can going on/off LDN be a problem?

A: For those on LDN for a long time, it’s not likely to cause a problem, but you may notice a return of symptoms.

Q: In Type I diabetes and alopecia universalis

A: Dr. Cottel has seen few cases but has not seen great success with LDN. Linda noted she has spoken with patients who had great success with LDN for alopecia; but LDN is not a miracle drug nor does it work in all people.

Q: Is it ok to take LDN for fibromyalgia with thyroid medication?

A: They can be taken together, but be sure to take them at least an hour apart.

Q: Hashimoto’s and Sjogren’s who is pregnant. Is LDN safe during pregnancy?

A: Dr. Phil Boyle covered this at the last conference: no problems taking LDN during pregnancy

Q: Can LDN be used in Crohn’s disease the same way as the immunosuppressants used?

A: LDN is effective in some patients with Crohn’s disease and might allow tapering off other immunosuppressants.

Q: Can LDN be used in patients with glioblastoma?

A: Many prescribers use LDN in treating cancer as part of a complete treatment program.

Q: If LDN helps with pain in a neuropathic pain condition, does it mean the condition is autoimmune?

A: No. You can get pain relief from the endorphin effect of LDN.

This is a summary. Please listen to the full interview.

Dr Jill Cottel, LDN Radio Show 30 Nov 2016 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Welcome Jill! How does it feel to be our first guest on the new LDN Radio Show?

Dr Jill Cottel: Hello, Linda. It's very exciting.

Linda Elsegood:  Thank you! Isn't amazing? I mean, you're out there in the West coast of the US and I am in England. Amazing!

Could you give us an overview of your LDN experience, please?

Dr Jill Cottel: Sure. I've been prescribing Low Dose Naltrexone since 2008 and have had a lot of success with it. It's been exciting to watch patients as they respond. I have a general internal medicine practice, so I get to see a little bit of everything. And so I've had a chance to try LDN out on a number of different clinical situations. It's kinda nice to get that, the rounded experience and try it out for different things that aren't typically used. It's been interesting.

Linda Elsegood: What would you say the main conditions that you've seen?

Dr Jill Cottel: Well, let's say in the beginning mainly I was treating autoimmune arthritis just because that was where I was seeing the main focus and a lot of the reading I was doing, and a lot of patients that I had already in my practice had different types of autoimmune arthritis.

So that was where I started. And then those patients would refer to other patients, and then I started branching out. And then kind of, it's a mixed path that I have a lot of patients with fibromyalgia or just muscle type pain and then different types of chronic pain syndromes, and then just a wide variety of other things, asthma allergies and some neurologic issues.

Linda Elsegood: One of the questions that people like to know before they start is what are the side effects likely to be. Have you noticed any side effects?

Dr Jill Cottel: Well, it's, it's really well tolerated. When you compare it with just about anything else that a doctor would prescribe.  All-day long we write prescriptions for various things, for high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol.

You look at any one of those numbers of things and plot the prescribing information. It can boggle the mind about the list of things that can happen. And so when you look at Low Dose Naltrexone, very, very minimal side effects are really good profile. I would say when people report a side effect, that usually has to do with sleep.

And I would say, in my practice, that's really only maybe 10 to 20% of the people will have sleep interruptions or vivid dreams. Sometimes that will pass and sometimes not. If it is an issue, they can always move it to dose at a different time of day. And that will usually clear up the problem.

And aside from that, pretty uncommon, I've had maybe in the past couple of years, a handful of patients who've had kind of a strange headache and that usually passed within the first week. And then some patients who their stomachs are very sensitive. In the beginning, they might get a little bit of loose stool.

But again, that tends to be just in that group of patients. Even that will generally pass after the first week. So not a lot of side effects to report.

Linda Elsegood: What drugs can't you take alongside with LDN?

Dr Jill Cottel: Basically it's the narcotic medications, Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Morphine, those sorts of pain medications. Other medications for pain like Tylenol and ibuprofen are fine.

There's really a wide variety of things that can be taken with Low Dose Naltrexone and in the way of drug interactions I haven't seen any problems except with the narcotic type medications. 

Linda Elsegood: Because I know there have been people who've asked questions about Methotrexate, Interferon drugs, steroids, and I believe all of those can be used with LDN.

Dr Jill Cottel: Right. In my practice, I've not had any issues, and I know there are a number of other clinicians using them together and haven't reported any problems. so there's some good experience there.

Linda Elsegood: What would you say has been your greatest success with LDN?

Dr Jill Cottel: I would say, probably the autoimmune arthritis patients.

They respond really dramatically and quickly. That's exciting to see when that happens. With fibromyalgia patients, every now and then you'll get someone who responds really quickly and complete response. That's exciting too. It doesn't quite happen quite as often as the other ones.

Linda Elsegood: It's amazing, isn't it? That you can get people on very, very strong painkillers where elsewhere it doesn't control the pain. They come off then, try LDN and suddenly are playing free.

It always astounds me that such a small pill can do. It's like using a sledgehammer and it doesn't work, and you tickle it with a feather and It does.

Dr Jill Cottel: Exactly. One of my first patients came off large doses of pain medication a few years back. He was on almost a 100 mg of Oxycodone or something similar and wanted to try LDN. I thought:  "Well, this is just no way that this is going to work." And he tapered off on his own. And a hundred milligrams hadn't been controlling his pain. Then he was completely pain-free on 3 mg of LDN.

It was amazing! It worked! How can 3 mg of LDN work better than 100 mg of Oxycodone? There it was. He was pain free. That's amazing!

Linda Elsegood: Always amazes me too.

Dr Jill Cottel: Think about some of these studies showing that narcotic medications can actually cause hypersensitivity to pain and possibly central pain.

Look at it that way. Maybe it makes sense that patients are going to do better off of those medications and better on LDN.

Linda Elsegood: I've also been told that if you take a cocktail of pain medications, you can then take too many and then they don't work either.

So that's interesting as well.

Dr Jill Cottel: It's hard to sort out. Often a patient with chronic pain will come in, be on a lot of different types of medicines from different classes, usually off label, l because everyone's trying to help them and it's hard for those patients.

They've got a lot of side effects. I was getting them off of those medications slowly, then LDN may start responding. You can start weaning off some of these other medications. A lot of the medications that we use for chronic pain have many side effects, so people tend to feel a lot better being able to come off of them.

Linda Elsegood: That's good. Well, we'll take a break now, and when we come back, we'll take questions.

Today's show is sponsored by the Poway integrative medicine centre who take a holistic approach to provide the highest level of health care, combining internal medicine with alternative therapies, including acupuncture and Chinese medicine.

If you're in the San Diego area, they'd love to see you or if you're in the state of California, they offer secure video conferencing appointments when clinically appropriate. 

Go to www.pimchealth.com or call 858 312 1672. On Facebook, follow Jill Cattell MDs page.

Linda Elsegood: Welcome back! Now we've taken our first caller. Can you hear us?

Blanca: Yes. Thank you so much. I am here.

Linda Elsegood: Okay. What question would you like to ask Dr. Cottel?

Blanca: Doctor thank you so much for listening to my question. Did you have any experience with Multiple Myeloma?

It's a bone marrow cancer. My husband has it, and he has been taking LDN every day for four months and we have seen these numbers stable. So I was just wondering if you have any experience with Multiple Myeloma?

Dr Jill Cottel: Not so far, but that's a great question.

I would expect, based on the positive results that other people are getting with different types of blood disorders, that LDN would be something that could be beneficial. And you said that his numbers had been stable over the past four months.

Blanca: Yes, stable., stable. He's not using any chemotherapy for now. He did chemotherapy in 2013. I heard about Low Dose Naltrexone, but actually I wasn't sure where to get it or which doctor will give it to me. So finally, back in April, we got a prescription from a doctor, and he's been taking, it six months already. He's stopped taking it for like three weeks because he developed some anaemia because and we were afraid of any interactions of any with supplements. So we stopped the Low Dose Naltrexone, and I've noticed that his numbers raise a little bit. So we went back right away to Low Dose Naltrexone, and the numbers went back to a little lower but stable. It's not a huge change, remission or something, but at least it's keeping cancer at bay.

Dr Jill Cottel: How does he feel on it? Can you tell the difference taking LDN now versus when he wasn't taking it?

Blanca: He has a sleep problem many years ago, sleep apnea and he's not having any episodes of apnea anymore, and I've noticed that he sleeps deeper. He wakes up because he has that problem from before, but it's not as acute as it was before. I think it's helping like to get more like deep sleep.

 Dr Jill Cottel: That's good. I've had some patients report they're sleeping better on it. Their quality of sleep improves.

Blanca: Exactly. I wasn't sure if he has a little bit of anaemia if it's okay to take Low Dose Naltrexone or with Tylenol, but I heard Tylenol is fine.

Dr Jill Cottel: That'd be fine.

Blanca: And so having anaemia, do you think there's a problem?

Dr Jill Cottel: No, I can't see any reason why that would be a problem with anaemia.

Blanca:  That wasn't all his concerns because he didn't, he his thinking about introducing other very, very lows that were chemotherapy capsule. So I wasn't sure if it has any interactions with chemotherapy or immunosuppressant.

 Dr Jill Cottel: I don't have any experience in patients specifically with Multiple Myeloma, but I've had other patients where I've used LDN in combination with immunosuppressants, and we haven't seen any problems.

Blanca: Okay.

Linda Elsegood: Thank you. We will get to our next call on now. Hello Sabba. What question do you have for doctor Cottel?

Sabba: I'm a pharmacy student. I just learned about LDN and how it works. I'm really interested to know more, and I just wanted to see if the doctor can explain to me the exact mechanism of action.

What's happening with this medication? And in pharmacy school, I learned that it's mostly used for alcohol dependency, but they never talked about other indications for Low Dose Naltrexone. So I just wanted to see if the doctor can explain more about the medication.

 Dr Jill Cottel: That's a great question, and I'm so glad to hear it. From the best pharmacology standpoint, this is a fascinating compound.

There's an article that was published in 2014 in clinical rheumatology, and the lead author is Jared, Younger. The title is "The use of LDN as a novel anti-inflammatory treatment for chronic pain." It outlines different pathways and receptors. Also in the LDN book, which just came out this year, the first chapter is by Dr Steven Dickson, and it goes over the pharmacology of LDN in detail. There are several different ways in which we think it works. This chemical is a mixture of both up left-handedness and right-handedness. A number of these medicines that we use are like that. The left-handed side does a number of things with different receptors that have to do with inflammation. The right-hand side has to do with the effects that it has with the opioid receptors.

Sabba: Okay. Thank you so much.

Linda Elsegood: We'll go to our next caller now, James. Hello,  what question do you have for Dr Cottel?

James: I've been taking Low Dose Naltrexone for 27 months now. I began taking it for a Non-Hodgkin's Follicular Lymphoma and I'm almost 70 years old. I feel like I'm 50 years old again. It cleared up my depression; my brain fog, my fatigue. I'm physically about twice as strong as I was.

I've always done heating, and air conditioning work and  I'm actually back doing it again now.

It cleared up the ringing in my ears that I had for years. Anyway, my question is, after taking 4.5 mg for 27 months, I was wondering if I should dosing and scheduling. In this last Research Trust documentary, they talked about different dosing protocols. And I was wondering if I should get off of it for a few days and then take it seven days a week. If I should skip a day now and then, or skip a couple of days every so often if it would help.

Dr Jill Cottel:That's a very good question. I know that Dr. Dalglish in London is looking at intermittent dosing and it seemed like when you were in the treatment phase of the disease, it was continuous, and then off, somewhere in the distant future if you were in remission, you would maybe fiddle with the schedule a little bit. But I would say that for lymphoma, I would probably continue taking it daily, but  I'm not the most experienced person for oncology with it.

James: Thank you so much for all the good work! LDN just really given me my life back and I feel great.

I really appreciate all you did.

Linda Elsegood: That's good to know. Thank you. Well, we'll go to our next caller  Harry. What question would you like to put to Dr Jill Cottel?

Harry: Well, I don't have a question. Mine is a real success story with LDN. I had Ulcerative Colitis onset 15 years ago. And for the first eight or ten years after that, I was being given everything you could think of, 5,600 mg a day of Mel Salomon Emeran?, 50 mg of Oxycodone day, which didn't solve my pain problems, which nobody could figure out. And we finally, through dr Julian Whitaker, we got some information on Low Dose Naltrexone and started reading up on it and finally found a doctor who would prescribe it. And basically with me, we went, no dairy, gluten-free, making probiotics and 4 mg of LDN a day.

And I had resulted in less than a month.

And doctors, all of them would admit that there was no way that LDN could possibly hurt me, but none of them would prescribe it.

They did want to take out my colon. They were doing colonoscopy on me literally every four to six weeks.

The last one I had here this last August, they again. The gastro doctors will say, no evidence of active disease Ulcerative Colitis. They just won't admit it's gone. Literally, at this point, I have no dietary restrictions at all. I just take my 4 mg of LDN every night, and I eat anything and everything and have zero problems.

So I would just encourage anybody who has not found a doctor where they can talk to them about these problems and can maybe get something to just quote off-label to do so. Because at the very least, if all of the doctors admit that the LDN can't hurt you, it would seem to me that it would be inventory just to at least try it for some of the more drastic things.

And they had me on all kind of stuff and none of it worked. And there are some really nasty side effects to some of those drugs they use, just like with chemo drugs. So mine is just a good story, and I realize that may not work for everybody, but it's certainly worth trying.

Dr Jill Cottel: I agree.

James: One quick aside on the pharmacology student that called a while ago. There is a video out to YouTube called "LDN, how it works." which talks very specifically about how this works. I take it with me to every doctor I go.

It's something that a normal person can understand.

We need to try and get as much information out to everybody we can about this because there are so many things that people are taking that are so terrible on their system, and then they don't work.

 That's all I had. I do appreciate the time.

Linda Elsegood: Thank you, Harry. Well, we'll go to our next caller, Theresa. Hello. Would you like to ask a question to Dr.?

Theresa: It has been wonderful. I have been taking it since May. It has helped me tremendously. Unfortunately, it hasn't 100%, maybe 80, 85% but I do understand that it doesn't correct things that have been of an old issue.

Maybe I didn't catch my problem in time, but I was able to find my doctor who wasn't familiar with the medication, but he did allow me to try it. And it's been wonderful ever since. But it hasn't corrected everything so I still look at a couple of things, and I'm looking at something called Sam-e, which is an amino acid and it does suppose to help with arthritis but my concern is with stiffness. And so I'm wondering. Will it affect that? I know it affects your brain. The Sam-e and the LDN also work in the brain and I don't know if that would be an issue with mixing those together or not.

 And there's the other issue, which is Wilson's Temperature Syndrome, which may be an issue with me.

Dr Jill Cottel: That's a good question because I often will have patients and taking Sam-me and then we'll start an antidepressant if we're treating them for depression. And then it's important to know, what herbs and supplements they're on because not everybody will bring that up. And so there are some interactions with Sam-e and different types of antidepressant drugs. We do know that Low Dose Naltrexone has some interactions with the different neurotransmitters, but it's so mild in terms of the effects with LDN that you should be fine taking it with LDN.

Actually, I do have one patient who is taking Sam-e with the LDN, and she actually did better with the combination than she did with the LDN by itself.

Theresa: That's great to know. Now my other concern is that we haven't looked into this part yet, but because my issues have been so evasive, Wilson's Temperature Syndrome, so we may be going down that road looking at certain protocols that may require some Cytomel for a small amount of time to regulate the body temperature. And this may resolve a lot of my issues. Is there any complication with using LDN and the Cytomel and maybe the Sam-e? I also use Ashwagandha.

So combining all those, I mean, I don't know what I'm doing, but I do know I feel so much better, but I don't want to pose another problem that may be worse down the road. So there would be the Cytomel and then the ashwagandha and the Sam-e.

 Dr Jill Cottel: So the Ashwagandha should not be a problem. The Cytomel I would just be very careful with that because some people will respond fairly dramatically Cytlmel just on their own when you're treating for low thyroid. And sometimes it's difficult to get the thyroid adjusted with that. So just, I would say talk to your doctor about dosing it very low and watch your thyroid numbers pretty closely.

I would say getting them checked, at least within the first six weeks of starting it. 

Theresa: He's, really unfamiliar with the LDN but my thyroid numbers are always fine, but with Wilson's temperature syndrome, the body temperature is always low.

So this is an indication of chronic infections so it can be mixed, but very, very cautiously.

Right. Well, I appreciate your time and thank you.

I heard about it about four years ago, and so lucky to have a compounding pharmacy online. Advertising it in my area, so that got the news out. So it's wonderful that the news is getting out and more people are going to be able to be a little bit less painful.

Linda Elsegood: Okay, well, we're going to have another break, and we'll be back with some more questions later. Today's show is sponsored by the Poway Integrative Medicine centre who take a holistic approach to provide the highest level of health care—combining internal medicine with alternative therapists, including acupuncture and Chinese medicine.

If you're in the San Diego area, they'd love to see you or you for in the state of California they offer secure video conferencing appointments when clinically appropriate. Go to www.pimchealth.com or call 858 312 1672

On Facebook follow Jill Cottell, MDs page.

Linda Elsegood: Welcome back and this time, which went by Cynthia. Hello, Cynthia. What question do you have for Dr. Cottel?

Dr Jill Cottel: I have PMR for the second time. I had been using LDN since July 2015, and when it came back again this July, it was significantly less pronounced than the last time. However, I'm not on steroids yet. I'm doing a low inflammatory diet, but if things get worse, is it alright if I do go into steroids? Also, there's a possibility I might be developing giant cell arthritis because I have a very painful jaw, sort of extreme tenderness on top of the head, but no headaches yet. Last time I was probable GCA, but,I had been in touch with my rheumatologists just yesterday.

Just in case they want to do a biopsy, but I really want to know where I stand beside the LDN and steroids.

Dr Jill Cottel: That's a very good question. If you were just dealing with the PMR alone, that would make it a little bit easier and it definitely, it would be fine to combine steroids with the LDN for PMR.

I've had patients do that. And you can generally get that away if you think less steroid and come down off of it more quickly. But if there's any possibility of the temporal arteritis, you have to be more careful about that because of having your vision affected. So I'd be more vigilant about that and getting your eyes checked frequently and making sure they are watching you closely.

Cynthia: Well, I'm hoping that I haven't got the GCA and I'm really hoping, but I up to what level can I take steroids because I know that with GCA they will often a GCA, sorry, start at 25 milligrams. The steroids, is that all right with LDN?

Dr Jill Cottel: It should be fine.

Cynthia: Oh great. I mean, I'm hoping not to because last time I was on steroids for three and a half years and then I was on methotrexate as well for the last year probably, and I didn't like either of them, like all the side effects combined, so I'm hoping to keep off the steroids. I just wanted to know where I was because I'm hoping to see my rheumatologist who will obviously know nothing about LDN.

Linda Elsegood: Sure. Well, good luck. with that. Bye-bye. Okay, next we have Linda. Do you have a question?

Yes, I do. I have severe Crohn's. I've had three bowel resections, and the last one I ended up with a hospital, a bug on a ventilator for two months and almost died. So it's very important that I take my LDN all the time. I've been on it for about six years, but here's my problem.

Now that they look in my colon and basically in remission I still can't control the bowel movements and diarrhoea all the time, but it's better than it used to be. I also have multiple pain issues, Fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, Stenosis and I've had to have my ureters replaced with tubes that have to be changed out every 90 days or so. I have not been able to let go of my pain medication. I worked out a plan for myself because I couldn't go off the pain medication. I don't take any pain medication after 3:00 PM in the afternoon and when I go to bed at 10 pm I take my LDN.

Do you see a problem with that?

Dr Jill Cottel: I don't.I mean if my patients are on pain medication and they're taking it so frequently that they've always got some in their blood it can be a problem. So even if their last dose, is it three, if they've already taken, a certain amount of medication that day already, it may not be completely out of their system by bedtime. But if you're on a small enough amount that you're getting enough space out from it, you should be OK. And if not you should know already because the pain would come back, and you get some withdrawal symptoms. There is the issue of course, while your chronic narcotics, the hyperalgesia of the central nervous system, pain effects from being on them.

It's risk versus benefit and with all the different pain type syndromes you're having if it's something that you aren't able to come off of you have to just do your best.

Linda: I have tried, and it just has been impossible for me. I ended up becoming homebound and in bed, and I refused to accept that, and I fight as hard as I can, so I take the minimal dose.

The earliest possible during the day and then just do the white knuckle teeth-gritting when it gets to be there in the day so that I can have my naltrexone at night. And I think it's working because my colon is still beautiful.

I so much wanted somebody to tell me if that was an acceptable way to combine them or not. So thank you very, very much. 

Mary: I have been looking at LDN for a long time, and I haven't gotten a doctor to prescribe it for me. I had to ask a couple of doctors in the UK. We live in Sweden for three and a half years, and I went to the UK for treatment with finally identical hormones and I asked the doctor there to prescribe it, but she wouldn't, she just didn't think it made any difference. But she said she didn't believe there was any research that proved that it would help. I've gone to the seminar in Las Vegas and I thought that it would help me. I currently am not taking much pain medicine. I take Arthrotec now and then. I have Fibromyalgia,  Chronic Fatigue, and the fatigue is bothering me much more than the pain now. Do you think LDN would help me?

Dr Jill Cottel: I do. Well, based on my experience. With my patients who have Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue, for the Fibromyalgia, almost all of my patients have had some benefit, and a very few have not.

Almost everyone has had some. And then I've had patients where they've had dramatic improvements with the Fibromyalgia, and same thing with Chronic Fatigue. Most of my Chronic Fatigue patients are feeling much better. We do have a good couple studies looking at Fibromyalgia with Low Dose Naltrexone and you should be able to find someone to prescribe that for you.

Mary: Now we just moved about two weeks ago to Austin, Texas. Do you have, do you know of any doctors in this area that is familiar with it?

Linda Elsegood: We have a list, and there are some doctors around that area. If you would like to send me an email, contact@ldnresearchtrust.org, and we will get back to you with some of the doctors that we know of that prescribe.

Linda Elsegood: And we will quickly get to the next person. So thank you very much, Mary, for your call. Next caller is Robin. Hi there.

Robin: Hi there. My question regarding Chronic Fatigue. You just answered part of my question about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. But I wanted to be a little bit more specific. My son, who is 18 years old, has been suffering from CFS for about two years. He seems to be improving with, nothing, I guess He's on an antiviral that doesn't seem to be helping to me, but he's just gradually getting better and specifically, do you think that it would help his, like these setbacks and crashes that he has that we're trying to really put an end to? I mean, what specifically with CFS doesn't seem to help other than just the fatigue?

Dr Jill Cottel: I would say, probably energy improves. And also a lot of times mood improves.

And so patients, sometimes the symptoms aren't as much improved, but their ability to cope with the symptoms is better. Does he have any muscle type pain at all, or is it just the fatigue?

Robin: He really doesn't have muscle pain. He has suggested that his limbs feel heavy at times. He occasionally has a headache, but not often.

It really just seems this excessive fatigue. If he doesn't get enough sleep, it's stress and emotional stress or concentrating in school, that seems to cause these setbacks the most. And then he can't basically, get off the couch for a couple of days.

Dr Jill Cottel: I would think it'd be worth trying.

Robin: I agree. Okay. I just wanted to confirm because I hear it used more with pain and Fibromyalgia, but not strictly with Chronic Fatigue syndrome though.  Thank you very much. I appreciate your help. Bye-bye.

Linda Elsegood: Sarah on Facebook wanted to know if you'd had any success with LDN for treating Epstein-Barr.

Dr Jill Cottel: I have a patient who, she had had, illness with Epstein-Barr, and she just hadn't been able to bounce back from it.

And it had been, I'm going to say at least six months, and she started taking the LDN, and I want to say within about a month she was feeling much better and then it wasn't much longer after that she kind of felt back to normal.

Linda Elsegood: Okay. And Diddy said, can LDN be taken with high doses of Manganese?

Dr Jill Cottel: I don't see any reason why not.

Linda Elsegood: Does LDN help with adrenal insufficiency?

Dr Jill Cottel: That is a good question. I don't know the answer to that. I do have patients who've come in with the diagnosis of Adrenal Fatigue, which is kind of a nebulous sort of thing, and I'm not sure anyone knows why LDN helps those patients, but it might just be the endorphins themselves helping with energy food.

Linda Elsegood: Another question. Is endorphin buildup a real thing and should people occasionally skip a dose? And if so, how often?

Dr Jill Cottel: The patients that I've had generally when they skip doses, they feel worse. And sometimes not right away. But they can usually tell the difference sometimes after four or five days off.

I think in general, probably not skipping doses. And you figure it takes a while for the endorphin levels to decline anyway. So how much difference you're making just by skipping a day or two here and there, I'm probably not making too much of a difference.

Linda Elsegood: I must admit sometimes. I'm just drifting off to sleep, and I think, I haven't taken my LDN.

Do I get up and take it and wake himself up or just miss a dose? And I sometimes miss a dose, and it doesn't make any difference. I think sleep sometimes it's better than getting up and not going back to sleep. Another question here from Kaylyn. Does LDN stop the progression of the disease?

In her case, she's got Rheumatoid Arthritis?

Dr Jill Cottel: That's a good question. I don't know that anyone knows the answer to that for sure. I think that we look at terms like remission and how people are doing clinically. So, I mean, just matter of semantics, whether you say, stopped progressing or it's in remission.

We go by how the patient is feeling clinically.

Linda Elsegood: Okay. And another one there about dosing. The benefits of splitting the dose into two over a day for CFS/ME.

Dr Jill Cottel: So again, that's a very good question. I generally discouraged my patients from doing that just because that's not the way it's classically been dosed.

And it's not the way it's been dosed in the small studies that we've had. And the mechanisms of action is to briefly block those endorphin receptors. And it has to be brief, and it has to be in and out of your system. So what the implications would be of doing that again, only 12 hours later? We don't know and Naltrexone has metabolites that stay around in the body afterword. So I would tend to discourage it. 

Linda Elsegood: okay. We've got time for one more caller.

What question would you like to ask Joe?

Joe: I would like to ask for a group member who has been trying to get an answer to this question. If Dr Jill has ever treated or know of anyone treated for a condition called a Stiff Person Syndrome, also known as a Stiff-Man Syndrome and  I'll start there, and then there's a part two.

Dr Jill Cottel: That doesn't sound familiar.

Is there anything else that goes by?

Joe:  No. Those are the only two he stated and that I know of is the stiff person or stiff-man syndrome, but is, I'm pretty sure, I believe.

Linda Elsegood: It is actually on our list of conditions that LDN can treat.

Dr Jill Cottel: Okay. I'm looking at it just in front of the computer since I'm sitting here and it says a rare neurologic disorder of unclear cause with progressive rigidity and stiffness mainly affecting the trunk muscles with spasm. So no, I don't have any personal experience.

Joe: Okay.

Linda Elsegood: I'm really going to have to stop you there.

When the hour's up, we stopped. So I'd like to thank you very, very much for taking our calls. As always, Jill, the next Wednesday we'll be joined by doctor Jim, Dr John Kim, full details are on the website.

Thank you. We would like to thank today's show sponsor, Dr. Jill Cottel and the Poway Integrative Medicine Centre.

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.

Dr Henry Mannings - England, LDN Radio Show (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Dr Henry Mannings shares his Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) and Cancer experience on the LDN Radio Show with Linda Elsegood.

Dr Henry Mannings has been prescribing Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) for over 10 years to his cancer patients and has experienced a great deal of success. In this interview he explains how impressed he is with LDN’s lack of side effects and the positive impacts it can have on his patients.

Having prescribed LDN for such a long duration of time, Dr Mannings is well versed in how effective LDN is in certain cases. For instance, he has found that LDN is successful in treating many types of cancer including bowel, liver and lung cancer.

This is a summary of Dr Henry Manning’s interview. Please listen to the rest of Dr Mannings’ story by clicking on the video above.

Dr Gloria Herndon, LDN Radio Show (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Dr Gloria Herndon shares her Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) experience on the LDN Radio Show with Linda Elsegood.

Dr Gloria Herndon is one of 14 children and has an exciting medical family history. In 2010 she came across Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) and is a strong advocate for its use in mainstream medicine.

Throughout the last decade she has gained a great deal of experience in prescribing LDN and has had great success in dealing with many patients with autoimmune diseases and helping them to find their optimal doses.

This is a summary of Dr Gloria Herndon’s interview. Please listen to the rest of Dr Herndon’s story by clicking on the video above.

Dr Fred Hui, LDN Radio Show (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Dr Fred Hui shares his Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) experience on the LDN Radio Show with Linda Elsegood.

Dr Fred Hui first came across Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) around 18 years ago when one of his patients spoke of the LDN Book and the myriad of benefits LDN has to offer to autoimmune patients.

After researching it himself, Dr Hui was convinced that LDN is a safe drug and has been prescribing it for many years, gaining a great deal of experience in terms of prescribing LDN and finding his patients’ optimal doses.

This is a summary of Dr Fred Hui’s interview. Please listen to the rest of Dr Hui’s story by clicking on the video above.

Dr Edmund O'Flaherty, LDN Radio Show (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Dr Edmund O'Flaherty shares his Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) experience on the LDN Radio Show with Linda Elsegood.

Dr Edmund O'Flaherty from Dublin, Ireland first heard of Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) around 15 years ago and was instantly convinced by the drug’s track record and almost instantly began prescribing it for his patients.

One of his patients was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002 and was suffering immensely as a result. However, Dr O'Flaherty put her on LDN and over 7 years later she is almost back to full health. The LDN cooperated with her cancer therapy, meaning that she fortunately surpassed her original life expectancy of 2-3 years post-diagnosis.

He has also found LDN to be of great effect in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients. Like many other medical professionals who have appeared on the LDN podcast, he explains how LDN can reduce inflammation, which can be the cause of many illnesses in the body.

This is a summary of Dr Edmund O'Flaherty’s interview. Please listen to the rest of Dr O'Flaherty’s story by clicking on the video above.