LDN Video Interviews and Presentations

Laurie - 7th August (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Laurie is from the United States, and uses LDN for complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). In 2005 she suffered a stress fracture in one foot that healed slowly, during which time she was in a cast and immobilized. Toward the end of the time for the cast she started feeling burning in her foot, like fireworks going off. When the cast came off her foot was bright red, shiny, and hot to touch, and her doctor recognized her symptoms as CRPS. Drugs normally prescribed were ones she did not want to take because of side effects. She researched and found a study on CRPS at Stanford using LDN, and took information on LDN to her doctor, who researched it and was eager to prescribe it. She ramped to her current dose of LDN 4.5 mg daily, but does note short-term side effects as the dose increased, such as difficulty sleeping, or a headache.

Laurie’s pain stopped after about 3 weeks on LDN; after 4 weeks on LDN the swelling and redness were decreased, and at 2 months the color was normal and there was no swelling. Before, she couldn’t tolerate wearing anything on her foot; and now wears normal shoes and has hiked and traveled extensively, without symptoms. She did have to give up running because of arthritis and several surgeries.

Laurie relates that while the CRPS developed in the foot she broke, as common with CRPS, the other foot became involved. Similarly, one time she hurt an elbow nerve, and the CRPS symptoms jumped to her elbow.

Her first surgery was a joint replacement in her foot. Because she might have needed narcotics for post-operative pain, her doctor took her off LDN a week before surgery. In that week her CRPS flared so badly that her feet and elbow were untouchable. Post-op, when she restarted LDN, it took a month of gradual improvements before she got full effect. During that time the redness and swelling from CRPS had increased, in response to the surgery.

She learned that for subsequent surgeries, if narcotics might be needed, to stop LDN only 2 to 3 days before surgery; however the trade-off seems to be less effectiveness from the narcotics. The solution that works for her is to take Tylenol or ibuprofen before surgery; and ibuprofen normally is all she needs after surgery. In total she has had 5 or 6 surgeries, and this routine has been successful.

Laurie tried to follow an autoimmune diet, but found it pretty difficult to be true to it. She eats a lot of vegetables, and stays away from foods known as being very inflammatory – meat, dairy, sugar. She works out at a gym 5 days a week, and swims.

Laurie is so grateful for the valuable information from the LDN Research Trust (LDNRT), and became a volunteer who has contributed greatly to the Trust. Through the website she has been able to not only find information, but to connect with compounding pharmacies truly knowledgeable about LDN and options for it. She appreciates that with LDN there is hope other than some of the drugs that have difficult side effects.

Summary of Laurie’s interview, please listen to the video for the full story.

Keywords: LDN, low dose naltrexone, complex regional pain syndrome, CRPS, LDN Research Trust, LDNRT, pain, opioids, autoimmune

Carrie talks of Shingles, PHN (nerve damage) & CPRS (pain) - 3rd April 2019 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

I am Carrie from the United States. I  had shingles at a very early age. It's a very complex story so then I had a diagnosis of PHN that's just nerve damage due to the shingles and that then led to CRPS, which is chronic pain syndrome.

Before I had shingles I was extremely healthy. I was finishing my master's degree in teaching and was just wrapping up my thesis project.

I had shingles after coming back from Jamaica from our honeymoon and because the bumps were in my neck and back I didn't notice them straight away so when I went to the doctor

he had a good indication that this was going to be problematic since it took so long to start antibiotics in the first place.

I lost complete use of my left arm within two years of shingles, eventually it shut down the left arm to the point where it was purple and cold. Within three years, I was meeting with surgeons to come up with plans for amputees.

I was taking 32 pills a day before I was 30 years old. My husband attended every single doctor's appointment with me for eight straight years.

Later on we found a doctor who took me off of all those medications in a safe way and who then could help me build a path forward. Ironically, that ended in me getting pregnant because some of the medications that we ended up taking every day, they don't unnecessarily help you regain your health.

Instead they add you more layers to the complexities of our health. I was able to go off every medication that I was left on through the stripping process and my body was able to fix the problem itself. The CRPS went into remission. I didn't even realize I was pregnant until I woke up one day and my arm was warmer.

It became pink again instead of purple, I was able to go back to physical therapy and get full use of my left arm back in  those  nine months.

The thing about autoimmune disease and remission and pregnancy is that it's usually a temporary release and then once you have your child, it does come back. And that's what happened to me.

I support a few groups on Facebook who deal with chronic pain, especially with nerve damage and shingles and so I had heard little stories.

A friend of mine and one of these support groups online reached out and said, "Hey, I want you to look up a drug called LDN."

LDN is literally the only prescription drug I take and helped me. LDN treats the cause, not the symptoms.

It's not necessarily about finding relief in the short term. It's about taking the chance that in the long term, this is going to make your body have better functioning overall.

 It's just a completely different way of looking at treating a problem.  I have been taking LDN for 25  months. I still don't know what my ideal dose is.

I have full use of my arm. It is a different shade. It's colder. It's a little bit more purple. There are days that I drop things with my hands. In the winter when it's colder and raining I can't lift my arm above my head, my shoulder freezes on and off.  I do have my own laser, which is incredibly helpful to recirculate the blood.

LDN gives me everything.  There's a psychological component when you're chronically ill and when you've been through the kind of pharmaceutical trial and error that I have, you become almost afraid of medication.

 I find with LDN It's a completely different safety profile. It's one that I'm extremely comfortable with.

I know if I don't take LDN, the worst that's going to happen to me is that my body is already going to do what it was already doing. It's not going to send me into withdrawal. It's not going to make me unable to care for my child and my family. I've been on medications for the same exact condition that have caused brain damage, and I don't find that with LDN and I'm incredibly grateful.

I'm working and I am living. I would say that my quality of life now is rounding a good nine out of ten.

Listen to the video for the whole story

George Schatz, MD – 8th August 2018(LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Dr. George Schatz who's an MD from Tuscan in Arizona shares his experience with Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN).

I am a medical doctor and currently a third year and chief resident of our residency program at the university of Arizona for family medicine. I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I did my undergraduate training in Ohio at a small college called Hiram college.

I decided to move down to Arizona for my residency training because of the world renowned university of Arizona center for integrative medicine, which I'm looking forward to being one of the residential fellows this year to further pursue training in integrative medicine.

I first heard about LDN trought a patient who came in, who had an Ulcerative colitis or Crohn's flare. I don't remember. I don't recall which, but he had an inflammatory bowel disease flare up. And he had to be admitted to the hospital for IV fluids and for monitoring and everything. He was very sick at the time. It was very early in my training, my third year at medical school. He told me  In two weeks, he was going to meet with a doctor in New York city that was going to start in on Low Dose Naltrexone.

I didn't spend much time looking into it. I had a million other things I was trying to learn at the time.

And over the past a few years and months really I've started to hear more about LDN and so I have a few colleagues here who use LDN very commonly and so talking to some of their patients and hearing about what they were taking it for and how it was working with them. And I got extremely interested just hearing the anecdotal evidence of how people's pain is getting better, how people are off of their thyroid medications or their immunosuppressive medications for their auto immune diseases. And I got intrigued. And that's really what led me diving into the research and then using it with my patients with success.

Mostly, I use it for pain, all sorts of different pain,Fibromyalgia or Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome, formerly known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy. Also just chronic low back pain had some improvements. But also Crohn's,  thyroid issues as part of a comprehensive and anti-inflammatory or immune treatment program.

A lot of them are on opiods medications for years. I start by

slowly tapering their opiates.

So if they're on a combination of long acting and short acting, we tape it the long acting first because once that's out of the system and they can control their pain with the short acting, we can stop quicker and start the LDN shortly after.

I usually say, "If it's a Sunday night, take your last Percocet on a Sunday night and then, either Monday night, depending on how you are or Tuesday night take the first dose of LDN."

 Some people come in, especially when you start at a higher dose, they have that initial endorsement rebound and they tell you that this is the first time they felt like this in years. Of course that's what this is all about. That instant gratification as a professional helps me to continue what I'm doing, but that's not always the case. And I'd say that is almost more the exception.

Typically it takes patients anywhere from two to four to six weeks.

There's a beautiful case study that I read recently on a 35 year old guy who had low back pain. And he had tried on opiates and anti-inflammatories and then the epileptics and trigger point injections and steroid injections.

No improvement in it, of his pain. Once they got them on the 4 milligrams of Low Dose Naltrexone, two weeks later, 30% reduction in pain by six weeks, he's completely back to work. Six months after starting it, when he was totally off of it for, almost four months and he was still having just minimal pain, it was still completely, fully functional back at work. And that's something that I totally see.

Some patients mention a bit of sleep disturbance. It's really not insomnia. It's just a change in their sleep habits that can be remedied quite easily by making sure that we optimize our sleep hygiene prior to initiation of LDN and also by just making sure that we take the proper steps when we're initiating it to not really start too high, but, if we do start at what we think is an appropriate dose and has some issues, we sort of drop it down and again, that take her upwards.

 I wanted to mention has a side effect, which I find extremely interesting is if the patients tell me their issues with binge eating have decreased and it doesn't surprise me knowing the mechanism with opioid growth factor and opioid growth factor receptor and beta endorphins.  Having that endorphin surge that's the reason why people binge eat for the endorphins to quell some sort of inner pain.

And so having your opioids inside your body or beta endorphin at a higher level which can actually satisfy those cravings and you don't need to binge it's something that is fascinating to me.

And actually that reminds me a formulation of a weight loss drug that's FDA approved in the United States for and that's a combination of anti depressant and Low Dose Naltrexone. It's called Contrave.

I have an integrative medicine practice that is  growing every day. Those are the patients that come to me either requesting help in, or having heard of LDN in some specific way.

I can be found at www.georgeschatz.com,

And that's the easiest, quickest way to get in touch directly with me and my team. And I can get you a schedule for appointments starting pretty soon or booking out a couple of months, but pretty soon.

Summary of Dr. George Schatz's interview. Watch YouTube video for the full interview.