LDN Video Interviews and Presentations

Sarah - England: Lilly's Fibromyalgia and ME Story (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Sarah shares Lily’s Fibromyalgia and Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) story on the LDN Radio Show with Linda Elsegood.

Lily was diagnosed around 15 years ago with Fibromyalgia but she was housebound for over 21 years. She had tried many treatments in the hopes of regaining her life back but none worked until she found Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN).

“Before I found LDN, I wouldn’t have been able to write this letter to tell you my story. LDN has helped me in so many aspects of my life. After over 20 years of dismal pain, I’ve got my life back.”

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

Sarah - England: Fibromyalgia, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Sarah from England shares her Fibromyalgia (FM) and Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) story on the LDN Radio Show with Linda Elsegood.

Sarah began to feel ill following the birth of her second daughter in 2009 but had been experiencing symptoms since she was a child, including aching muscles and fatigue. Her diagnosis with Fibromyalgia came in 2011.

Prior to her renewed illness, Sarah had an active life exercising regularly. This was swiftly taken away as new symptoms such as brain fog and dizziness became more regular.

“This all changed when I found Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN). Within 7 months of starting LDN my body and mind is almost back working at full capacity. I’m hoping to take LDN for the rest of my life.

This medication has given me my life back and it could get yours back too if you give it a chance.”

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

Sara - US: Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Fibromyalgia (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Sara from the United States has rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. She was 24 years old when symptoms first started, but wasn't diagnosed until a year later.

Sara quoted that it absolutely changed her life, she found the right medication, but did develop very severe irritable bowel syndrome and seemed to come out of nowhere. Sarah was officially diagnosed with fibromyalgia in February 2010.

Sara first read about Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) a few years ago before the Fibromyalgia, she found lots of information online, found our website and wanted a prescription for LDN after being skeptical of it. Her Rheumatologist would not prescribe Sara with LDN, because it was not FDA approved. But if Sara’s GP was willing to prescribe LDN, she saw no problem with that. And she would partner with him. After 3 days of being on the LDN medication, Sara felt absolutely fantastic. A few days after, she started seeing an increase in pain and fatigue, which then resulted with depression and anxiety. But this was due to being started on a higher Mg dosage. Sara rated her life a 3,4 out of 10 before her LDN mediation, she says that LDN is very cheap, and nothing has been more effective than LDN.
Please watch the video to the whole interview, Thank you.

Any questions or comments you may have, please contact us.

Sally - Scotland: Crohn’s Disease, Fibromyalgia (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Sally from Scotland  takes Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) for Crohn's disease. 

"I started having very mild symptoms that slowly got worse and I was told it was IBS. I was offered anti-spasmodic drugs. Gradually the symptoms got worse until eventually I was vomiting quite regularly, in constant pain and only eating small amounts of food.

I had a colonoscopy and I was told I had Crohn's disease. They put me straight on to ESI immune suppressant and that was awful. 

One day I Googled Crohn's disease and found as much as I could. And I happened to come across Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN).

I did more Googling on Dickson's chemist and they were absolutely brilliant to get prescriptions from.

I started it in July last year, 2012. And the first week I felt a little bit worse and then by the end of the second week, all my symptoms had gone. 

I didn't have to have any surgery. I came off other medications although my GP didn't want me to. I said I was feeling great .Two weeks later, I had no symptoms. 

Now my doctor is really quite excited about it. I was just back to see him a few weeks ago and he said they've got a big meeting coming up soon, and he's going to be talking about Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN).

I said to him that the problem in my mind is that they tended to use it as a last resort when they've got nothing else to try because it's not licensed over here. It seemed to work so well with me that it's a shame that they can't use it. 

After about a week of starting the LDN, I had a bit of trouble sleeping, but after about 7 to 10 days it has passed. I'm absolutely fine. 

My life is just normal. I know that LDN is taking away the symptoms that I've got, and I knew if I stopped taking it, it would likely come back. It's actually seems too good to be true. I don't have any bloating or anything. I just feel normal. That is amazing. 

I would say to others that it can't do any harm. I was taking drugs that made me feel rotten, and they're not good for me. I know the side effects and long term effects of severe immune suppressants. 
Surgery isn't a cure and also it can have major side effects. 

My daughter has got Fibromyalgia, and I started head on it as well, and it took a bit longer, but her life completely changed as well.

She was taking a medicine that didn't really help with the pain. I found that for Fibromyalgia can take a few months to build up and it did. It took about three months to start kicking in, and now she's well.
I always say to them: "Just go and do some research, read about."

Summary of Sally's interview. Please listen to the video for the full story.

Robert - US: Fibromyalgia, Anxiety, Major Depression (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Robert from the United States shares his Fibromyalgia, Anxiety, Major Depression and Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) story on the LDN Radio Show with Linda Elsegood.

Robert became very ill in 2015 when he started to get pins and needles all over his body, leading to him becoming very lethargic. He had muscle spasms and an overwhelming sense of fatigue. 

Robert’s doctors prescribed him multiple types of thyroid medications which had little to no impact on his health until he discovered Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) in early 2016.

“Within a week of starting LDN, I got up one morning and I was able to stand up right with no pain, which was something I hadn’t been able to do for months. I didn’t believe it was real. I had energy again.

To anyone who’s listening and is on the fence about trying LDN, then you’ve got to. Obviously do your research, but the results are worth the work.”

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

Renee - US: Fibromyalgia, IBS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/ME) (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Renee from the United States suffers from Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. At the age of 50, her body started giving out, resulting in her not even being able to go shopping. She could barely walk and was experiencing a lot of pain.

Renee found out about LDN last year and began researching, realizing she wanted to try it out. However, her GP prevented that from happening, so she decided to order her own online. Renee finally started taking it in April of this year. By the second day on the medication, she had already noticed she felt less fatigued. And by the fifth day, she could walk without limping. She also realized her depression had gone, leaving her with a better outlook on life. Renee had gained her appetite back as well.

Reene noticed that within the first week she had started getting diarrhoea and stomach cramps that lasted around five minutes, however this could be something to do with her IBS as well.

When asked what she would say to people thinking about taking LDN, she recommended they went for it, and also insists that they do research into it beforehand, to feel more confident with it.

For the full interview, watch the video.

Any questions or comments you may have, please contact us.

Ray - England: Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Fibromyalgia (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Linda Elsegood: Hi I would like to introduce Ray from England who takes LDN for Multiple Sclerosis and Fibromyalgia. Thank you for joining me Ray.

Ray: Thanks very much.

Linda Elsegood: Could you tell me when you first started to notice symptoms, which led to your diagnosis?

Ray: I collapsed in 2009 but about three years while I was working before I got diagnosed with MS, I noticed always feeling very tired after work and would sleep in the evenings.

And my MS Smith said there are probably developed MS and Fibromyalgia while I was working, but when I collapsed in 2009 that was a definite diagnosis, and that's when my illness eventually kicked in.

Linda Elsegood: What old were you then?

Ray: 41

Linda Elsegood: And how that does impact on your life?

Ray:  Well, I'm lucky that I worked for Honda and I've got a very good pension, and I've got health insurance on my pension, so financially I am ok. I claim some benefits.

It's been just over two years now for me, and I haven't really noticed a great deal apart from the fact that I would try to do things when I'm feeling good and then it would, the fatigue and chronic pain would hit me a day or two days later, and I can deal for a couple of days a week, two weeks. It's just a very unpredictable disease MS and the fibromyalgia with fatigue and chronic pain as well, so it impacts on my life quite a lot at the moment. And I went to the MS centre today because the lord mayor was there and I had to go on an exercise bike, and have my picture taken and I couldn't even lift my leg into the stirrup when I was sat down.

And that was a real eye-opener for me today that I was sat in a chair, and you got these pedals in front of you. It's like an adopted bike and I couldn't lift my legs while sitting down. I mean, I consider myself to be generally,  a lot more able-bodied than most of the people in there because I can walk around and I thought I could bend my legs really well in a seated position trying to get my legs into the bike today.

Linda Elsegood: Well before you heard about LDN, what were your symptoms like at that time?

Ray: I was really ill. I felt like I had really bad flu symptoms feeling generally yucky every day. I was definitely feeling really unwell.

Linda Elsegood: What about pain? What was your pain like at that time?

Ray: That was really bad as well. I've tried several types of medication from my Ms nurse and then eventually got on to Pregabalin which helps neurological pain, and that helped me a lot, but I still had the yucky illness feeling most of the time.

Linda Elsegood: So if you went to score your quality of life on a scale of one to 10,  10 being the best before you started LDN, what would it mean?

Ray: Before I started LDN I would say it was a 4. Now I would say it's about 8 or 9.

Linda Elsegood: That's fantastic! That's really good. So how did you hear about LDN?

Ray: My brother's mother-in-law has got fibromyalgia really bad. She got it for 20 years, and she said to me: " Why don't you try LDN?" I said: " Well, what is that?"

And she gave me the website address, and my doctor was willing to give me a prescription every month and to get my medications and Dickinson's pharmacy in Scotland. The last year, it's being paid for on NHS. So I didn't pay for anything.

Linda Elsegood: That's really good. So when you first started, did you notice any side effects?

Ray: No, I didn't. Not at all.

Linda Elsegood: All right. And how long do you think it took before LDN started to work for you?

Ray: Probably about six months.

Linda Elsegood:  And what did you notice?

Ray: I mean with fibromyalgia, every morning you wake up, you still feel very fatigued.

But that's also the same in MS Still the case now, but I know that after about two hours, I'm okay and I haven't got this yucky flu-like symptom. I haven't got any of that anymore.

Linda Elsegood: What would you say to other people in your situation who were thinking of trying LDN?

Ray: I would say: " Do it!"  because we did notes on LDN.  It stimulates the body's endorphins naturally to make you feel a little bit better. It just makes endorphins in your body and I would say to people: "Try it because it's really good. "

Linda Elsegood: Well, thank you very much. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we go?

Ray: Not really. That's all I can say is anybody out there to speak to their doctor, go to the website, print off all the information, show to the doctor and try and get a prescription from your doctor. And then get the LDN, basically.

Linda Elsegood: Thank you for your input.

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.

Pharmacist Stephen Dickson, LDN Radio Show 2014 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Pharmacist Stephen Dickson from Scotland shares his experience as a LDN compounding pharmacist.

We have got on LDN around 5,000 and that's in the last three to four years.

Basically LDN is compatible with most medications that you're on for a chronic disease. It just means sometimes it needs to be done in a slightly different way or taking a different way or your medication that you are taking altered slightly to enable you to take it.

The obvious exception to that is on the very strong opiate medications. You really have to be very careful not to take the two of those together if you are on a sort of long term, strong opiate painkiller, not because it's going to do any major harm or stop the LDN potentially from working but actually, because the Low Dose Naltrexone stopped the painkiller from working.

Now that doesn't mean that you can't still do that. You just have to be quite clever with your timing and that's where your pharmacist or your doctor can help you with that.

Another one of the questions with interactions, we get very frequently is: "Can I take LDN with Interferon or Tysabri or any of the newer sort of MS drugs?" And certainly there isn't really any logical reason why you can't take the two of them together.

I think what we're finding as time has gone on is that both drugs, Interferon and LDN are modulators of the immune system, but they don't necessarily work in the same subsets of cells or the same receptors and therefore can theoretically compliment each other.

Regarding steroids, there is no direct relationship between steroids and Naltrexone. For example, the main steroids is Prednisone alone and there's no direct interaction between those.

And we certainly tell people that you can continue to take LDN during the whole period of being on a course of steroids, for example, for a chest infection or for a flare up of Emma or for anything.

There's no reason to stop taking it.

People ask what happens if they need to go to the dentist and have a filling or go to hospital for an operation. If you're going into hospital for an operation, we would normally say to people to stop LDN two or three days before you go in. The absolute latest, you would stop with maybe 24 hours before.

And that's not really for any reason other than to make it more simple for your doctors in the hospital. If you were to, for example, taking LDN and you were in a car accident, the amount of opiate painkillers give you in order to relieve your pain if you had a broken leg or something, would still work. They might need to give you slightly more, but it's still complicated. I wouldn't really consider stopping taking LDN before going to the dentist.

The dentists are very limited and the opiates that they can use, generally, if you're having an operation  they'll use a mild sedative and that's via drip, or we'll use an injection, which is a local anesthetic.

LDN has gone from being something that we were very skeptical of initially used in a small number of people with Multiple Sclerosis to something that I'm convinced as a very positive effect in a large number of autoimmune diseases.

One of the most amazing things with LDN is that with people with Fibromyalgia  you would never have thought, I certainly would never have thought would have responded.

I'll never forget the patient who looked at death's door, just absolutely dreadful.

She was exhausted, had been off work for months and months and she just looked terrible. Basically Dr. Tom had given her LDN. Three, four months down the line and the woman was back at work.

It felt great. It looked fabulous. I couldn't believe that something had such a marked effect.

Also the people with Psoriasis, which is like a skin auto immune disease. They tried every cream lotion portion and then eight weeks on LDN and it started to clear up.

These are things that we just don't normally see in a normal practice.

So I'd certainly say LDN for me, it's been very exciting, very interesting.

Now there are over 300 doctors on our database who prescribed LDN in the UK. S couple of years ago, that that was about six, so I think the LDN research trust has been doing an incredible job of promoting awareness of this cause.

And it's something that we hope to continue to be able to support for a long time.

Summary of Pharmacist Stephen Dickson's interview. Listen the above video for the full interview.

Pharmacist Rick Upson, LDN Radio Show (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

After years working in other pharmacies, Rick did not hear about low dose naltrexone (LDN) until he bought Palm Beach Compounding Pharmacy in Florida in 2009 – the previous owner had been compounding LDN. The forms they prepare it in are capsules, an oral liquid form dispensed with a syringe to measure it easily, and a topical cream. That has been prescribed a couple of times by Dr. Brian Udell, who is about an hour away, in Davie FL. They haven’t been asked to compound LDN as sublingual drops, which can be helpful for patients whose stomach gets upset from swallowing LDN; but they have compounded troches, a lozenge to dissolve in the mouth so it is absorbed through the lining of the mouth rather than the stomach. Then to the liver, where it will be metabolized.

Conditions he’s aware of being treated with LDN include fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, autism, ADD and other behavioral disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus. Rick’s clients have not reported negative side effects from LDN, however notes that The LDN Book says approximately 8% of people have some sleep disturbance, which is a pretty low incidence. He commented on how it can take three months to get full effect of what LDN can do for you, so impatient people need to be aware.

Linda Elsegood commented on the progressive nature of most autoimmune conditions, and how amazing it is to hold the progression with LDN. She noted that surveys found most people notice something around 4 months on LDN, although some are not stabilized until as long as 18 months on LDN. So patience is needed.

Rick tells of a Facebook page [LDN Got Endorphins?] with many patient stories, that has been informative. He has been selling The LDN Book and finds it valuable, though some content might be too technical for patients. He appreciates how it explains not only LDN, but the related body systems and how they work together, and relevant tests. Linda replied that sales of The LDN Book have done really really well, and it is aimed for both the lay person and prescribers. Rick has focused on getting the book out to those who prescribe compounded medications, as they are the kind who think outside the box.  He knows many who treat things that would benefit from LDN: gastroenterologists who treat Crohn’s disease and inflammatory bowel disease, fibromyalgia, and other similar difficult to treat conditions.

Keywords: fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, autism, ADD and other behavioral disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Crohn’s disease and inflammatory bowel disease. The LDN Book, compounding, side effects, low dose naltrexone, LDN

Summary from pharmacist Rick Upson, listen to the video for the show.

 Any questions or comments you may have, please contact us. I look forward to hearing from you. 

Pharmacist Dan Karant, LDN Radio Show (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Pharmacist Dan Karant shares his Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) experience on the LDN Radio Show with Linda Elsegood.

Dan Karant is a pharmacist at, and the current owner of, the Medicine Shop in Northern Ohio, the United States. Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) has been incorporated into his treatments for as long as he can recall and has had a great deal of success.

Throughout his career he has predominantly specialised in fibromyalgia, finding that LDN can be incredibly effective in relieving the pain and other symptoms inflicted upon his patients by the autoimmune disease.

In this interview Dan explains how he personally prescribes LDN and how to achieve the best results.

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