LDN Video Interviews and Presentations

Norman Marcus, MD - 10th October 2018 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Linda Elsegood: Today my guest is Dr Norman Marcus, who is a pain specialist. He has a fantastic background. Thank you for joining us today, Dr Marcus.

Norman Marcus, MD: Thank you for inviting me. 

Linda Elsegood: Could you give us your background, please?

Norman Marcus, MD: After attending medical school, I did an internship. In the old days, it was a rotating internship where I went through the various aspects of what a doctor might do. I decided to go on to do a residency in psychiatry. And when I was doing that, I, became very interested in mind, body interaction and following my residency, I did a fellowship in psychosomatic medicine.

While I was doing my fellowship, I was asked by the department of neurology at the headache unit where I was, at Montefiore hospital (they had the first headache unit in the world). I was asked to join them. They were treating patients with headaches in the department of neurology.and at that time I was interested in biofeedback because of the whole issue of mind, body interaction. So I started to evaluate patients with headaches and treat them with medication as well as the biofeedback. And at that time I was elected president of the New York State biofeedback society.

Following a few years doing that, I was asked by the department of anesthesiology to start the first pain centre in New York City in the department of anesthesiology. And I did that with a colleague, an anesthesiologist. And we together started and then ran together the pain centre at Montefiore hospital, which I did for approximately seven years.We had a multidisciplinary program where we're teaching patients how to manage their pain using nerve blocks at times and medication and psychological interventions and relaxation training. And then from there, I was asked by the department of medicine at Lenox Hill hospital to start an inpatient pain treatment program, which I did. That ran that for about 20 years. Then while I was there,  I was asked by the princess Margaret hospital  in Windsor to start a pain centre. And I started to travel to the UK, one week a month for three years. I have an appointment in Indian NHS, and I ran the pain centre there.

And while there, we got some significant publicity and we were on the BBC, BBC two, and we were on numerous television and radio programs. And  we were able to help patients who had persistent pain. And by that time, I was starting to focus on soft tissue.I was introduced to Hans Kraus, who was President Kennedy's physician for his back and France Kraus  had a.

technique and the conceptual model on assessing soft tissue pain, muscle pain, and the president at that time was being treated by another physician, Janet Trevell, and she was injecting Kennedy five or six times a day into his muscles.

When Hans Kraus came in he stopped the injections completely and said that the problem wasn't all the muscles that needed to be injected, but rather muscles that were very deconditioned as well as maybe some muscles that needed injections.But think of all muscles that are tender as a target for injection, like dry needling or something like that, didn't make any sense. And he had a conceptual model where there were four reasons for muscle pain. Tension is the number one, then a deficiency or otherwise known as weakness and or stiffness of key postural muscles. The third was the spasm, which is involuntary contraction of the muscle that you can't straighten up and it's very painful. And the fourth was altered muscle tissue called trigger points in most jargon when we're talking about these tender spots. But actually, Dr Krause's concept was more than trigger points cause he recognized that the area of the muscle.

that was causing pain, wasn't really in the muscle in the tissue, but rather the ends of the muscle where the muscle attaches to the tendon and the tendon attached to the bone is the most tender spot. It connected to that muscle, and that one needs to be identified. Therefore, the specific muscle that's finding a spot on your body isn't sufficient because the pain isn't.

generated from that spot. It's rather generated from the ends of the muscles, so you must know which muscle you're in. So he made that distinction. And his results when he would inject the ends of a muscle were dramatic insofar as he wouldn't have to re-inject the muscle. So the standard of care now in terms of people who were doing, let's say, dry needling or trigger point injections is to repeat the injections over and over again, quite often into the same muscle whereas Dr. Krause would be able to eliminate the pain by finding the muscle specifically and then going to the ends of the muscle and doing his protocol, which involved not only injections.

And what he used a lighter cane, just for comfort. He, it was the actual needle in the tissue that was doing the treatment. And following that, there's a three-day protocol, using neuromuscular electrical stimulation and exercises that were developed at Columbia University school of medicine in the late fifties, early sixties.

And  exercises were developed by studying 3,700 patients for four and a half years. And then he came up with an exercise program that he then administered to 300,000 people at the YMCA and studied twelve thousand of those patients in town who had an 80% success rate in diminishing or eliminating back pain.

And in patients who had had surgery for the back and had pain afterwards, that success rate was even higher. It was 82%. So those exercises then became the standard exercise at the YMCA called the Wise Ways to a healthy back. And they were given for many years until someone decided to change it. And without going into what actually happened, this essentially killed the whole awareness of these exercises, but we use them as a routine, part of the work that I'm doing. 

So when patients come in who have soft tissue pain, we diagnose one of these four mechanisms such as tension. John Sarno would be speaking about tension myositis.And now we know that there are mechanisms where if you are tense, it alters the neurons and your spinal cord  and makes them more sensitive to input sensitization. So we also test them for weakness or stiffness using the test that Hans Cross developed with his colleagues on your Weber called the Krauss Weber test. It's a very simple test, takes about two minutes  to implement. It gives you a lot of information.  They were palpating for tenderness in muscles to identify the muscle. And what happened was that I discovered  it wasn't specific enough that many people have tender spots throughout their body that don't necessarily reflect where the pain originates.

So you can have a tender point, and it may not be actually coming from there. It may be referred from another muscle, and it's almost impossible to know if you're pressing on a referral pattern or the actual pattern itself. I mean the actual muscle itself causing it, or where is this just a muscle that is receiving information from another muscle and all of this.

A complication of where the pain originates was explained to me by Sigfried Mensa. So I really began to understand what was going on on a cellular level, and on a biochemical level, through the work of professor Mincey and together, ultimately, we wrote a chapter together in a Harvard textbook. Carol Warfield is one of the editors of the textbook, and it came out a couple of years ago on the pathophysiology of muscle pain. In that period of time  I was elected president to the American Academy of Pain Medicine and served on multiple committees and became interested in how diverse the various treatments are for the pains that people complain of. 

I started the outcomes—movement in pain. To try to come up with some assessment where we could measure if a certain treatment was superior to another treatment, and that's been a work in progress for the whole pain community. It was something that I began  and we did our best to finish it, but it's still happening. And now it's a major goal and mission of NIH to come up with parameters to measure what is successful, outcomes and pain. And I've written a couple of chapters in neurosurgical textbooks on that.  Montefiore went to Lenox Hill hospital and then I left Lenox Hill hospital and went to NYU and became the director of clinical muscle pain there in the department of anesthesiology and taught students who were fellows in the Pain fellowship department of anesthesiology for ten years or so. In the last two years, I moved to Cornell where I have an appointment in neurological surgery and in anesthesiology, I'm the director of clinical muscle pain research, and I'm working together withmy colleagues and anaesthesia and neurosurgery to see how we can better define how soft tissue is an important element in patients who are coming in with a run of the mill back pain. And also those patients who are found to have a surgical indication for their back pain, but continue to have pain, despite a spot, an apparently successful surgical intervention.Why are they still in pain? And quite often it's because there's a soft tissue that was not identified as a source of pain. 

I was beginning  to tell you about the problems in identifying a specific muscle by pressing on it.  I've discovered that I could stimulate the muscles with a tiny amount of electricity, and I could much more accurately identify which muscle is the source of pain.I'm now working on a next-generation device with the Cornell school of engineering, the Meineke school of biomedical engineering, to develop an instrument where we can, have a software program that will show the clinician what are the various muscles in the body, in a region of which the patient complains of pain.

For example, if you have shoulder pain to 16 muscles that cause pain in your shoulder, how do you know which muscle is causing the pain? You don't, by pressing, you don't really know, but when we stimulate it with a tiny amount of electricity, and that particular muscle or a couple of muscles are painful, and the rest are not. Then we assume that those muscles are sensitized and are indeed the pain generator. And when we treat those muscles, generally we can eliminate the pain in the region of the body. For example, in that case, it would be the shoulder.  I had a patient who was coming to see me for knee pain, and this was about ten years ago or so, and he had 14 knee surgeries with the same orthopaedic surgeon, and every time she had  knee surgery, she continued to have pain afterwards, and she was given more.

opioid. In this case, it was oxycodone, and when finally she was receiving something like 3000 milligrams a day of oxycodone, a huge dose. 

She was coming in periodically for pain medication and she was functioning.although it was a huge dose and I wasn't entirely happy with it. But she was functioning and she had this extraordinary amount of medication and she would come in periodically, every month or so, and I'd renew the medication and then she didn't show up on one day. And I called her home, and her husband told me that she was hospitalized and said, well, what happened? Well, she had taken her medication and then she had taken an antianxiety drug, and she fell asleep in the bathtub and almost drowned and was admitted to the psychiatric unit of a hospital with supposedly a suicide attempt.

So I said, Oh my God, I was there and it was terrible. She was finally discharged, but spent about ten days there and then called me up, made an appointment, and she came in, and I said, how are you doing? She said I'm actually doing okay. I said, well, how's your knee pain?  She said I don't have any knee pain. Really? I said, well, you know, how much medication are you taking? She says I'm not taking any medication. Wow. You were 3000 milligrams a day.  So I said, well, what happened? So she said, well, there was this doctor who was there on this staff, his name is Hugo Franco. And he came in and  gave me some medication, actually gave me some naltrexone, and that helped me get off the medication so that I was able to go down to zero in 10 days.

So I said, Oh, would she have a lot of withdrawal? She said no, I had no withdrawal. So this is impossible. I mean, it's like one of these events saying, Oh my God, how could this possibly be? So I said, I'm going to call up Hugo Franco, and I did, which subsequently we became friends, and then he explained to me that he used naltrexone in an ultra-low dose to detox patients.

So much against what you know, was on the internet, for example, or, you know, never give naltrexone when somebody was on opioids, it was great because he explained to me that it actually made the opioids stronger if you gave it in tiny, tiny doses so that with a more potent effect, you could then start to decrease it because you were getting the same effect with lower doses and you could just keep on going down, which he did.

This was amazing for me. So I said, well, perhaps, this could be useful with other patients. So I started to use it with patients where I wanted to facilitate a reduction in dosage or to get them off of opioids completely. And I was able to successfully use it in that fashion. But I still idn't quite understand how it was working until I went to a lecture by Linda Watkins and, she explained the whole phenomenon of microglia and toll-like receptor number four and how the ultra-low-dose naltrexone wasn't blocking the mule receptor. And I hope that your audience understands that.

So the mule receptor is where most of the action is when you're using an opioid and pain pathways. The major factor when you have chronic pain, microglia become very important. And the receptor that becomes stimulated on the micro clear is called like receptor number four.

And when it's stimulated, it produces cytokines. 

 And many of these cytokines are pro-inflammatory, meaning they cause inflammation, particularly interleukin one and interleukin six. So these cytokines end up giving you neuroinflammation. It's sort of making more pain, pain on top of pain.it also gives you what's called illness, behaviour or sickness behaviour where you feel you don't want to interact with other people. You feel sluggish, you want to just retreat alone, sleep a lot. And it's like a survival mechanism. So if there was true trauma or you know, some injury in your body, the microglia respond by giving you these cytokines or producing these cytokines that make you want to just rest a lot and not interact and not waste your energy using all your energy for repair.

So I started to understand that the whole issue of central sensitization, which is what happens when patients have persistent pain. The issue isn't—all the receptors. We used to think it was that it was upregulation of the receptors so that you  needed more medication, because of the new receptor.But it was very much involved with the activation of microglia and that if we could suppress the microglia, we could suppress pain and actually reduce tolerance. That's some of the tolerance was a function of activating microglia. So I started to understand it would work for patients who had  central sensitization.t I've been treating a large number of patients for the earliest endless syndrome, and the most common complaint in that population is fatigue and pain.

When you examine them using my electrical instrument, they come up with anywhere from around 50 tender or sensitized muscles test positive. When I say the relatively normal population who just comes in, let's say with that pain, the average number of muscles, it's about five, so they have ten times the number of muscles that are sensitive to a small amount of electrical stimulation.And it would appear that they have central sensitization, because they are, sensitive to all stimuli, they do have a mood disorder and quite often they have something else that fits in the whole picture, which is mast cell activation syndrome. This is like another part of the puzzle that the mast cells, which are cells in the body that respond to trauma and to infection, to any assault in the body or to a foreign body,  they sometimes become overactive.

And the whole phenomena of overactive mast cells  hasn't been recognized until quite recently. Itt turns out that patients  understand that syndrome. A large number of them have mast cell activation syndrome, which is the abundant number of mast cells. Not too many, but rather a normal number of mast cells. But the mast cells are over-producing the chemicals that they produce, and they can produce up to 200 different molecules, and you can get many different kinds of  symptoms  but commonly would be, skin sensitivity, rashes, environmental allergies, GI problems with constipation or diarrhoea.

What’s  commonly known as irritable bowel syndrome, asthmatic like problems or rapid heartbeat, a rapid heartbeat when you're getting up quickly called POTS, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or sometimes orthostatic hypertension, migraine headaches. So we see these kinds of  symptoms and the mast cells also activate the microglia. 

So in terms of my practice, you know, getting back to ultra-low-dose naltrexone, that I would say almost all the patients I see I put on two ultra-low dose naltrexone. It takes a while to titrate up because we know that the dose to 4.5 milligrams for some patients is a total overdose and they will not be able to tolerate that. And this was actually taught to me by Dr Franco, my friend. So we start at 0.1 milligrams per day, and we go up by 0.1 milligrams every other day, in divided doses.. So it's not one dose at night, but rather four times a day dosing. So it would be 0.1 then three days on the third day, it will be 0.1 twice a day. On the fifth day or sixth day, it will be 0.13 times a day. Then a couple of days after that 0.14 times a day and then start again from the 0.1 so it would be the point to 0.1 0.1 0.1 then 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1 and going up like that until we get to the maximum of somewhere between five and six milligrams a day as a maximum dose.

So we have some patients whose total daily dose is 0.15 milligrams a day. Total daily dose, and we have other patients where the total dose is six milligrams a day. So what's the dose for ultra-low-dose naltrexone? There is no dose. It's completely idiosyncratic, meaning each patient has their dose, whatever that may be. And so. I didn't stop talking for a long time.

Linda Elsegood: That is absolutely amazing, and you have wrapped it up in 30 minutes. We're going to have to have you come back and talk to us again because I'm sure you  just got started in that 30 minutes. So I'd like to say thank you very much for having joined us today. I really do appreciate it. 

Norman Marcus M.D. My pleasure.

Linda Elsegood: This show is sponsored by Dixon's Chemist, who are the experts in LDN at associated treatments in the UK. Dixon's Chemist, the most cost-effective for LDN in all forms within the UK and Europe. You are maintaining safety standards in  excess of what is required. Why would you choose to get your LDN from anywhere else?

Cool. 0141404654 five today to speak to the LTN experts

Linda Elsegood:Any questions or comments you may have, please email me at lindaa@ldnrt.org 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.

Timothy Schwaiger, ND, MA - 3rd October 2018(LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

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

Dr Timothy Schwaiger is a naturopathic doctor who learned about Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) from his daughter and did his research to understand how it works. Throughout his career he has adopted non-pharmaceutical approaches to blood pressure, depression, anxiety, and insomnia and has worked with all age groups.

He attended the LDN Research Trust Conference in Portland Oregon in 2017 and gained further knowledge about it’s applications. In this interview he discusses diet and nutrition, supplements, and other treatments for various conditions.

Dr Schwaiger explains thoroughly how LDN can help to solve issues such as insomnia.

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

Dr Edyta BIernat-Kaluza – 19th September 2018 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Linda Elsegood: Today my guest is Dr Edyta, who's from Poland, and she's a rheumatologist. Thank you for joining us today, Doctor Edyta. 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: Hello. This is such a pleasure for me. 

Linda Elsegood: Okay. And could you tell us your full name, please? 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: My full name is Polish, Etyta Biernat-Kaluza, and I’m a rheumatologist, rheumatologist.

Linda Elsegood: Okay. And when did you first hear about LDN? 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: So it was thanks to one of my patients who was a doctor. It was about, I think, three, four years ago, and she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. She was the first person who told me about LDN.  

Linda Elsegood: I understand. You take it yourself.

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: Yes, I am a patient, rheumatological the patient and not only neurological too because I suffer from arthritis with a B 27 antigen and my main problem was arthritis, sometimes reactive, but my second problem, immunological problem, is multiple sclerosis. So now my arthritis is okay, but MS is a little bit worse. I started a few months ago to treat myself with LDN. 

Linda Elsegood: Okay. And when you first started, you know, what was your experience?

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: So at first, my first experience was as a doctor. So when I started to treat my patients, especially, yeah, women who wanted to be pregnant, but they suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and they use methotrexate. It was impossible to be pregnant and use these drugs. So then I started to find my new solution, and then they started to prescribe them at the end, and it was a fantastic reaction for them and ease their pain and hurt much less. They started to feel better and better. And after such patient experience, I started to prescribe too much more patients. Of mine. So I have various patients with Hashimoto’s and autoimmune and so on. And they had a lot of MS patients because, uh, you do preventative medicine and nutrition not only with pharmacology but with these natural treatments. But I prescribe now a lot of LDN.  

Linda Elsegood: And what dose do you start your patients on? 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: I think it was about two years ago with my first experience.

Linda Elsegood: Yes. The dose that you prescribe for your patients when they start? 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: So I started with at one point half and millilitres generally three at first. Then these with Waynflete, five later, three milligrams and the maximum dose is 4.5 very early ACE had revealed of these principles, for example. Oh, boys times. 

Linda Elsegood: Okay. Have any of your patients ever experienced any adverse side effects?

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: Some, I think about 5% they have some adverse events. It is generally irritation or some problems with during the night and so on. If they come to sleep enough, would last. 

Linda Elsegood: Um, what has been your own personal experience. 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: I generally feel there. Well, in what I'm able to say that my reaction to stress, special life stress is much better, but my advice, it's nice to eat the word very extensive in night,  dreams, and so on. So I had to change the time of those instances before going to sleep. I take LDN in the morning, and it's okay for me, and I do everything normally  

Linda Elsegood: Some people find that taking LDN in the morning gives them more energy. Have you noticed that? 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: Generally, I'm personally with a lot of energy, so I think I'm not able to say that maybe more. I have more energy, but nevermind if I had a lot of women taking LDN too. 

Linda Elsegood: Mmm. That's good. So being a rheumatologist, what other conditions have you, um, treated LDN for? I mean, you named quite a few there. Um, do you have any exceptional cases that you could tell us about? 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: So my patient rheumatological patients, who I treat our patients with, for example, ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis, often attempt their multiple, this rheumatoid arthritis and so on. And so lots of patients with so-called collector notice, for example, she ignored the syndrome Slen so on. So it's the main mean. Because they are my rheumatological patients, but they have a lot of endocrinological patients, especially Hashimoto disease. So I observe very interesting results. The serologic is much better during therapy, and another group is MS patients because lots of people wanted to talk, want to be treated by me because that I'm an MS patient and they see that I walk very well. And I do everything's normally and so on. And generally this patient, I would like to follow along with my good conditions. 

Linda Elsegood: And with your Hashimoto’s patients or patients with, um, taking thyroid medications, do you find they have to reduce the number of thyroid medications that they take.

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: At least the BTS about as the most important for me is observing these ones. You think of antibodies, antibodies. So it's, it's very important for patients and for me. Some of them are able to reduce thyroid hormone stuff 

Linda Elsegood: And what about patients that come to you who are already taking opiate painkillers?

Um, because we know that people with arthritis and psoriatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, et cetera, et cetera, are people that suffer from high levels of pain. 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: I, in general, it’s a problem and that it's better not to combine. And so they generally don't use opioid therapy together with LDN. So my experience is not to be who patients who use opioid treatments, and so I don't have such an experience  

Linda Elsegood: but if a patient was already on the opioids and wanted to try LDN, what do you do to get them off the opioids.

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: You see it, or you generally try to use different solutions, for example, or anti-inflammatory, typical nonsteroidal the treatments. So then I'm able to take a different solution. And with the opioid, I generally do opioid treatment or LDN but not together. I don't have such experience now. 

Linda Elsegood: And you talked about, uh, the nutritional side.

What do you recommend for your patients to, to follow? 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: Yeah. It depends on which treatment that disease for. I often will discuss diseases. It is a good solution if they had to without a little time, but without gluten and dairy. Non-gluten diet is the best solution, but we check in what's where action for lickings and I do very often, and people this we, so we call it intolerance and produce.

Um, T a G T class from and based on these eight, try to find a good diet for my patients, but generally, gluten-free, dairy-free, and without meat. Some people decide to eat all the way to me, but of course without threat.  

Linda Elsegood: Yes. That's really interesting. Supplements. Do you recommend any supplements for your patients?

I know that everybody's individual and every condition is different, so what people need to take varies, but you know, if you had to say the top four favourite supplements that you like to recommend to your patients, what would they be? 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: So the first step for me is vitamin D three, and I have peak experience with treatments with high doses. So I participate, for example, international conferences on vitamin D 3. And the dose depends on the condition. Meaning minimal level in Poland is 30 nanograms per millilitre, but for the immunological problems that theirs is 75 milligram per millilitre, but generally patients is only metabolic problems, so 50 is okay.

I had an occasion to talk with Professor Michael Holick from Boston who is guru. Even the field of my time in the free and he treating corporation was a doctor from. Patients with a nurse with MS  those are over. Those are 250, and they have good results. Me personally, my, uh, I try to. Treat patients with maximum dose and not to those, but 15 bucks in our level one, she's the size hole.

So one has it, 50 grams per litre is for ms patients, but generally, for an autoimmune, a lot of is 75, so the first is an item in the three different supplements is for example. Probiotics and it's different. I, based off my experience on the preventative and personalized for different conferences, and the nice way to use another technique, the only participants from Europe or go to a state and make it a Rosen setters during the class conference that probiotics ought to be changed every three to six months.

So I told this use probiotics generally, and I like probiotic means and so on. Sometimes I use enzymes like from Elaine and so on, the papain, and I use a lot of these natural at the same store.  

Linda Elsegood: and of course it's really important what you put in your body and microbiome in the gut seems to be quite a hot topic over here in the UK right now.

Um, they were saying that if you've got your microbiome, um, correct, that it eliminates a lot of gut issues. And um. Other conditions. Could you tell us a bit about that? Your experience of the microbiome. 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: So in Poland, a prevalent form of diet is the diet of a doctor as a number of SCA. It's based on the vegetables and some thoughts, and it lasts about a maximum of six weeks and things.

So eating only these vegetables, my biome is changing, and they may be community in the microbiome is much better. Thanks for these changes in say, for example, in the direction of the vegan diet is much better and mainstream. We use it. If my patients decide not to eat meat you, they feel much better that they're in the very, very various conditions.

Sometimes you've beat on her some gastric problem or maybe a gastrointestinal problem. Not too often I do an examination of the microbiome, but it's very difficult, and they do in different places in Poland, not in Warsaw. 

Linda Elsegood: Uh, and, uh, a documentary that I was listening to. They were saying that when somebody takes antibiotics, of course, the antibiotics kill all the bacteria, good and bad.

And they said that it was rather like a forest fire for the microbiome. It just wipes everything out and to only take antibiotics when it was essential. Um, but also things like, um, cans of fizzy drink that have, um aspartame in them that that kills microbiome as well. Is that correct? 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: I love tables to understand this last part.

Could you repeat it? Okay. Because I'm debating because I understood that the things that 

Linda Elsegood: this last part, 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: okay. Um, cans 

Linda Elsegood: of fizzy drinks. Um, I didn't really want to mention any, any brands, but you know, the cans of drinks that you buy that are sugar-free have aspartame in them. And it was saying that the aspartame, which is the sugar substitute, also kills microbiome.

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: It probably is sometimes for sending me photos, nothing to drink and not sugar drinks and so on. Then I, if my patients ask me, she ought to pick aspartame I said to know the most piece, so I will be such as. So drink water will be, for example, I'm on and so on. Or maybe from. Not to be, not to have such a low acidity in the about of course sparkling, especially sugar drinks are very bad. 

Linda Elsegood: Yes. And of course to keep your kidneys healthy and your bladder, you really need to drink plenty of water to keep flushing. Everything out that's lurking in your body. If you're not hydrated, it's a problem, isn't it?

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: Yes, it is. It's necessary to keep in mind that it's we ought to drink before going to sleep at all because you might, for example, of some cast my create some crystals and so on. So it's necessary to drink before going to sleep. Not only during the day but. He's very, very important, but it might be.

The persons with a heart problem are especially insufficiency of, of the heart or to be not often to drink too much because it might be too heavy for their heart. Mm. 

Linda Elsegood: Uh, how much would you recommend that somebody drink before going to bed? 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: Some fruits are these the one blouse, and the best thing is not, don't wake up with your ink now you'd still go to the toilet.

I sort of took try from themselves, which volume is best for them. Okay. If you run glass or half, go offload glass. So each person is different. And what 

Linda Elsegood: is your take on like tea and coffee and caffeine? Is that. Okay. To have in moderation or should people, cause I mean there are people that drink tea and coffee all day, all day long, and some people have strong black coffee.

I mean, how does that affect the system. 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: So my experience as a doctor is very varied as, because some patients, they drink coffee before night or even green tea before. Neither have they, some of them are not able to sleep, but some patients like to drink coffee, and they will sleep and say no, or a new fresh person. Generally, if the patient asked me, okay, if I can drink a lot of coffee or home and coffees, I am some that it depends on your genes. And we do special genes that we send saliva to Canada, and we take which type of gene you have and how many, for example, coffee, you are able to bring back the coffee. It means both coffee, green tea and chocolate. And so on, so on. So we know that some persons are able to. 200 milligrams of coughing. It's okay. For example, me, if there's some type of gene and the different person are able to drink much more coffee. 

Linda Elsegood: Um, what about alcohol? Where does that sit with the amounts that people can tolerate without them being, without them being an issue?

And of course, alcohol is also high in sugar, 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: isn't it? Yes, it is a, you see generally depends on the works. How do you think about alcohol and so on? Because towards the sample from an oncologic oncological point of view, generally, all alcohol is bad and each may create more cancers. For example, women with breast cancer that usually drink even acceptable amounts of one glass of red wine are, they're probably to have a recurrence of breast cancer is high.

So generally much better is not to drink, but it's very difficult to release it this way. Yeah. So, for example, a doctor or rheumatology doctor we know as a strong example of the most important or tried, this is the whole, he's gout. And for gout drinking, alcohol is very bad, but the worst is beer because it's a source of purines. I talk, so I get asked from a patient with gout, they ask me, doctor, what I'm able to drink from them. I answer it's maybe a little bit of vodka with lemon juice. Okay. And many people, even today, I had patients, and he has the, he says to me that if he even thinks of vodka, then he does well with the lemon juice.

Hmm. 

Linda Elsegood: Well, I can remember having gout years ago. I must have been. The late twenties, early thirties, and I thought it was just old people that got gout. Uh, I've had it twice, 

but it's very painful in my big toe. Um, but it was very painful, really, really painful. Um, does that come under rheumatology? Gout. Okay.

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: And now it's the most popular arthritis reaching the whole world. But it isn't always so. The patient told me it’s my ankle. It's my knee. It's made to be there, for example, herbal and so on. So it may be probably levels or try, or sometimes his problem was tendonitis. So for example, Achilles tendonitis and so on often is due to high levels of uric acid.

And how do you, that's the second issue that it's patient with how you exit? You either they, either they eat a lot of sweets and so on. Then propel is a probability of an attack of gout is higher. On the contrary, if they don't eat sugar, 

Linda Elsegood: and once you've had gout, are you, they're more prone to have reoccurring attacks of gout.

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: Yes, but you generally know, we know that the gout isn't so difficult to treat because it's very important to reduce levels of uric acid grams per litre and then become, the count doesn't exist, or these attacks are rarer Marara and so on and so on. So now it's only questioned how good the gout is treated. So it isn't a problem. Now you add Ames in such a group, do you come? So it's gout treatment that's all grown up from about 170 scientists from the whole connected in science about gout.

So we know that if the Galtee is good, three tips, so it isn't a problem. 

Linda Elsegood: Well, that's good. So if anybody is listening who suffers from gout, uh, there is, um, the good news that it can be treated. 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: Now, generally, even the popularity or the treatment in the UK too is allopurinol. I look generally know that we sell now we have new, more modern drugs and if somebody is very systematic is, so it works for awareness.

And I know Dr Doherty's from the UK, and he led such a nurse-led to take care of patients with gout. We have very good with our phones, even the doctors. This nurse curse, you said better. Wonderful. Thanks for the time explaining everything and so on and so on. That doctors hurry to match

Linda Elsegood: and anybody listening, if they would like to come and see you have an appointment to discuss the condition, how would they get hold of you? 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: So it isn't so easy. It is to see, I'm able to speak English, and I do the telemedicine so it's able to talk. They find my place of work in Warsaw. So, and right.

If, for example, uh, InMail, and then I'm able to find appointments for such patient. and 

Linda Elsegood: do you have a waiting list? 

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: Generally, in Poland, I don't even relate it to meet a person that patients who they would like to be treated by me in person. You would be seen by my assistant doctor about the IEM case of patients from abroad. Then I will find time personally for them. Well, I have a very long waiting list.

Linda Elsegood: We do have quite a few members of from Poland, so I'm sure they'd be very happy to seek you out even if they have to wait for an appointment. But it's been amazing talking to you today. Thank you very much for being such an amazing guest it was a pleasure and honour to have you on the show.

Dr Edyta Biernat-Kaluza: Terrific. Thank you. Thank you.

Linda Elsegood: This show is sponsored by Dixon's chemist. We're the experts in LDN and associated treatments in the UK. Dixon's Chemist is the most cost-effective for LDN in all forms within the UK and Europe, maintaining safety standards far in excess of what is required. Why would you choose to get your LDN from anywhere else?

Call 01414046545 today to speak to their LDN experts.

Linda Elsegood: Any questions or comments you may have, please email us at Contact@ldnresearchtrust.org..  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 Jonathan Collin – 12th September 2018 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Dr. Jonathan Collins who's an MD, prescribes Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN), and is the publisher of the Townsend letter.

I became particularly interested in mental health in the late seventies approaching a patient with drug therapies, particularly dealing with patients with psychosis  but benefits were limited.

And there were practitioners who talked about the need to investigate these patients from a nutritional viewpoint and that did lead me to looking at alternative medicine or integrative medicine. I decided to let go of pursuing internal medicine and dermatology and instead started focusing in on this area of integrative medicine and combining that with a general medicine practice at the same time.

At that time there wasn't internet so I figured out I could take on the ability to create a magazine that would act as a forum for practitioners. And so we got involved with starting originally a newsletter, which became a magazine. It's called a Townsend letter.

Then I got involved with the Congress to do an investigation of alternative cancer treatments. And the result of that was a report that came out in 1990, that ultimately led to the national institutes of health, creating an office of alternative medicine. And several years later that became the center for complimentary and alternative medicine at the national institutes of health.

I'm involved with personally in terms of offering patients integrative types of treatments  herbal medicine, therapies of vitamin and nutritional medicine, homeopathy, which is actually been something that has been ongoing for almost 200 years.

I use with the Low Dose Naltrexone which has been something that a number of my patients have found useful and supportive for autoimmune conditions and inflammation.

I have been using The Sinclair method giving 50 mg Naltrexone for alcohol use disorder one hour before drinking.

It has been a remarkably effective treatment. I've had many individuals who have used this technique. The treatment in many ways is extremely simplistic.

 Is totally different from the approach that requires the individual to depend on willpower, like in approach using alcoholics anonymous. There is no requirement for the individual to use willpower. The medication Naltrexone is prescribed and it is taken one hour prior to drinking. And there is a slow deconditioning process that makes the individual feel less craving for drinking the typical amount of alcohol that they're consuming.

And as time goes on, that extinguishing behavior continues.

The medication Naltrexone has minimal adverse effects.

Three to six months on their alcoholism or alcohol dependency brought under control.

I use the Sinclair method, because it is something that is quite successful.

Unfortunately, the individual that has a history of a alcohol use disorder has been sustaining damage to their liver over an extended period of time and other organs in their body. And so it's always useful for that person to have a medical exam and to do your basic laboratory test.

And usually when they come in, they have other issues the same time.

We certainly don't want to use the Naltrexone if the person is having hepatitis or liver failure or if they have major kidney function, abnormalities.

Summary of Dr. Jonathan Collins interview. Watch the video for the full interview.

Dr John Kim MD – 5th September 2018 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

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

Dr John Kim has great experience with LDN and shares his latest results in combining ULDN (Ultra-Low Dose Naltrexone) with acupuncture and Vitamin C.

His chemical background allows him to understand the various pathways and how his treatments are working. He explains what ULDN is and how these micro-doses of Naltrexone can help people with high sensitivity to drugs. It can also be utilized to enhance the effects of opioids while reducing the dependence, and eventually replacing them to reduce pain. 

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

Tracy Magerus, NMD – 15th August 2018 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

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

Dr Tracy Magerus is an MD from Phoenix, Arizona. Having graduated in 2009, she has been in private practice for nearly ten years giving her a great depth of valuable experience. 

She had previously heard of Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) during her studies in the late 2000s, but first prescribed it for one of her patients in 2012 where within weeks she noticed improvements in their overall health.

Dr Magerus currently has over 25 patients on LDN and considers it a vital tool in her naturopathic arsenal.

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

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.

Dr Elissa Mullen - 25th July 2018 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

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

Dr Elissa Mullen practices general adult medicine and specialises in chronic disease weight loss, bio-identical hormones and natural solutions to aging. Dr Mullen is the developer of Seattle Wellness Programs, practices primary Adult care with an emphasis on wellness and endocrine disorders. 

She also has been the director and coordinator of hCG Diet Centers in Washington and California where she has worked with over 1,000 successful weight loss individuals. 

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

 

Dr Sarah McAllister - 18th July 2018 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

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

Dr Sarah McAllister is a naturopathic doctor and the owner of a children's naturopathic center. Following her graduation with a biochemistry major from Canada, Dr McAllister was insistent on pursuing her passion as a pediatrician.

She is not steadfast in her ways and is open to adopting many different methods of treatment, which led to her using Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) in her patients, many of which are children.

Having dealt with a variety of different issues including autism and Crohn’s disease, Dr McAllister is well versed and knowledgeable about LDN’s effects on younger patients and the benefits it can bring.

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

Dr Melody Keller on the LDN Radio Show 11th July (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

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

Dr Melody Keller is a trained Naturopathic Doctor and has always believed in utilizing safe and effective herbal blends and treatments rather than prescribing harmful drugs to reduce the symptoms. 

She discusses the process of testing and treating many illnesses. She has prescribed Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) for 5 years and finds it quite beneficial for a host of autoimmune conditions.

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