LDN Video Interviews and Presentations

Susan - US: Jim's Multiple Sclerosis (MS) 08 Jan 2020 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Linda Elsegood: I'd like to introduce Susan Garvin from the US, I had the pleasure of meeting Susan and Jim in Nashville at the conference in 2010 this show is dedicated to Susan's late husband, Jim Garvin, who was an LDN user and a huge advocate of LDN. Thank you for joining me today. Susan. 

Susan Garvin: Oh, I'm so pleased. And Jim is watching from above cause he would talk anybody's ear off about LDN and its many uses for ailments that you had. He would talk anybody's ear off. 

Linda Elsegood: Well this is a tribute to Jim, could you tell us about Jim and your life together, how long you were married. 

Susan Garvin: Well, Jim and I were married at age 20 in 1971. We were married to the same people for just shy of 48 years when he passed.

And he was just really dedicated to his family, friends, and his community. Jim was a cable splicer for the phone company he retired from there, after his diagnosis with MS on January 20, 2000, he always said, it's his birthday present. Cause he was born in January, he didn't feel sorry for himself about the diagnosis.

He goes if it's not me. Who else could it be? You know? Jim was diagnosed and actually was told by the doctor that he had Lyme disease, but he got mixed up with another patient. So it was an MS diagnosis. So he retired from the phone company as a cable splicer because of course his many MS symptoms.

And he would find himself ready to pass out, not remember things, walking became a burden for him. We used to call it wall walking where he had to hold on to the walls of the house to get around. At one point he did use a wheelchair because he was unsteady on his feet. 

He, he was taking Betaferon because the doctor wanted him on it. And for a man that was over 250 pounds, just shivering on the bed with flu-like symptoms every other day was pretty hard to watch and see. But he was doing an internet search for other alternative treatments for MS and actually came across some little tidbits of information about low dose naltrexone. So Jim, he decided to call people on the message board that he was searching on. Fin d out that it was really a truly a good treatment for MS and he took a leap of faith and talked the Dr into it, she was not his neurologist who was not really on board but prescribed it anyway, so we got a compounded prescription in the next town over. He came home and tried it and the next day Jim had an improvement in his symptoms of balance. He was able to stand on one foot for balance and so excited as he was, he just called everybody at the doctor's office to just say, thank you.

The doctor was not impressed with that. And after the next consultation, she actually wanted to remove us as patients. So anyway, we had a lot of help and he felt so much better in his symptoms. He was inspired to reach out and tell everybody about it.

So, we have a lot of friends that we met out at the Nashville conference and stayed in touch with them. Jim was known as captain caveman because he would always reach out to people on the internet, and then he called it, go back to his cave. So he was dubbed by Brenda as a captain caveman we had a lot of fun with that.

Jim had, in his own words, he would say he had a turnaround of his symptoms. Have ups and downs and better days and he says he could get out of the bed, make it to the throne room without falling down or having an accident, make it there by himself without a cane or the wheelchair.

And, he did have energy. We had a good life. Jim helped care for a lot of family members. We resumed camping and we pulled a fifth-wheel trailer for camping and visited Arizona. And we just had a very large social world because of that. So again, it gave him an opportunity to teach other people about LDN.

And one of our friends gave him some business cards, printed up with our name, address, and so on. And it said, ask me about LDN. Of course, he passed those out everywhere.

We went to a local viewing of a documentary on low dose naltrexone for Lyme disease. We had a conversation with a man in the lobby afterwards, and he goes on and on. He goes. I had my aunt taking this and, and some crazy man told her about all of this, and LDN and Jim goes, well, you're looking at that crazy man.

We had big chuckles that it comes around and meeting other people that it changed their lives. That really meant a lot to him. We made a lot of good friends that 

Linda Elsegood: I  remember meeting you on the, General Jackson, Mississippi riverboat after the conference in Nashville.

Susan Garvin: Oh, it was so wonderful. Yes. We have a lot of good friends and, Paul and Altha, Brenda was there, Crystal. We have a lot of good memories of those times andwe're just so pleased about how LDN is really changing the world.

We have results that are real now. And when Jim first started it, it was just like, well, maybe it might help you. And you know, we love the testimonies of how it helped people. Jim was on the cutting edge, I would say, of learning and teaching and sharing about LDN as you are.

Linda Elsegood: When did Jim start taking LDN? 

Susan Garvin:  He was started in about January, February, about 2003, I think, 2003 so he was on it about 18 years, without an exacerbation.

And I have to say, Jim saw the neurologist the several days before he passed away, and his neurologist said MRIs taken a few months before, showed there are no changes in your MRIs from the previous and that tickled Jim today because to say that and it was proof that LDN was a life-changer for us. And Jim died of pancreatic cancer, which very few people live through a treatment plan on. But we do feel that it helped his life become meaningful.  

Linda Elsegood: Well, Jim started around the same time as I did then cause I started in, um, December. The 3rd of December in 2003.

Susan Garvin: It's about that. Exactly.

Linda Elsegood: In those days, there were not many people taking LDN. The internet wasn't what it is today either you know. There are more trials and studies being done every month; somebody has done something. There is Facebook now, which there wasn't, or, might've been around, but it wasn't what it is today.

And people sharing information around the world, podcasts and documentaries, conferences, it's all growing momentum over the years. It's a far bigger movement now.

Susan Garvin: Absolutely. I mean, and when Jim researched it, he was in the low thousands on the message board that he was researching on and he sat there and he, he was so funny, had a wicked sense of humour, but he sat there and he said, I felt like somebody slapped me on the back of the head and said. Take a look at this, it can change your life. And again, he did his due diligence and researched that and talked to real people. And again, there is what we, we found that. Testimonies and talking to people made a huge difference. And I think again, Jim talking to other people that we met con a camping trip, after Jim had started this, met up with, people in the Santa Cruz area. And met with them in person and told them, look, I'm a real person. This has changed my life. That person that had MS started, it changed their life also. And you know, you can't take away those things, that life is changed for other people because of you. 

Linda Elsegood: We have 35,000+ people on our main LDN Research Trust Facebook group.

I mean, that is an amazing amount of people, isn't it? I mean, if you put them all in one place at the same time, it would be a huge crowd.

Susan Garvin: Exactly. So, I know that people can take a for so many things, you know? And that that's what's been good for us to know. We share the books, we share testimonies and Facebook.

I mean, having all of those researchers and, and instead of sharing just one on one. We can share it through to the internet and have a larger audience. So we're very proud of the community and how it's grown. 

Linda Elsegood: And patient testimonies are so reassuring and so inspirational for other people who feel, let's say somebody with alopecia who hasn't ever seen anybody with alopecia, let alone know anybody that's taking any kind of treatment. You feel very isolated and on your own, and it really does help to connect with other people who are in the same boat as you, who can talk to you and help. It really does make a big difference.

Susan Garvin: Yeah. that's true. So it's like we are here we're a purpose. And I just think that Jim was definitely one that was blessed. On LDN, he had an almost complete turn around of his symptoms. He still had moments, you know, fatigue and heat intolerance, but being able to take care of yourself and not be a burden on somebody, that was huge to him, that he didn't ever want to "be taken care of" by someone. He was active till the very end. Well that's good to hear, isn't it? That's the time when you think, well, yeah, I've had a good one. Yeah, 

Linda Elsegood: He was amazing. So did you have children, 

Susan Garvin: Yes. We had two,. Our son died about nine years ago. And then we have a daughter that is a teacher and she's taking a two year teaching position in Hong Kong. And we'll be home for her Christmas for a visiting family. So we are totally excited about that. My mother, that's going to be 91, lives with us; we have three dogs at the moment and, mother still goes camping with us. Jim is one that really helps take care of my mother. He gave up three months of our life to go take care of her in Arizona after my father died and invited her to live with us. He always said, if we didn't have her, he wouldn't have me. And he just told me every single day that he loved me. And he did that by showing love to others. 

Linda Elsegood: Do you have any grandchildren?

Susan Garvin: Yes, I have two a 24-year-old beautician, granddaughter, and a 16-year-old, uh, still in high school. So, they'll be in for Christmas probably, and love being a part So, I have the grand dog, so the grand dog is staying with us through my daughter's time in Hong Kong. It's a loving schnauzer and we get to visit and cuddle with her along with our other two dogs. They want to be on your lap and cuddling. So it's like a puppy pile. 

Linda Elsegood: Dogs are such great company and the way they follow you around. 

Susan Garvin: Hmm. They are. And they loved Jim. Jim could teach him anything and they always wanted attention from him. So they were very comforting to him. Cause you know, there were times in the first part of his diagnosis, he'd just be sitting in the recliner, but he'd be laying back and have our little dog laying on his chest. And you know that that was his girlfriend. You know he would have a girlfriend on his chest or a little dog.

And those are cute pictures I keep in my mind. 

Linda Elsegood: So what kinds of dogs do you have. 

Susan Garvin: My oldest is a dachshund and Queensland max. She's got black spots and grey ticking. We have a white Vishaan that's practically toothless cause. she's lost her teeth. And then my daughter's dog, the miniature schnauzer. So a pretty energetic group considering. 

Linda Elsegood: Well, it's been amazing speaking to you, Susan, and thank you so much for sharing Jim's story. You know, it's nice to be remembered for all the hard work that he did and to, you 

Susan Garvin: Well, it's continuing on. I'll be a part of this community forever enough, for I know how life-changing it is for each one of us.

Linda Elsegood: Well, thank you so much for having been our guest today. 

Susan Garvin: Well, thank you, Linda. I look forward to seeing you in person on another future date. 

Linda Elsegood: You can bank on it. Thank you, Susan. 

Susan Garvin: Bye-bye.

Linda Elsegood: [00:21:24] This show is sponsored by our members who made donations. We'd like to give them a very big thank you. We have to cover the monthly costs of the radio station software and with phone lines and phone calls to be able to continue with their idea of the show. And thank you for listening.

Any questions or comments you may have. Please email me at Contact@ldnresearchtrust.org I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you. Joining us today. We really appreciated your company. Until next time, stay safe and keep well.

 

Dawn Ipsen, PharmD - 4th Dec 2019 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Linda Elsegood: Today I'd like to welcome my guest pharmacist, Dr Dawn Ipsen, who is not only the owner of one compounding pharmacy but two confounding pharmacies in Washington State.  Thank you for joining me today, Dawn.

Dawn Ipsen: [00:01:35] Well, thank you Linda so much for having me. It's an absolute pleasure.

Linda Elsegood: [00:01:39] Great. So tell us, we're all interested. What made you decide you wanted to be a pharmacist?

Dawn Ipsen: [00:01:47] Oh, yes. So I knew at a, pretty early on that I wanted to be in healthcare on some aspect and pharmacy was very intriguing to me and started on that path and lucky for me, I got an opportunity to be a compounding pharmacy intern while I was in pharmacy school in a compounding pharmacy and immediately fell in love.

And so that was my path. I loved how personalized it was, how unique it was, how I was doing things that none of my classmates and colleagues was doing and so that started my journey. This was in the Seattle area. I went to the University of Washington School of pharmacy, and it was almost 20 years ago now and got my doctor and pharmacy degree there, and I've enjoyed it thoroughly.

Linda Elsegood: [00:02:43] So how did you get from pharmacy school to owning to compounding pharmacies?

Dawn Ipsen: [00:02:50] So I've always been an entrepreneur and really loved business sides of things and kind of had this long term goal that someday I was going to own a pharmacy and it definitely happened earlier in my career than I expected.

I had been working for the Kusler's family at Kusler's compounding pharmacy and had always told them: "When you're ready to do something else, keep me in mind." And got that call. Became owner of Kusler's compounding pharmacy. And  Linda, that was almost six years ago now and was just minding my own business, running my pharmacy, helping my community, doing great work.

And a couple of years into that, I received a call from another owner, the owner of Clark's compounding pharmacy in Bellevue, and he was looking for a buyer. He wanted to retire and he'd done his research and determined that he thought I would be a good fit, that I did the kind of pharmacy work that he liked to do, and I help people the way that he felt was the best way.

And so I've owned now Clark's compounding pharmacy in Bellevue, Washington for three years and even the pharmacies are only 25 miles apart. They kind of do similar, but yet different things or both, compounding, online pharmacies, Sterile. Kusler's does contract with some insurance plans, so we do help patients with that.

And Clark's is licensed in nine states, so we work with patients and not only Washington state, but Oregon, Idaho,  Arizona and Nevada. And we have Colorado and a couple of other States as well. So that's been really wonderful, great, fun and challenging. And it's just really neat that I get to use my really strong chemistry and biology background and help people really solve medication problems, for people and pets.

We helped the whole family. So that's intriguing and fun.

Linda Elsegood: [00:04:59] Wow. We never know.  It is been three years. You might get another phone call from another pharmacy.

Dawn Ipsen: [00:05:07] You never know. However, my staff might call crazy people if I do that, but no, I enjoy it, and I love the challenge and I think that it's something that, we're really successful at. We pride ourselves in the quality and in our teamwork and how we take care of patients and that we treat our patients like their family, and how we would want our family to be treated and very personalized with that care.

Linda Elsegood: [00:05:36] So with all your compounding, what forms do you compound LDN into?

Dawn Ipsen: [00:05:44]  So Low Dose Naltrexone is expanding. Actually had been working with Odell style Trek zone for roughly 10 years now, and kind of decided to become a state expert Low Dose Naltrexone about five years ago. And back then it was very primarily capsules only, and that's what we saw and actually five, 10 years ago it was even the doses were very structured at certain doses, not a lot of variability to it.   And we've learned so much, right?  Over the research and over the years. Now we're doing a much wider array of doses. Everything from ultra-low or micro-dosing for maybe patients who

are on pain therapies already and need some extra help with their immune system to even much higher doses, more frequent doses for mood situations or post-traumatic stress or depression.  And along with that, we're also helping patients who maybe there's an autism spectrum situation going on and they don't want to or aren't willing to take capsules in which we're able to make flavoured liquids and we're able to do now LDN in a transdermal.

And a transdermal is very different than just a topical. This is a cream-based that's very special and it's designed to drive the drug into the body,  but it's a great way to go when you have a patient who won't participate or can't participate in taking an oral medicine. And on top of it, we've started doing a lot of topical LDN treatment for skin conditions specifically for  psoriasis, eczema, things of that nature. So those are primarily the most dosage forms we see. So different ways to do oral, different way to do a transdermal, and then we have the topicals as well.

Linda Elsegood: [00:08:03] If I could just ask you, the topical cream or lotion, what do you call it?

Dawn Ispen: [00:08:11] It's usually a topical cream for the skin dermatology conditions.

Linda Elsegood: [00:08:17] So if you've got eczema or allergies or psoriasis and the other skin conditions like backtracked syndrome, Haley Haley's disease, applying that directly to the skin, what do you see? Does it take away the itchy, flaky redness? What do you see when people use it?

Dawn Ispen: [00:08:45] Definitely, so what we were noticing is, in psoriasis patients that were just on oral low dose naltrexone that they would typically get to effect at some point.  But it took a very, very long time. And it was, as you can imagine, hard for patients to be patient, so to speak, and wait for that. Because I mean, we all know how miserable it is to have skin that's irritated. It's red, it itches, it burns, it stings, all those things. It's very difficult to have any sort of quality of life. So we started doing both. We would help doctors with the normal oral therapies that we would be used to seeing, but then we would start making a customized cream for them, naltrexone being one of the ingredients. And we would put it in a cream base that actually had nutraceutical components to it that would help calm the skin already on its own with no drug in it. So yes, they often risked with the naltrexone and that cream base would find relief of redness and inflammation, and we'd start seeing the healing of autoimmune skin disorders much faster than if they were doing the oral alone.

On top of that, we could work more closely meeting their direct needs. So if it was causing pain, we could add an ingredient to help with that. If it was a histamine reaction, we could add another ingredient to help with that. And so it gave us a lot more flexibility to be very, very specific and customized with the treatment they needed on the skin that was bothering them.

Linda Elsegood: [00:10:31] So my question would be, Dawn. If, for example, 3 mg, the highest dose that you could tolerate orally and you're putting a topical lotion or cream on, does it matter how much naltrexone is in that cream? Does it get absorbed into the system? How does it work? Do you see what I'm saying? If three is all you can take and you've got three in the cream, does it matter?

Dawn Ispen: [00:11:03] Well, it depends. So if we are doing the topical cream base, there's a slim chance you could have some added absorption, but then we may want to go back and talk about what does it mean they couldn't tolerate more than three? Was it directly affecting their stomach and they were having nausea or cramps or something like that?

Or was it affecting sleep or why was it three their oral stealing number, right?  So when we go topical or even transdermal, a lot of times we can go higher than one would have thought than they could do orally and still avoid the side effects because they're avoiding that, what we call it in pharmacy, the first-pass effect. When a drug is swallowed it goes to the stomach and then it goes to the liver, and that's sometimes the portion of the system that's causing the side effect. And if we're avoiding that, we can get away with that. The other thing is that, given in these dermatology conditions, if we're doing Naltrexone  and it is just topical, we're not getting the systemic absorption that we would be getting in oral or transdermal delivery.

So in that sense, the amount probably doesn't quite matter, but also the amount of drug that's in that cream, they could put quite a bit on and not be getting a significant dose directly into the bloodstream. 

Linda Elsegood: [00:12:34] okay. And then would it be exactly the same as oral LDN and that if it kicks into the bloodstream, it would be the, and then go quite quickly.

Dawn Ispen: [00:12:44] Righ, so if it did go into the bloodstream or it was a transdermal delivery, what was driven in intentionally, you would expect to get the same effect as if they were on oral. You may avoid side effects of the stomach directly because again, you're not putting that drug directly in their stomach, and that can be helpful for some patients for sure.

Linda Elsegood: [00:13:09] okay. Now, patient feedback. What has been the outcomes of your patients taking LDN?

Dawn Ispen: [00:13:21] The feedback has been very, very positive. It definitely seems to be a drug that Is extremely safely tolerated with very few side effects, if any, and if there are side effects, they're typically dose-related and things that can be managed by proper titrations and proper dosing.

The benefit can be anywhere from subtle improvement to very profound improvement with a huge direct link to a much better quality of life. Even on my more subtle improved patients, they often find that their improvement was way more than they anticipated because they'll sometimes take a vacation or a holiday from LDN and realized symptoms are coming back.

They are not feeling as good,  more fatigued, on and on. And then when they restart low dose naltrexone they can then more clearly see how much benefit it was providing to them.

Linda Elsegood: [00:14:23] And what conditions would you say patients are taking LDN for? Do you know that?

Dawn Ispen: [00:14:30] Yeah. I often do know that. Of course, we have our longterm patients that have been on it for five, even five-plus years at this point that had the Fibromyalgia, Multiple Sclerosis, Crohn's disease, of course. We're seeing even more though conditions that are just in general inflammation-based and in which we're trying to control the body's autoimmune system. So Hashimoto's and Graves', Lyme disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis. We have patients that are using it, as I mentioned, for psoriasis specifically. And then, more recently in the last couple of years, we're seeing patients who do have post-traumatic stress disorder or depression that is been not responding to normal therapies and even cancer conditions that have been very helped by low dose naltrexone.

Linda Elsegood: [00:15:30] So do any of your doctors around your area prescribe LDN for infertility issues?

Dawn Ispen: [00:15:41] We don't have too many in our area that is doing naltrexone for infertility. However. there ts definitely known, it's definitely talked about. There's pretty good literature on its use  and it just might be that I'm not right next to where the infertility clinics are that are working with that.

Linda Elsegood: [00:16:09] What about mental health issues?

Dawn Ispen: [00:16:13] Yes, we definitely have doctors who are using this for mental health issues and are really trying great because they're trying to bring to light the whole topic of mental health and how important it is. And they become so much more open to other ways of thinking, other treatments, other modalities for these patients. So we're seeing things like the use of ketamine for depression. We're seeing the naltrexone being used for depression and PTSD. And I mean, I can honestly say that had patients who had been very concerned about their wellbeing and that once they work with these types of providers, down the road, their quality is just so much better and they're doing great with it.

Linda Elsegood: [00:17:02]  And of course, so many mental health issues with antidepressants, etc can make people feel a bit sluggish, drowsy whether naltrexone actually makes you feel brighter and better, and it's not addictive either.

Dawn Ispen: [00:17:24] Right. You get that endorphin release, which is so important to our wellbeing and how we feel in our motivation and our willingness and desire to interact with others in our community and those are all such important things for being part of this world.

Linda Elsegood: [00:17:45] Do you have any patient case studies you could share with us?

Dawn Ispen: [00:17:49] I'm sure. A couple of my favourites is one, she's a younger patient. Actually, she's only in her 20s, and she comes into the pharmacy and she's been coming in a long time getting naltrexone. At this point, it's usually just a quick pickup: " Hey, how are you?" And out the door, we go. And I was at the counter with her and I literally had to stop and scratch my head and I couldn't.  She looked just so great, so normal, so just young and vibrant. And I honestly couldn't remember why she even has started low dose naltrexone. And so I asked her. I was like, can you remind me why do you take the naltrexone?

What is it doing for you? And, and she's actually multiple sclerosis patients, which we actually have a lot of in Washington state because where we're located in our sunlight exposure and vitamin D levels and all that. And it has hot her completely in remission with her vitamin D and other things she's doing as well.

But she looks just so normal.  Is the only way I can describe it. And how cool is that? They here we have a twenty-something who, who is able to be a vibrant member of the community and have a well-rounded life and do what she wants to do. So she's one of my favourites because thank goodness you're staying on it to help slow any progression of the disease process that might occur later on.

And then I do have one psoriasis patient that I've ever seen psoriasis-like this before. She actually had it even on the back of her calves, which is an unusual location. And started naltrexone. Did that for about a month, just the naltrexone orally itself. And then when we added in the cream.

And when she would come back for refills, I just couldn't get over it, how fast it was healing and we marked it.  I actually took pictures of when she first picked up and then when she came in for refills and then now there's nothing left. So it's been really awesome to see somebody who had been dealing with this for most of her life, who now is doing great, well-controlled.

Her immune system is just functioning properly.

Linda Elsegood: [00:20:05] How long did that take before her skin looked normal again?

Dawn Ispen: [00:20:12] Yeah. So skin is always slow. I mean, that's with patience is a virtue. It's on any skin condition as you have to allow for the full all derm cycle, which usually is right about six weeks on average.

And so, you start in with treatment knew at the beginning or just trying to get the treatments on board and help with any symptom relief they might need. And then usually, like in this particular case, it was really about at the three-month mark that she was coming in happy that the condition was starting to reverse and go back to how the skin was supposed to be.

And then of course for full healing, it's another month or two after that. And then he'd go into maintenance mode at that point.

Linda Elsegood: [00:21:00] Well, that's amazing, isn't it? I mean, psoriasis, if you have it, and I know somebody with psoriasis, how embarrassing it is. People look at you when it's really bad. I'm not comfortable either, is it? So something that can heal and clear that up It's amazing.

Dawn Ispen: [00:21:26] Yeah, it's wonderful because it can be, like you said, not only visibly unappealing and they will often try to hide it if they can with clothing and coverage, but it hurts, it clot cracks, it bleeds, it burns, it itches.

It's just horribly uncomfortable and unrelenting, you know, it doesn't just stop. It continues.

Linda Elsegood: [00:21:50]  Do you have many children as patients?

Dawn Ispen: [00:21:53] We do. We actually work with some doctors who are very in touch with the pediatric population and that's their speciality. And they use naltrexone usually in the kids that they have some sort of a spectrum disorder where they're noncommunicative and they aren't interacting as we hoped they would be able to.

They're a great population to work with and that's where we get to become very creative and work really closely with the family itself on determining how does this child want to receive its medication and is it as simple as custom dosing and maybe they want the capsule a certain colour because it might be more appealing visually to them. Fine, perfectly great with that. Or do they need a liquid and do they want it to be flavoured a certain way or do they need a lozenge? And then for the most difficult of patients, we can do the transdermal cream delivery that I even have a couple of families that they actually apply it to the child's back, back skin area at night when the child is sleeping. So they can receive their dose that way. 

Linda Elsegood: [00:23:25] Wow. So what else do you know about LDN that you haven't shared with us?

Dawn Ispen: [00:23:35] With LDN there are lots of things can augment the therapy of LDN and getting the most out of it. And it's really looking at the patient at a whole and trying to discover what ways can we reduce inflammation load in that patient's body along with optimizing the dosage form and the regimen, the strength and the timing, it should be taken.

 I do work a lot on talking with patients about the importance, especially in Washington,  of vitamin D,  the importance of good gut health and probiotics. We're working more with patients on using full-spectrum C-- to help with pain and anxiety as well,  antioxidants and organic diet and how important all of these things are to get inflammation loads down, to get the best effect out of it.

Linda Elsegood: [00:24:32] Yes. Diet is a big one, isn't it? People do notice a big difference by changing their diet.

Dawn Ispen: [00:24:42] Diet is so huge, and you know, us living in a suburban area, gardening and farming is not simple, right? And our seasons make that challenging too, and just really encouraging our community to buy from the farmer's market get organic as much as you can, grow your food when you can yourself and just eat well, take care of your body, you're worth it. You know? It's like you are worth the extra effort in doing that.

Linda Elsegood: [00:25:14] And sugar is another big thing, isn't it? If you can't cut it out, at least cut it down.

Dawn Ispen: [00:25:21]  Right, and look for good alternatives that are natural and if you do have to have that sweet because, you're right, it's in everything and it's hidden often it's hard to even know it's there.

Linda Elsegood: [00:25:36] It surprises me when you look at a tin food.  Dugar is in pipe beans, it's in..Just trying to think of something else. It's gone. Slipped my mind. But...

Dawn Ispen: [00:25:52] Ketchup, salad dressings.

Linda Elsegood: [00:25:55] Exactly. Sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar. It's not easy, but it's, it's similar if you're buying foods and you read the labels, gluten is in so many things.

Dawn Ispen: [00:26:13] Absolutely.

Linda Elsegood: [00:26:14] I mean, when I first started to be gluten-free, it took me ages to do my shopping because I was looking at everything and trying very hard not to get anything with gluten in it.

But it becomes easier because you know which things you can have and which things you can't have. Once you've gone through reading everything, it does become easier and you do find alternative things. I use honey as a sweetener and I use coconut sugar but it's brown colour so I can still make cakes and waffles occasionally, but there isn't a different colour but if you close your eyes you don't know, you can't see that it's a different colour. You can be creative. It's very expensive to eat organic here, and I should think it's pretty similar in the US isn't it?

Dawn Ispen: [00:27:18] It is. It definitely can be challenging to be able to do that and hard for some families to make that happen. And I always like to refer to the dirty dozen as they call it, of if you really have to pick and choose which product is most important to purchasing, organic versus maybe you could save the finances on something else.  That's at a nice way to integrate or ended up the pathway. Lucky for us in our area, at least, we do have a substantial number of farmer's markets that are all close by and available different days of the week but that can be an option for patients that are really trying to do those things, but maybe not able to get it from the grocery store all the time.

Linda Elsegood: [00:28:16] And the thing is, with organic food, it doesn't last as long as a non-organic without us being sprayed with things to keep it fresh longer.

Dawn Ispen: [00:28:28] And it sometimes doesn't look as pretty, does it either? There are more bruises and changes in how it grows and things like that.

But it's funny how our minds have that used to be the normal, right? That produce always looked like that. And then we've changed to think that that product should look perfect in every instance and that's not necessarily the case. It comes back to what you're saying with the sugar.

Linda Elsegood: [00:28:59] We have a supermarket here that sells half-price vegetables from the supplier, and they're all packaged and they're called wonky vegetables. So the carrots, parsnips, that probably got deformed but they're perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with them. It's just as they call them wonky,  they're not perfect and I think that's great.

Linda Elsegood: [00:29:34] We've come to the end of the show so we could have carried on talking for ages. We'll have you back again another time and until then, stay well and we will speak to you again soon.

Dawn Ispen: [00:29:48] Wonderful. Thank you. Have a great day.

Linda Elsegood: [00:29:50] Thank you. Bye-bye. This show is sponsored by Kusler's compounding pharmacy and Clark's compounding pharmacy. They are more than a drug store. They are highly trained, compounding pharmacy experts, combining the art and science of preparing personalized medications to meet your specific needs, improving lives by solving medication problems for people and pets, creating solutions to medication challenges.

Visit www.kuslerspharmacy.net

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 Marie Ekpema PharmD - 16th Oct 2019 on the LDN Radio Show (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Marie Ekpema, PharmD is the clinical director and pharmacy manager at Summerwood Pharmacy and Compounding in Houston Texas in the United States. She undertook additional training in compounding and bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.

Dr. Ekpema’s grandfather was an herbalist, who inspired her to go into pharmacy. Her first 15 years were as a traditional pharmacist, but realized the need to address some of the side effects of medications, such as gut issues and drug-induced nutrient deficiencies. For example, a magnesium deficiency can cause headaches. In the US, most prediabetics are started on Metformin. But working more with doctors and patients regarding supplements and lifestyle choices has resulted in patients on fewer prescriptions, and more targeted medications.

Linda Elsegood related that she had undergone 3 courses of IV steroids in 18 months, which resulted in weight gain, and Type II diabetes. She was put on Metformin, but still was diabetic. She decided to change her diet: removed gluten, removed added sugar, and removed dairy, and at her 6 month check-up was able to stop Metformin, and has held at the pre-diabetic level.

Dr. Ekpema believes in empowering people in decisions about their healthcare. One thing they recommend is gluten, dairy, and sugar restrictions, and ask patients to try it for 60-90 days and give feedback. Medications help manage disease, but infrequently are medications a cure. When you modify diet, especially with autoimmune diseases, results happen. She has seen patients go from using 100 U insulin daily back down to using 10-20 U; and patients being able to reduce medications type and dosage.

Linda Elsegood related she has high cholesterol, likely hereditary, and was told that diet wouldn’t help. Dr. Ekpema verified that is the case in certain types of hypercholesterolemia, but there are other approaches to reduce inflammation in the vessels, such as pomegranate juice daily, garlic, exercise, and reducing inflammatory foods.

For a consultation, patients can contact the pharmacy: https://summerwoodrx.com/ or phone 281-225-4300. Depending on the season, the waiting list could be anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month, particularly during the summer. There is an intake form, and consultations are done in the pharmacy, or over the phone. They communicate with the patient’s physician as well.

The pharmacy compounds LDN capsules, anywhere from 0.5 mg to 6 mg. The also prepare topical LDN.  Most of her patients are middle-aged and older. Prescribers who graduated in the last 15-20 years tend to be more open to LDN. She notes great results with LDN: reduction of symptoms, reduction of pain; and most dramatic, was a patient with psoriasis who had a 70-80% improvement on LDN. It is important to titrate up slowly, however. Also important is gut health for those with autoimmune diseases – if bacteria is not balanced, results won’t be good because it interferes with absorption.

The most frequent side effect patients mention is trouble sleeping, and they advise the physician to titrate up more slowly, or to a lower dose. They have found others have bad dreams, and recommend including some magnesium glycinate for more restful sleep.

An issue Dr. Ekpema relates is buying prescription-only medication through sources that do not require a prescription, because the regulation and testing is not done, and the sites accept no responsibility. At a compounding pharmacy, you can be certain of the quality because it has been tested.

Dr. Ekpema gave appreciation for the LDN Research Trust, the recorded interviews, and the information it provides.

Summary from Marie Ekpema, PharmD’s LDN Radio Show from 16 Oct 2019. Listen to the video for the show.

Keywords: LDN, low dose naltrexone, compounding, bioidentical, hormone, drug-induced nutrient deficiencies, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, autoimmune, psoriasis, gut health,

Astrid from Norway, MS and Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Linda Elsegood: Today, I'd like to introduce Astrid from Norway who uses LDN for MS. Thank you for joining us today, Astrid. 

Astrid: You're welcome. My pleasure. 

Linda Elsegood: Can you tell us how long ago was it when you first noticed your MS symptoms? 

Astrid: That's a good question. I was diagnosed in 1996 at 29 years old, and I was diagnosed during a period where our boss was getting sick too and the diagnosis was three weeks.

I have all kinds of strange methods for this because normally people are kind of sick for a long time and don't figure out what's wrong with them. But my MS was like a big surprise for me when I got this, I was kind of shocked. But I had a friend who I had grown up with, who had played with us.

Both these ladies were real role models. I can say they were very happy, had a good life, even though they were using a wheelchair and you can really see they were sick, but they have a very good life and are very happy. I was like, not so scared, but of course, very surprised when I got the diagnosis.

But when I look back, from a research perspective, I can find episodes and also some issues that had been bothering me. During the year before I got MS but I didn't recognize it as something. The doctor would. I got to the Agnos and at the moment I was kind of … didn't manage to put the buttons on my blouse and had the talk that I needed to use the wheelchair for a while, but kind of recovered, kind of. I felt like it was nothing to worry about, so kept ongoing, as I did before, and didn't want to recognise that I was sick really. This went on, for almost two years.

Then I had to have surgery for my back and a couple of weeks after that surgery, I got another attack which kind of put my feet away. Then the doctor explained the reason for this attack was the... what do you call it? I was completely awake during the procedure and they explained that it was you that triggered this attack, they explained. 

I still didn't get any offer for any medicine for MS. Only for pain. I use all this bad stuff for this medicine for epileptic normally and I was kind of more and more affected by the fatigue, the new neural pain, because of MS more and more. 

Then the doctor couldn't really help me. I wasn't qualified to get the medicine to slow down the MS because I was still considered different. Or whatever you can call it in a different category at the time, considered to give medicine to slow down their progress.

Today, I know the Norwegian doctors are starting to give this right away, but in 96 and 98 when I had these two big episodes, it was not common yet. Then I had my daughter in 2002 and I had a really good pregnancy and I was feeling very sick. MS unusually got better during pregnancy.

Of course, I was concerned that the birth could trigger another attack. I was right because this is what I did during the birth. I did use only the needles for pain relief and I didn't get any help to do it all or things like that.

They were careful with what they gave me when my daughters started to grow, I had more fatigue and more pain. Whatever the doctor was giving me didn’t help with the pain or fatigue. There wasn’t really any medicine which was working. I was trying it and it's something called for a while, but… What do you call it? A tree gets it. It was like more fatigue. Then I met this lady, I don't know if you know about this program that we had in Norway in 2013, it was the program in general. The lady with MS who was telling her story in that program, I met her in a training camp for MS and she told me about LDN, and then I figured out that this is something I want to try because she was like all over the place, the allergy and I find out I would give it a try. I ask the doctors, they said this is not proven, so we can't give it to you.

But they told me how to get it. They said if I go to a primary doctor and the primary doctor was given the risk perception... But prescription, it's okay, and we can't really say that you shouldn't take it, because of policy and blah, blah, blah, they have decided that all of the Norwegian neuro doctors will not write this prescription.

In May 2012 I started using LDN, and I have been reading a lot on Facebook because it started to pop up groups in Norway and in Denmark. Sharing stories and also a special group only MS and LDN and I read and concluded that if I start, I need to start with the low dose, very low dose and increase very slowly.

And I did. So I started in May and at the end of July, I was able to go on holiday with my family for 10 days. We started at a wedding which normally was so exhausting that I would be on the couch for the rest of the week after just one night. We went on to a park for my daughter who was 10.

I was for the first time able to spend the whole day walking around in the park together with her. Then we went on for a long ride with the car and we were away for 10 days and when I came back I was exhausted.  It was like, wow, something has changed.

Some radicalized change. I still was taking some pain medicine but I started reducing it. By February 2013, my doctors stopped prescribing the drugs with the opioids for me.

I went back to work, not full time, but I have been 100% since then. Like you call it auto work since 2001. I have been more or less, sometimes also in more than a hundred percent in hours working in pay and stuff today, no pain at all. I very often had this problem with my bladder, so I had to... what is the name of it in English? I didn't really manage to consolidate. So I had a lot of accidents, of course, but I also got a lot of infections. 

Linda Elsegood: In your bladder? 

Astrid: Yeah, yeah. In my bladder. Yeah. It was constantly infected and two times it almost cost me my life more or less because I got this sepsis, what they call it in Norway, the blood then got infected. So two times I went to the hospital and was really, really critical. After I started on LDN I have never any cold or any flu or things like that. My allergy has gotten better. I also use the catheter to help to empty the bladder because it didn't empty completely itself. That's the reason. 

Linda Elsegood: So you're self catheterizing?

Astrid: Yes, I did for several years. Of course, that was a nope. Done that. I haven't done that since I started on that. All-day I can feel like I need to go to the bathroom for an hour and I don't have the accidents anymore either. So definitely affected my bladder in a very good way. Who is really saying that you can't?

You are, so you can't see it. I feel like I'm more or less without any diagnosis really at the time. It's the combination with the LDN and I also take something called… natural medicine based on D mannose. Take it to flush out your bladder. I think it's like a drink. I drank it and the oils from seeds with black cumin seed in it. It's like the respiratory seed and it's shadow make rapeseed.

Then this is also very good for them. For infections, prevent the faction infections and so this should combination with the LDN. So it's been like life-changing. 

Linda Elsegood: If you were to say, what's your quality of life was like before you started on LDN and 10 being the best, what would it have been?

Astrid: I would say between three and four, maybe. 

Linda Elsegood: What would you say it is today? 

Astrid: Wow. Wow. Yeah. Amazing. Oh, I can do whatever I like to do. I can say yes to what I like to do and I don't need to say no. I'm measuring. If anything was supposed to happen, I needed to value, is this going to cost me too much or is it gonna give me any value? Everything was like that. Of course, since I have a little daughter, everything was focused to give her the best possible life. So when she went to kindergarten and school, I was residing on the sofa, doing nothing so that I can play with her. When she came back from her with school so that she could have friends over and so on.

So everything was kind of focusing on giving her the best what I really wanted. I'm the kind of person who is used to, I went to school and I went to college and high school and university, I was working. Besides, I have also been always using use to have a very high capacity of what I thought something used to work a lot and to enjoy working and always kind of this.

Suddenly I had to be this no person in many aspects. Even though I wanted, I knew that this is gonna cost me, so it wouldn't be worth it. Everything is back to where it was, I'm the person I am. I can say yes to what I like to do. It works.

Linda Elsegood: Oh, that's fantastic. You don't get the pain anymore? 

Astrid: I said, that's gone. No. That was really the big difference. The biggest, I think because the pain gave me a sleep disorder because I was having very bad sleep, even though I was always tired and being on the couch, I didn't really like... if I was lying on the couch and I felt like going to the bathroom because I needed to, it was like, I wait a minute, did two, I wait the five minutes. It was exhausting just to go to the toilet. So everything was so hard. It was like constantly like something was going on. I felt like my whole body is like when you take your muscles on you, you squeeze them as hard as you can and you feel like how the body's anxious and in a strain, it felt like this all the time, even though I was lying in bed.

The body was relaxed, but it didn't feel like it. This pain is all gone. When I lay down now it feels like I'm relaxed and I don't have any pain or neuro pains. They’re gone. Also, it's more like pain in the ears, eyes, and mouth.

It's like lightning balls coming and give you pain for just a few seconds to a minute. I had a lot of these neuro pains and they are also all gone. It's very good. It's so many things that disappeared. I don't remember all the pain though, because it's since 2013 I felt like my life, we started again.

I'm talking a lot about it and gave everybody's psyche, you have to try. So they are always asking me all, you're selling this or what? I say you have to go to the doctor and ask for it. So when I started, I had to order a box with a special delivery to my pharmacy in my city. So in the beginning that was like a special order. Out of curiosity, asking if I go to a new pharmacy and if the people know about them, ask them if they have a lot of customers and a lot of them say that it's been common and there are more and more people using it for more and more sickness. They recognize that this is something that is working. It’s good for so many people for so many reasons and different reasons to use it. They recognize it in the pharmacy too.

Linda Elsegood: We've come to the end of the show and we're so pleased to have heard your story today, Astrid. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. 

Astrid: My pleasure and I hope everybody is able to try it, LDN, because I think it's worth a try. Anyway, thank you very much. 

Linda Elsegood: My pleasure. 

This show is sponsored by our members who made donations. We'd like to give them a very big thank you. We have to cover the monthly costs of the radio station software, bandwidth, phone lines, and phone calls to be able to continue with the radio show and thank you for listening.

Any questions or comments you may have, please email Linda 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.

David Borenstein, MD - 17th July 2019 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Linda Elsegood: Today I'd like to welcome back Dr. David Bornstein from New York. Thank you for joining me today. David. Now I know you've been prescribing LDN for many, many years, but first of all, could you tell our listeners your medical background, please? 

Dr David Borenstein: Sure. Well, I initially trained in medicine at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa Israel.

I came back to do my internship in Staten Island hospital in New York, and I did additional training in radiation oncology and rehabilitation medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. And then I opened up a private practice here in Manhattan. And I've been working here in Manhattan ever since.

Linda Elsegood: So tell us a little bit more about your practice, what you actually do there. 

Dr David Borenstein: Sure. I have an integrative medical practice and I do various different sorts of integrative approaches in functional medicine, approaches to issues such as, um, we work with a lot of patients with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, autoimmune diseases like MS and Crohn's, hormone replacement.

Dr David Borenstein: I work with patients who have issues with their guts. And we also do a lot of work with patients who have chronic pain. We do a lot of work with STEM cells, platelet-rich plasma, uh, and prolotherapy. We also do intravenous drips for our patients. So we offer a wide, wide variety of options for people looking. 

Linda Elsegood: I haven't had anybody explain about STEM cell treatment and possibly you could get in England, but it's not something that's been on my radar. Could you tell us a bit about the STEM cells? 

Dr David Borenstein: Sure. Basically, a STEM cell is by definition, the cell that can become any other cell in the body, so it's a very primitive early-stage cell that eventually can become lung tissue or hard tissue or bone. So what we do is we obtain, um, cells from either adipose fat tissue or we use umbilical cord, um, cells from other people, and we use it primarily to treat orthopaedic conditions. People with neck, back, shoulder, knee pain, hip pain, and we do a lot of work, uh, with that, uh, with that regard.

Um, we used to do some more work with Crohn's and autoimmune diseases, but we're primarily focusing now on orthopaedic conditions with a good amount of success and saving a lot of people from joint replacements, which is a good feeling. Wow. Yes. But you were saying. That the STEM cells can help replace all these different things.

How does the STEM cell know what you want it to do? The mechanism of action is poorly understood. We think that it either listens to a homing signal and does repair of the cell, or it actually may differentiate into that particular tissue. The mechanism, again, is poorly understood. Um, but you know, the basic science researchers are looking into that.

Dr David Borenstein: We do know from people doing STEM cell deployments for many years, that there is a good efficacy in treating orthopaedic conditions, and it's promising for treating things like cardiopulmonary diseases, neurological conditions, and um, and various other chronic medical conditions. The potential is unlimited, and this is like a very exciting field of medicine today.

Linda Elsegood: So if somebody needed a hip replacement. How would you treat that with STEM cells? 

Dr David Borenstein: Well, we would do is we initially evaluate the patient, have them come to our office, um, do a complete history, physical examination, look where the tender points are, looking at their range of motion, look at any scans, CAT scans, MRIs or x-rays.

And we will see if the patient is a candidate for having STEM cells for the hip. We generally like to use patients who are younger, uh, because. You don't, you know, the older patients, they're also candidates, but you don't want to put an artificial hip into patients who are in their thirties forties or even in their 50s because chances are because people are living into their eighties and even their nineties they're probably going to require revision of that.

And that's something you probably don't want to do. And what we would then do is we would inject. Either adipose-derived cells or umbilical cord cells into the hip joint, as well as all the attaching ligaments around the hip to make sure that the hip is nice and stable and roughly success rates depending on the age, depending on the severity of the disease, roughly in the high 70th percentile success rate, which is pretty good for, uh, having to avoid a hip replacement.

Linda Elsegood: Oh, definitely. Um, a friend of mine, his sister had problems, um, birth and she had to have a hip replaced, I think when she was. Like 15. She was very, very young. Uh, cause she couldn't run. One leg was longer than the other, and it just wore the hip. And she had another one. Uh, when she was thinking was about 35 and then another one just before she was 60.

So if she was able to have saved herself from having all these surgeries. I mean, that would just be amazing, wouldn't it? How long does it take for those STEM cells to do their work? 

Dr David Borenstein: It can take anywhere from several weeks to several months, and sometimes I have to have the patient come back. A few months later and we can boost the area where we treated with either something known as platelet-rich plasma, which are platelets we extract from, from blood, whichever, a lot of growth factors or another procedure known as prolotherapy, which is the oldest.

The oldest regenerative medicine technique will use sugar, water, dextrose, and lidocaine, and we can add some other things there. It causes localized inflammation. Okay. And it causes growth factors to come to the area and help tighten up the ligaments and, um, help improve the, um, and repair, uh, the local tissue in the joint.

So it's exciting stuff. It is, isn't it? Very, very exciting. And of course, the injection into the joint is far less traumatic for the body than having surgery to replace a hip, isn't it? You know? Not only is it less traumatic, now that's way less traumatic. It's done under local anaesthesia. So the risk goes down tremendously.

You don't have to be in a hospital. You can return to work in a relatively short period of time. I mean, if you're doing a desk job, for example, if you're getting a procedure done on a Wednesday, you can go back to work on Monday. Obviously, if you're doing, if you're working, you know, as a lineman on the, uh, for the electric company, you probably want to, you know wait a little bit longer to go back to work, but most people with desktops can go back within five or five to six days, and they don't have to be in an inpatient hospital, do any outpatient physical therapy. Now in the future, you know, two or three months, four months down the line, they may, we may need to give them some physical therapy, but it's not the inpatient type where you're stuck in a hospital or a subacute facility and you have to be there for a while.

Linda Elsegood: So it's, you know. It's nice because it allows you to go back to work in a relatively short period of time.  and when you were saying you prefer younger people, I'm just wondering if I'm in the age group. Older people.

Dr David Borenstein: Let's put it this way. Well, let's, we have a couple of ways we can, we can look at it for patients. We're using adipose-derived cells. You know, usually, I like.  If their patients are in there anywhere from the 30s too, let's say their early seventies they usually should have enough cells for doing the job.

But for patients who are in their mid to late seventies eighties even nineties I prefer sometimes to do the umbilical cord cell because I know well, they're not coming from the patient. I know they're probably going to have a high level of cells as you get older. The number of stem cells in your body are going to come down and they, they will drop.

There's no question. Someone who's, you know, 20 is going to have more STEM cell than someone who's 50, and someone who's 50 is going to have more STEM cells than someone who's 70 on, on average. So, um, usually I find that if the patient is going to be, you know, past your mid-seventies I may want to, you know, use only the umbilical cord cells because they know they have a, a good number in them.

Now, some patients will say, you know what, Dr Bornstein, I don't care. I want to use my own cells and I'll respect that and I'll use, I'll use the adipose. Fine. But you know, I have to give the patient the option. Of course. Yeah. No. 

Linda Elsegood: You have first-hand experience and knowledge about LDN? When did you first start prescribing?

Dr David Borenstein: Oh, at least 15 years ago. And the history is very interesting because I had a patient come in, and this is well before there were LDN websites, well before LDN research. Well before the information that we had, and a patient came into me and wanted LDN and I said, well, let me look into it. I was a little sceptical.

I didn't know much about it, so I did my research and said, uh, all right, let me give this a try. And I tried it on this patient. I think it was for, I believe it was either for Multiple Sclerosis or Crohn’s and, um. I got some very, very good results. So I, um, discussed LDN with a number of different compounding pharmacists, uh, one here in New York and one in, uh, one in Florida.

And I learned more about it. I did some research on it, and I started using more and more LDN in my practice. And I got some really amazing, amazing results and it just mushroomed. That has continued and we’re using it for the vast majority, everything that people are using today. I was using LDN for, you know, at least, you know, almost 15 years ago and great, great success stories, uh, multiple different, uh, conditions, and I just never looked back.

Linda Elsegood: Could you share some of those success stories with us? 

Dr David Borenstein: Oh yes. I said, for example, a number of different people with Crohn's disease, and for some reason I find the inflammatory bowel, Crohn's disease respond beautifully to LDN. I have had maybe two or three patients who really did not respond the way I wanted to, but they were very severe cases, but the vast majority of my Crohn's patients did beautifully on LDN, and this is, you know.

This is my early experience. So the vast majority of my patients were either Crohn's or MS and the MS patients also experienced quite, um, quite great results, lack of progression of the disease, some improvement in their fatigue and optic neuritis. The patients many times tried the, you know, the ABC, uh, medications, you know, and just didn't do well on them and didn't want to take them. So he did the LDN and they've never ever looked back again. So. Those are the two biggies. We also started using LDN for patients with various sorts of malignancies. I had a patient with a lung tumour, for example, and we put on LDN and it was just stable.

Didn't go anywhere. It was just sitting there, you know, and she was on it for many, many years. I lost contact with her after a while. I think she moved out of the country, but from a number of different years, she had a very stable, um, um tumour in her, in her lung, didn't, didn't do very much for it. And also we've been using it more and more since the studies came out from Stanford University on fibromyalgia.

And we've got some, you know, some positive results. I mean, I work with, in my practice, we incorporate LDN. We also use it in conjunction with other treatments. I find for fibromyalgia, it definitely takes the edge off. And, but you have to, you know, do a vast, um, uh, treatment option, um, working with their hormones, their sleep and infections.

I also find it's beneficial for Lyme disease. I do some, some work with Lyme disease, but overall, it's primarily MS, uh, autoimmune-related diseases that I use LDN for.  

Linda Elsegood: Do you ever use it for mental health issues? 

Dr David Borenstein: Yes. We've been getting more requests for that. Uh, primarily with the osteoarthritis, uh, conditions.

And I do have patients who swear up and down that it does improve their pain. Again, have patients who do not get any sort of relief. Um, I find that works better with the osteoarthritis and it does with the rheumatology conditions, but I, the number of rheumatoid patients that I have been a little bit more limited in that regard.

I also, patients have been using it for reducing alcohol cravings, which we find has been, uh, more, and we're getting more requests to do, LDN for that as well.

Linda Elsegood: Have you been asked to use full-dose naltrexone, the Sinclair method for alcoholism? No, not at all. I haven't gotten any, you know, I'm aware of it, but I haven't gotten any requests for it yet. Okay. Because they have very good success rates with that, whereby you can continue drinking and you take the tablet.

I can't remember now, it was an hour or two before you start drinking, but it takes away the craving. So where you would probably. You know, have 10 pints of beer, you might only have two. And then gradually you get, so you can take it or leave it. You don't actually need to carry on drinking. That's really interesting for people who, um, they call it now, don't they?

Alcohol use disorder and it is, uh. Yeah. A bonafide condition. You know, it's not a case of saying to people, stop. These people can't just stop. So that is an alternative for, maybe you'll have more people coming to you asking you for that. Now. It's interesting because you know, you know, one of the side effects of LDN can be projectile vomiting with alcohol consumption, although I don't see too much of it.

Dr David Borenstein: I know we've had cases of that, and it is a known, um, side effect of taking LDN. So even that alone may discourage people from, uh, from trying to take alcohol. Uh, we've had, um. Probably one, two, three, four, maybe five or six patients who've used it for addiction. Um, and they're quite happy. Um, again, most people who take LDN for the condition that they want to be treated, tend to want to continue on, on the LDN for the condition. It is very rare for people to stop it. Very rare. I find most people just want to continue it for whatever condition they have. Well, it's also the boosts the endo endorphins, which is the body's own natural feel-good fight or isn't it? So that should really give you a boost anyway, shouldn't it?

Linda Elsegood: I know people say, and I've been taking LDN 15 years or over 15 years. That it protects them. They don't catch viruses or colds or become sick in any which way. I mean, LDN works amazingly for me. I'm not complaining whatsoever, but I still get colds and flu and whatever's going around, it doesn't protect me in that way.

Um, but there are many people that say that you know, they haven't had a cold since I've been on LDN, so I don't know why I'm different, but, uh, it can happen. Well, that's amazing. You mentioned that, cause I did a consult, uh, late last week and it was for an ms patient and the patient had ms and you know, we renewed her LDN.

Dr David Borenstein: But the comment always comes up that treating for MS, but they'll say, Oh, I haven't got a cold all winter. And I get that over and over and over again. So, people, it's very rare people come to me and say, I just want it necessarily to boost the immune system. I get that. But they usually have another condition.

They usually get colds and this season, last season, the season before they've, they've never gotten colds. So it's definitely a benefit to taking LDN and we see it all the time.

Linda Elsegood: Now people can come and see you and have a consultation face to face, but you also do telemed consultations. Could you tell us about that?

Dr David Borenstein: Sure we do, uh, telemed consultations all over the United States, and we do it all over the world. So we've had patients who we've done it in the UAE, Middle East, Mexico, uh, Europe. So yes, we have patients from all over the world. We're interested in getting, uh. Getting LDN. And um, many of them come to see me here in New York because I'm right in the middle of Manhattan, and they may come to see me first and then we can do everything over the phone and we do everything over the phone initially.

So yes, we can certainly do telemedicine anywhere. There's a phone connection. 

Linda Elsegood: So how does it work? I have people say to me. Do you know what happens if I need blood tests? Do you know what happens? So if somebody came to you today and said they would like a telephone consultation and there, I don't know, in France, how would you go about, um, finding out all their medical details, etc.

Dr David Borenstein: Well, many times they'll email me all the medical reports before the initial consultation, so I'll have all of their medical records sent via email, or if they want to fax it to me, they can. But today email's much easier. And we do a complete history over the phone. We get all the information we can.

The most important thing is, one thing about LDN is it's, it's really safe as long as you're not taking narcotics. Um, and it's only, you're not mixing the LDN with certain other medications that can. Um, go against LDN. For example, we know with MS there are certain medications you're not supposed to take with LDN.

Um, as long as you, you're clear with that, it's usually not a problem. I remember using medication at less than one 10th the prescribed dose. So long as you're not having any, um. Taking any narcotics, you stopped in narcotics before doing procedures. You know, you're not drinking alcohol at the same time, knowing you can have projectile vomiting.

We, you know, it's a pretty safe medication and then we can prescribe it. Uh, some people, um, will. Get it from pharmacies here in the United States or, um, that's usually, or they come to New York, um, and they can get it here in New York or any other pharmacy that can be prescribed here in the United States.

So it's usually pretty straight forward. Um, our dosing, you know, we can tell them how to dose. Um, I find that certain, you know, for example, certain patients, they want. The maximal dose all the time, but they don't understand is that the maximal dose for a person weighing 250 pounds is very different from a patient weighing 125 pounds.

And, um, even Dr Bihari when he was doing it, found that many times. You would. If you give too high of a dose, you can cause too much, uh, to prolonged blockage. You want to lower the dose. So every patient, it's not so easy. You just, you know, give the maximal dose and have a nice day. You also have to, uh, take, you know, take sex and weight into account when you are prescribing and take an account.

There are side effects, you know, difficulty sleeping, vivid dreams. So all of these have to play an account. Also, a patient has neurological disorders. Certain patients over a certain dose get increased specificity. So, you know, it requires, you know, some experience in prescribing. It's not, here's the medication, have a nice day.

And every, every, uh, disease, we're going to approach it from a very different perspective. For example, in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. I find giving a full dose at the beginning is a better way of treating them as opposed to stepping up the dose. With Hashimoto's, you've got to go very, very slowly and the blood tests have to be done just to make sure the antibody levels are dropping and that they're not getting hyperthyroid.

And that's where he gets a little bit tricky. But most of the patients do their blood tests. They do them locally with their local doctors. They send it to me with theirs, when we get their LDN prescriptions and you know, everything works out well. . 

Linda Elsegood: So how do they go about having the blood tests from you? Do you send them a kit or the information to take to their own doctor? How does that work? 

Dr David Borenstein: Well, generally, generally. Uh, with most cases, yes. For what we do, we don't need blood work. The vast majority of patients either have blood work from their local doctors, or for example, if they're having Hashimoto's, someone's prescribing their blood work and prescribing their medication, and we'll just get copies of that lab work just to make sure that the antibodies are going down and not becoming hyper.

We have to warn the patients that as the antibodies come down, you're going to need a dose adjustment and they should get blood work to reduce their dosage of medications. Um, and you know, the antibody levels can drop quite dramatically. And you know, if you're, if you're having a good dosage, it can actually make you a little bit hyper.

So you have to warn the patient about that and just check the, have them check their blood levels locally. And usually, everything's fine.  and people always want to know. 

Linda Elsegood: How soon would you say in your experience that patients notice an improvement on LDN? 

Dr David Borenstein: It varies. I find that inflammatory bowel disease patients usually notice an improvement quite quickly.

I think some of the other autoimmune diseases may take a little bit of time. It all depends. Um, people react differently. We're all bio-individual. None of us are exactly the same. We're not all Toyota Corollas, so it can be anywhere from several days to several weeks, even to several months. I usually recommend that the patient be on the LDN for at least four to six months before you even think of discontinuing it because it can take that long in order to see if they're responding or not.  

Linda Elsegood: Exactly. I mean, I've had some people say to me. Um, I'm taking liquid LDN and I've nearly finished the bottle. I've been on it nearly a month. Uh, it hasn't done anything, you know, I'm thinking of stopping, you know, it's not a miracle that it's going to happen. You know, just like that. You've got to give it time, haven't you? 

Dr David Borenstein: Exactly. As you were saying. Well, several things are sort of, you got to give it time and you have to make sure that you're getting it from a place that's reputable, that you're using a good quality LDN. And I only use, you know, a number of different pharmacies that I use. Sometimes I'll change the patient from an oral to a, say, a transdermal, just to see if there's going to be any difference in the way they're, they're feeling. Remember a lot of patients with severe, for example, inflammatory bowel disease, they may not be absorbing the LDN, so doing it transdermally may be beneficial.

I find many times in kids, for example, it may be more beneficial to do a transdermally then than orally, and sometimes they have other cofactors. They have just poor absorption. You've got to say, Oh, well, why aren't you absorbing it? Maybe you have low stomach acid, so. The vast majority of the time, the patients are quite pleased.

But, um, and this would make the difference between someone who, who does LDN and someone who does LDN is knowing if there's a problem, what do you do? What's the next step? What do you have to look for? And that's the that makes all the difference in the world. 

Linda Elsegood: So if somebody would like to have a telephone consultation with you, is there a waiting list.

Dr David Borenstein: We can always accommodate patients if they, um, depending on the day, the month of the year, uh, you know, typically you're very busy, sometimes very slow if they are interested in having a telephone consultation, they can just call our office. The number is 212-262-2412 or 212-262-2413. And if they want to learn more about the practice, they can go to my website at www.davidborensteinmd.com and they can look at the website and see what we offer and if they're interested in making a telephone consultation, just call the office and we're more than happy to schedule them at the earliest possible time.

Linda Elsegood: Well, thank you very much for having been our guest today. 30 minutes went very quickly. Oh, thank you for having me.

Dr. David Bornstein is New York's leading integrative and functional medicine physician. His patients are diagnosed and treated in an integrative manner to promote recovery and continuing good health. Call 212-262-2412 for an appointment. Telemedicine appointments are available for LDN prescriptions.

Any questions or comments you may have pleawse 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.

Andra-Maria, MS Patient - 5th June 2019 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Linda Elsegood: Today my guest is Andra-Maria, and she's from Romania and she uses LDN for multiple sclerosis. Thank you for joining me today.

Andra Maria: A pleasure.

Linda Elsegood: This is really exciting. Can you tell us in your own words, when you were diagnosed, what you were like at that time and what you are like now?

Andra Maria: When I first was diagnosed in 2012 it was kind of a shock but at the same time, it was a relief because, after two years of going back and forth to all sorts of doctors, I finally got a diagnosis, but thereafter I understood what kind of disease I had. I was kind of depressed for six months, and then because I'm a really optimistic person, I said: “well, these are the cards that I have from life and so with these cards, I will play along”. It all started with urinary incontinence. I was very dizzy. I was not seeing very well. I had all sorts of mixed feelings. I was happy. I was sad. All sorts of feelings and then, in 2013, I joined a national program for multiple sclerosis. The interferon did wonders for me for the first three years, but, after two more years, I started feeling worse, not being able to walk properly. I had a lot of fatigue. I had a lot of balance issues. I couldn't concentrate a lot, and I decided to stop. I talked to my doctor and I said, I think the treatment isn't going very well.

The process between changing from one medicine to another, because now I'm on Tysabri for nine months, but the period from going to one to another was for about one year. I really realized that in this year I had to do something because I couldn't just stand and watch myself going down every day and being sad and not being able to do things like normal. Actually I didn't find out about LDN by myself. My husband did because he was really affected by my illness. So he was searching through the internet and at one point he found a video about LDN, about people in Norway or Sweden who would take it and he showed me that video and she said, “what do you think? Are you going to try this medicine?” and I said, “I'm a very optimistic person and I think that all things that happen in life are for a reason”. So I think there was a reason why my husband discovered LDN. I said, yeah, definitely. I'll give it a try; what can go wrong? I did all the research. My husband found this group as well. He sent an invitation. I read all the information that you have on the Facebook group and I said that I’d go to talk to my neurologist about it. I'm very lucky that my neurologist is a very open person and is open to new… well, she's not very strict. I went to her with all the information sheets and I said to her, “look, I would really like to try this medicine”. She said “Okay. Let me, let me do my homework on it. Just let me read and see and I'll see you back in a couple of days”.

After a couple of days, I went to her. I had a prescription for naltrexone. Actually, this was actually in February. Just in February. It has been a year since I started LDN. My first dose was 0.5mg. I started from there. I took 0. 50 for about three weeks. After three weeks I went to 1mg and the best time for me on LDN was last year in March when I was lucky enough to go to Thailand. I had the time of my life because I was able to go around and visit all sorts of things without fatigue, without worrying about anything. So that's what’s great for me. Then I realized, wow, this medicine is great. Who knew because although I read all of those positive things that people go through, I read about many people who don't get well immediately, who don’t have any improvements in their systems. I crossed my fingers and said, “let's hope that's not me”.

Now I can say that now almost a year from that moment when I was normal for two weeks, I can say I'm not as well as then but for example, I did a lot of tests on myself and I decided to stop LDN for two to three days then I noticed a very significant change in my state. I said, no, this is not a medicine to drop.

So I must stick to it. I want to tell you that I'm very grateful that this medicine exists. I'm very grateful to all the people who shared their stories and their experience. I'm very grateful to those who are the admins of this group. I want to say thank you. You're doing a wonderful job.

From my point of view, whenever I go and I talk to people that have the same disease, I always end up putting on the table at a discussion, the LDN, and I always mention that it's done wonders for me. But as you know, people are people and some of them are sceptical and some of them are not lucky like I was to have a great doctor who trusts, my knowledge and who trusts that I will never go to my doctor to say that I want to use a medicine if I do not read about it before. So people, when I go and tell them about LDN, are really sceptical and they're looking at me funny and they're asking me questions.

What's this medicine for? I start telling them what this medicine is for something else. But it's used in a lot of diseases and a lot of illnesses, and people are really sceptical. So I guess you carry on. I guess you went through that as well. When you tell people, you can give people the information, answer all their questions, but everybody is entitled to make their own mind up what they think is right for them.

I know that there are some times when I want to say to people, please just try. You know? And it's very frustrating. We get a lot of phone calls and people will say, with multiple sclerosis, well, I'm okay right now. I don't need to take anything, but I know that LDN is there, so when I deteriorate, I can take it.

You know? And it's like, if you take it now, you might not deteriorate. Why wait until you know, you start to notice you're not so good, but you can't force your ideas on other people. You have to allow them to make their own mind up. But it is sad when the choice isn't what you would expect or what you would like them to say.

I want to tell you that if I knew sooner about LDN, I probably would take it from the start. So that's definitely a choice I would make. Even though in 2012 I was better. Because in 2012 when I was diagnosed, I didn't have fatigue. I was in DC and all sorts of MS stuff.

But definitely, if I knew about LDN, then I would have taken it so I wouldn't think about it. I wanted to tell you also that I take LDN now; I'm on Tysabri but I also have, let's say a strict diet. I don't eat gluten. I don't eat dairy. I don't eat sugar. Definitely no, for about two years now, I think so for about two years.

I don't eat gluten. I don't eat dairy. I don't eat sugar. Definitely not. So, yes. For me it did. Actually it did for my husband too, because my husband doesn't have any illnesses and for supporting me, he has the same diet. It has done wonders for him because he lost a lot of weight.

His back doesn't hurt anymore and all sorts of these things. So I think from my point of view, I'm trying to, with the knowledge I have now about eating correctly about LDN, pass it on, not only to sick to ill persons. I always try to pass it to another person. Make sure that people are okay and I'm always trying to tell them it will make a change in their life.

Eating just what's right. But again, you cannot force people. You can only give them information. If they are interested to try it, they will try it. If not exactly how you said before, you cannot force people. You have an amazing story and thank you so much for sharing it with us today.

Thank you. Again, thank you to all the people in the group. I want to give a special thank you to my husband who gave me LDN, for finding it and giving it to me. And besides the LDN, because he really makes a difference in my life with all of his support.

Linda Elsegood: Long may your success continue.

Andra Maria: Thank you and I hope to hear about more successes.

Linda Elsegood: This show is sponsored by our members who made donations. We'd like to give them a very big thank you. We have to cover the monthly costs of the radio station software, bandwidth, phone lines, and phone calls to be able to continue with the radio show and thank you for listening.

Any questions or comments you may have. Please email me and Linda, 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.

Chris shares her MS and LDN Story - 13th March 2019 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Today, I am joined by Chris who lives in Scotland. Thank you for joining me today, Chris.

Chris: Hello.

Linda: I've interviewed you before and you've told your MS story. For those people that don't know your story, could you tell us when you were diagnosed and what your MS was like at that time?

Chris: I was originally diagnosed shortly after returning from a holiday in Mexico. At the end of the holiday, I was very fatigued. I started to have very bad pins and needles starting from my feet, and I'd just moved home, so this was my first ever visit to the GP and he immediately seemed very, I don't know, he questioned lots of things and happened to mention that I'd had optic neuritis. He could see from my records nearly two years earlier. So he said, “come back to me in a few days and let’s see how you are.” I'm an engineer, a bit of a scientist. I went back a couple of days later and I basically said: “I'm not leaving here until you tell me what you can do to stop the pins and needles spreading up my legs.” I wasn't feeling brilliant, but I just thought I was shattered from the holiday. It'd been a great holiday, but quite tiring. I was very, very hot. He said, “You've told me you've got private health care, so I think I need to refer you. I'm going to refer you to a neurologist.” I looked at him and questioned him. It didn't take long to see the consultant and have the MRI and the number punch, etc. and said, pins and needles would kind of be fading a little bit and haven't gone, but I suppose I'd just got used to them. The specialist said, “I'm fairly certain you've got it, but I think it's early days and actually there's not much I can do anyway.”

I lived in England then. This was still quite new about 22 years ago, I think. So I went on my way. The one positive thing that did happen straight away was that I went to a local health food shop and was just looking for information and things, and they asked me what I was looking for and I was just wondering if they had any books on MS, they were actually about to give a talk and they said they would.

So that's the only thing that I did for my MS in the early days. I have to say I didn't do anything else very positive; I was working 80 hours a week. I was a very senior manager. I loved my job. I played hard as well. I had little ups and downs, but for quite a few years it wasn't anything major. I kind of ignored it really. I then moved house, moved job, started a new relationship, which led to moving house, moving jobs, et cetera. I thought I'll take things a little easier for a while because I didn't think I'd been living in the past. Then I started to develop my problems. I was very fatigued all the time. I didn't know that word. I was just tired as far as I knew. That kind of thing was going on. Then things got worse. Then I moved again, started another new job and got optic neuritis again. I was just feeling generally grotty. I went to see a neurologist because I'd moved to Scotland by then and he told me I didn't have MS. I spent eight years feeling pretty awful but managing, working less, just about dealing with the stress. I left without a diagnosis. I got tested for lots of other autoimmune conditions. His feeling was that the MRI didn't show enough. I think it was eight years of very bad optic neuritis then other things started to happen. I have no idea where I was at. Cognitive problems, I couldn't focus. I was an engineer and there I was sitting looking at a spreadsheet and it was just a load of lines and things that meant nothing to me. I couldn't even work out how to put a sentence together. Some days it was so bad that I was pulling over on the side of the motorway with fatigue and things like that.

So I got referred to yet again to a neurologist and they confirmed that I had MS within six weeks. I think I’d met the person who first told me about it, and it took a couple of weeks then to tell me, but it was good. It was lucky I'd gone to a local MS charity where they had a center and I met this person and she mentioned something. After I'd heard her mention it once, twice after that for a couple more weeks. I asked her what her medication was and she said “I haven't been able to get it prescribed. You might not be able to.” I said I’d look into it and one of the things I learned through my career was that I am very good at researching things, so I rang Linda then Jeremy put me in touch with the website, showed me all the information I could get. I took him to my GP, but he wasn't interested. So Linda pointed me towards Dickens Chemist. I'm very lucky I lived near Glasgow and I quote that they may be the European experts with LDN. I immediately started getting help from them and I was able to find from the website how to get private prescriptions etc. I've now been taking it for 10-11 years, I believe and I'm still paying for it privately, but it's very affordable. My immediate benefit, which is still a major one I get from it, was that I used to hit a brick wall of fatigue, and just completely come to a stop, hence pulling over on the sides of motorways. I don't get that anymore. I occasionally get fatigued, but I feel it coming on or I manage it because I now know that I need to rest more and do certain things, but it was just amazing almost immediately. Within a few months, I started to realize that my brain was less foggy; I could think things through better. I could analyze things. I wasn't so worried about not being able to put a sentence together. I still had the odd things, which anyone who has or had MS knows that sometimes you don't use the right word, but my friends had gotten used to me by then and work kind of made a joke about it and it was okay.

I would say that the lack of fatigue and genuinely feeling slightly better helped my mood as well. I started to be able to do more to help myself, so I was able to walk a bit more and things like that. Those have been the main things. What I didn't know was that until maybe a couple of years later when I actually stopped it for a while due to huge financial problems and lots of things going on. I suddenly discovered I had pain. I didn't know that LDN had been masking it, keeping the pain away. So it's been helping me with that as well. I recommend it all the time. I would not stop. I just think that the LDN Research Trust is fantastic and does such good work and I would say it has so little side effects for such a small number of people. It's well worth trying, whatever your, your condition.

Linda: One thing that people would probably want to ask you is that because you’ve had optic neuritis throughout the years, have you had any flare-ups of optic neuritis whilst being on LDN?

Chris: One very mildly, but I had fallen and badly smashed the top of my arm and my balance went wrong. It went on for about four weeks and that was all, that's the only time I've ever had it in between.

Linda: Apart from the other little niggles that you might have occasionally, have you had anything major, MS-related, since being on LDN?

Chris: No. I just get better and better. I manage now and I don't overheat. All my friends know that I’m always carrying a fan with me just in case. But I can’t work. I do a lot of volunteering and things but work is one thing. That's partly because MS is so unpredictable. If I did overdo it, then suddenly I'd need to take time, even if I weren't feeling too terrible. So I've learnt a lot about it, but the LDN was like it kickstarted me and has been able to manage my MS, I suppose.

Linda: MS is a progressive disease. Would you say your MS hasn't progressed in that time?

Chris: Definitely not. In fact, I stopped having MRIs. The last time I saw the consultant, he said everything's very quiet and he said you don't need to come anymore. And I said, well, I won't be seeing you, I laughed. I do still keep in contact with an MS nurse just to keep them up to date to kind of record it and things like that.

In fact, I've got one nurse who's very supportive of LDN and so they're always very keen to see how I’m doing. I've seen my consultants in the corridor and he just smiled at me.

Linda: We've come to the end of the time and thank you so much, Chris, for sharing your story with us, and maybe we'll catch up with you again in a few year’s time to see if you're still in remission.

Chris: I believe everything will be wonderful.

Linda: Okay, well thank you for having joined us today.

This show is sponsored by our members who made donations. We'd like to give them a very big thank you. We have to cover the monthly costs of the radio station software, bandwidth, phone lines, and phone calls to be able to continue with the radio show and thank you for listening.

Any questions or comments you may have, 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.

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.

Ellen and Chris - 18th April 2018 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Dr Laura Blevin - April 4th 2018 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Dr Laura Blevins from Portland in Oregon, a naturopathic doctor is sharing your experience with Low Dose Naltrexone.

I believe I heard about LDN for the first time back to my first year in medical school. One of my professors who teaches the gastroenterology classes was a very big proponent  Low Dose Naltrexone and introduced us to it pretty early in some of our pathology classes. He was bringing it about in the context of autoimmune disease and my father has had multiple sclerosis since the mid-1970s.

I actually use personally as well. I have Hashimoto's and I largely credit LDN with helping to get my Hashimoto's into remission. And I probably write at least a dozen prescriptions for it a week because I see so frequent autoimmune disease in my practice.

Most patients I'll start with 1.5 milligrams at that time for a week, and then we double it to three milligrams for a week. And then we go up to 4.5 milligrams and as long as they tolerate that, that's the dose that we stay at and I do kind of give them a heads up that some of the more common side effects include restlessness and vivid dreams.

But I let them know with each dose increase that if they start to experience those side effects and that it's bothersome to them, that they need to call or send me a message and check-in so that we can discuss options because I have a few patients that are very sensitive and need to stay at that lower dose and still get good benefits from it, but they can't tolerate the higher dosages.

The children I've used it for the youngest was aged six. We were using it for severe allergies.

And I started her with a quarter milligram and then we ended up moving up to a half milligrams into three-quarters of a milligram. And she ended up staying at a milligram and we did six months worth of therapy and then tapered her off of it and remarkably so far. And we're about a year and a half out.

Now, her allergies are completely gone and have not come back.

She's kind of one of my miracle cases. She had done allergy shots and was on high dose anti-allergy medications every day that made her very drowsy and less functional in her life.

And their parents were so happy that we found this other answer for her.

I've I always counsel my patients about kind of what I call the basic treatment guidelines, exercises, good clean diets, stress management, good sleep.

I look int food intolerances. I do a lot of food allergy testing in my practice or counsel patients on how to do elimination diets.

For good sleep, I talk with them a lot about sleep hygiene, about having a good bedtime routine that generally does not include any kind of screens. I talked with them about how screens inhibit our natural melatonin production and usually counsel them to read a good book before bed, but not anything too exciting.

And especially if they have issues with insomnia, I generally recommend that they read the dictionary or an old college textbook.

And getting to bed at a decent hour, preferably earlier than 11 o'clock, midnight. Oftentimes employing things like white noise machines, because a lot of people tend to be very light sleepers and wake up frequently too small things.

And sometimes as simple as just running an old fan in their bedroom will dramatically improve the quality of their sleep.

I have four basic supplements that I recommend for most patients. Omega 3, probiotics, magnesium and B vitamins.

Another important thing I tell my patients is about the research that shows the opiates can sensitize the brain to pain and over time become less effective and can actually make their pain seem worse. And so that's always an end goal trying to get them off of their narcotics and I talk with them about LDN. It will help to decrease the inflammation, make them feel better by increasing endorphin levels and can help to moderate their pain.

And so I usually taper them down very slowly, give them lots of other kinds of anti-inflammatories curcumin and once they can make it completely off their narcotics for 24 hours, I usually actually have them start at 4.5 milligrams and I actually have been started at 4.5 milligrams of LDN twice a day.

For the first couple of months, oftentimes I find that that helps dramatically with some of the withdrawal symptoms from coming off of the narcotics. They don't get as severe diarrhoea. They have less nausea and sweating and all those kinds of common, narcotic withdrawal symptoms.

 For anxiety and depression symptoms, oftentimes I prescribe herbal things or trying to do some genetic testing, kind of back to that MTHFR genetic pathway and oftentimes that's a major factor.

And once we can kind of get them sorted out with their neuro-transmitters and being on appropriate levels of the B vitamins that their anxiety and depression can improve dramatically.

Patients can contact me through www.wholesomefamilymedicine.com in Southern Oregon.

Summary of Dr Laura Blevins interview. Watch the video for full interview.