Marie, who's originally from Germany and now from England, takes LDN for Ankylosing Spondylitis.
I think it was when I was about 17 years old when I started experiencing symptoms. I'm now 30 years old. I had an accident. I fell on the bench on my lower back. I was too proud actually to get it looked at. I was hurting. And from then on, I kept having problems in that area. And, because I knew that I could have Ankylosing Spondylitis anyway because my dad has got it too, I was tested when I was about 11 for the genetic defect and yes, I do have it.
It would take me all day to get going and straighten up in some form. And people used to look at me because I'm still teaching fitness classes and thought you shouldn't be here.
And so I could keep going. And then when it was so bad, and I had my diagnosis, I just had another inspiration. I wanted to just finally see if I can find some natural way of healing. I found it but didn't make that much difference and I came across low dose naltrexone (LDN) because I kept digging deeper.
I tried and found something natural, but doesn't have side effects because I don't do well on any medication. I was so excited when I saw LDN. I just like the idea of no side effects.
I get my pain mainly in my lower back around L4 and L5 I'm very stiff there.
I was so excited about LDN. After having taught three classes, which usually makes me very bad for Friday, I teach four classes, and I woke up in the morning and I felt ok. I was never ill, it was amazing!
And then on Saturday continued and ever since then after being well, I just, every day I'm thinking, "Oh my God, I should have known this before."
I had a telephone consultation with my doctor and told him I found LDN, and he said, no. Primary care trust does not support this. Then I found another prescriber.
I don't want to go on anti-TNF. I don't agree with the side effects. I don't want to give it a try. It's not even proven to work. I've done my research. I'm a very informed patient and it's my body. And I need to do what's best for my body.
And I'm sorry, I just researched everything very thoroughly. And weighed out the pros and cons and tried to find reasons for why something should be working. And that's how I came to try LDN.
My quality of life before LDN was a 2 out of 10. I couldn't concentrate anymore. I couldn't get any work done. I'm a freelance fitness instructor, a freelance designer, and I run a webshop so I can work around my problems, but I still couldn't get a lot done. And I was severely ill.
Now I'm bouncing and looked like an average person. You can't tell that I've got something wrong unless I have to demonstrate my spine flexion. Now my quality of life is a 9. I still know there's a problem there because then when I exercise too much, it goes a little bit.
I would say to others to try it, go for it because you've got nothing to lose. It doesn't have any side effects. Many people report excellent results. And if it doesn't work at least, you give it a try. I've persuaded my father too, to give it a try. Two weeks last night on LDN for him. It's not worked as well for him instantly as it did for me, which was quite sad. But I think that is because he doesn't incorporate a clean diet, which was very relevant to Ankylosing Spondylitis since the guts are very involved in this as well.
Please watch the video for the full story.