LDN Social Media
Get connected with us on social networks
Michelle Resendez FNP-C - 15th Jan 2020 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.
Michelle Resendez is a certified family nurse practitioner. She combines her love for alternative and natural medicine alongside traditional medicine.
She has successfully treated patients with a diverse range of health conditions that have not responded well to conventional medical treatments.
She said" I first learned about LDN about 10 to 12 years ago, first learned about it from a naturopathic medical. The first patients I treated had thyroid conditions, Hashimoto's, Graves thyroiditis. And so I was really using it to try to the modulator assist the thyroid in functioning better. And from that point, it really expanded and opened the horizons, treating other things.
So we found that people with thyroid conditions, if they're taking thyroid medication, usually have to reduce the amount of thyroid medication.
When I start someone on Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN), easily around 0.5 to one milligram at night, and I will either reduce their thyroid medication in half, or I will just reduce, if they're on a T three medication, I'll reduce that down.
A lot of times, their autoantibodies will start going down, and that will help the thyroid function better.
Sometimes you'll get some adverse side effects like tremors or palpitations, or just feel a little bit more excitable than her used to feel.
I have a lot of patients start noticing the effect almost immediately within a couple of days. Depends on what condition I'm treating.
A osteoarthritis type pain or structural type pain people usually notice the effects within a week of taking that.
Once they move out to one or two milligrams, they start feeling some relief.
Antibodies are a little bit more resistant, and it might take, two to three months to see antibodies go down with LDN. And that's because of the treatment approach for that is really multifactorial.
And the LDN is just an adjunct to that. And usually, we do lifestyle modifications and diet and, and other interventions to help those antibodies come down as well.
Anyone starting Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) can experience negative side effects. The most common would be that when they get a rebound effect it at night with those endorphins kicking up, they can get some anxiety. They can get some insomnia.
Patients that we treat for viral conditions or reactivation syndromes like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, they can actually get more severe adverse side effects such as sweating, fevers, flu like symptoms, feeling sore throat, things like that.
All of that is expected and typical. I don't like to stop treatment if they're experiencing those side effects because that's telling you that it's working. We're getting the endorphin release that we're looking for, and we're getting the immune system enhancements that we're looking for.
Those side effects are what I would consider good responses.
I haven't had anyone had any side effects that I would consider to be adverse like hives—rashes, vomiting, anything so severe that I'd have to stop them on it.
I treat GI conditions as well. I've had probably the most success with gut issues. It's one of my top responders. Some of my earlier patients were Crohn's patients.
LDN seems to work pretty well for the exhaustion, the fatigue and the pain.
The conditions that I treat teenagers for could be anything from Attention Deficit Disorder, Depression, pain conditions, allergies, sleep issues.
Some of my kids are on the autism spectrum, so I do treat that as well.
I do have quite a few teens and young children on LDN. And I'll actually have them on liquid if they're too young to swallow a pill or won't tolerate a gummy or a sublingual lozenge.
I do have a traditional medical doctor referring to me, Neurology, Cardiology, Rheumatology. Dermatology because there's a lot of dermatologic conditions that can be treated very successfully with both topical LDN called Xeno top and then oral LDN.
The skin conditions I am treating it for it would be the Legos, Psoriasis, Rosacea, Eczema. Those are probably the top of all the skin conditions that respond really well to it. It takes normally 3 months to see results.
There's trials to find if there are some food triggers associated with that.
A lot of it is when they're having fires and because it's triggered by something and I want to find out what that trigger is.
And then the LDN just helps the body heal itself. So it's keeps them in a remission state.
When I first see a patient I typically wll do labs tests first that looks at allergies, hormones, thyroid, inflammatory markers, genetics, things like that. I try to find triggers if I can identify any and remove those before then starting on LDN. I like to see how they respond first to that.
I like to do things in stages so we can really see how impactful each thing is at each stage. So I'll take away the food triggers first if I can identify them and then add LDN onto that at some point.
Right now we've just moved into our new office. So my business partner and I have been here for three months. I'm at a two-month waiting list right now. Once we hire some more back-office staff, I'll be able to stack more appointments and that will trim down for maybe a month or two and then we'll probably get booked up again. I do keep appointments open early morning and sometimes I'll see patients after my last appointment for the day. If there's something urgent or somebody's not responding favourably to meditation or something.
I leave those time slots available for that so I can get people in if I really need.
I would say on average, patients see me every three months. That would be somebody who is stable, doing well on their regimen and not needing any further testing or imaging or interventions done.
So some patients I will see on a monthly basis if they have a lot more chronic illnesses and conditions because I like to do those steps, plan out, maybe CBO treatment, diet.
Also with hormones, thyroid continue to add things to optimize how they're doing and their quality of life.
I have some come in annually. They're probably not my patients on LDN. They're probably more. They're doing our mono treatments, pellets, injections. Yhey're doing other treatments other than just LDN.
Summary from Dr Michelle Resendez YouTube interview. LDN Radio Show Listen to the video for the full interview.