Here's my story about my short but torrid love affair with LDN. I found out I had Hashimoto's Thyrioditis in 2009 and was desperately trying to find some relief for the symptoms, after quite a few years of family, friends, and doctors telling me I was just "stressed" and all the weird ailments I was having were in my head. I took Armour thyroid which ended up making me sicker, I went gluten free, dairy free (for the most part, occasional cheeses and butter didn't kill me). But still no avail. My hair was still falling out in clumps, major mood swings, severe insomnia, severe memory loss (like I couldn't remember what I did the day before), alternating constipation and diarrhea (the Armour gave me horrible diarrhea). The frustration and fear just kept mounting. I felt like I was trying really hard to fix this and was getting nowhere. I do still smoke, which I know doesn't help any of this, but I've been down to just a few a day for years. Anyway, my father (who is an acupuncturist and has knowledge on all the new therapies) told me about low dose Naltrexone. I'd never heard of it and had tried to stay away from any hard pharmaceuticals because they seemed to cause more harm then good. But I was desperate and was willing to put up with a few side effects if it worked and from what I was reading there weren't many, except insomnia. So I called some compounding pharmacies to see who actually prescribed this drug (I assumed there weren't many) and found a doctor I had actually seen before. It had been awhile and I wasn't sure if he knew much about LDN, so I brought my labs and articles and crossed my fingers. He wrote me a script for 1.5 mg without batting an eye (very nice doctor but very busy and scattered brained. Kind of a wingnut). So I went home, got ready for bed, and took it at night just like they suggested. I didn't sleep, but was in a sort of twilight. Like I was hovering right above REM but never able to dream, but I was used to insomnia and could live with it. But when I got out of bed that morning I couldn't believe how good I felt. My hair wasn't falling out and felt stronger!! This was a huge deal as I had cried myself to sleep about this many a night and has tried soooo many things to fix it. But I noticed my stomach didn't hurt, I could think clearer, even my back felt better. It worked so fast and so powerfully, I was blown away. I didn't want to say "wonder drug" but that's what I was thinking... the only problem was the insomnia...it was pretty bad. I stayed up for almost eight days at one point. I tried heavy duty sleeping pills (even Seroquil, which was horrible), and still I was awake. I played with the dosing and the timing and finally got a good combination. I didn't need the full 1.5 mg, it seemed like a half of that in the morning worked fine. I know they say it works better at night but I am here to tell you that the morning does too. So for over a year, I felt great. Not to say everything was PERFECT all the time, but I didn't have to worry about my hair, I could eat without a bunch of digestion issues (I stayed gluten free but was a little lax on the dairy), and my moods were alot more stable, I could work out again, where before it would wreck me just to do some light cardio... Then something happened. Slowly but surely all the symptoms came back. It was gradual, but I was so in tune with my body, I could feel the changes, and started getting scared. I researched LDN like crazy, and there wasn't a whole lot of information on what to do to when it stops working. I tried the obvious things, like switching the dose, taking a week off. I thought maybe it was the filler so I got it from a different compounding pharmacy. The filler in that actually made me feel kind of aggressive, so I stopped taking that. I read that LDN can cause excessive candida and won't work if you have too much so I started doing a no sugar/no carb for my candida which made me lose too much weight and did a number on my system. I've done acupuncture, quantum biofeedback, and even ozone therapy which was super expensive and pretty painful. All of this just in the threadbare hope that the LDN would work again. I'm not a doctor and some of the research on LDN is too scientific with opiate receptors, etc. I don't want to give up on it, but it's been months since it's done anything... I know this is a very long blog, but I felt obligated to share my experience since most of the help I get is through other people's personal experiences with this or anything else. If you have found LDN, for whatever ailment you have, I hope it works as well for you as it did for me. And continues too.
