LDN stands for Low-Dose Naltrexone.Several years ago we were asked if we would help a number of patients with MS obtain this treatment, and so we did. It would be fair to say that some of them, over 50%, improved; nobody got lastingly worse although some had short-term side-effects. For some it just didn’t work. Of course we advised them, as we are always ethically bound to, on other treatments that might benefit them; some at least saw some benfit from these also. Since then there has been surprising progress in the use of LDN, and it has been found to be helpful in several other circumstances. For me, it is definitely time to revisit and reconsider it. There are two major diagnoses in which LDN has shown success — you have to bear in mind that this does not mean randomised controlled trials of the therapy, and certainly not the systematic reviews of multiple RCTs that scientists now expect; it is “anecdotal” reports, published papers that state that it appeared to work for one patient or for a small number. The two diagnoses are:
Auto-immune disease is a growth area in medicine because we are discovering that more and more diagnoses fall in this category. They include: |
CancerThere are some surprising (“anecdotal” again) reports of cancer responding to LDN. There is a long way to go before one could say that it is definitely of value, and even further before we could estimate how much value or for how many. Because of the way that we think LDN works, plus the fact that it works in Auto-immune disease and in Cancer, one big question arises; will it work in Multiple Chemical Sensitivity? What is it?Naltrexone is an opiate-antagonist drug; it has been used for some time to block the effects of addictive drugs such as heroin and morphine. I can recall as a junior doctor dealing with patients who were admitted in a coma due to these drugs; when given the antagonist they sat up and spoke. |