LDN - Low Dose Naltrexone and chronic pain

I've been on LDN - Low Dose Naltrexone for a few months now. It's been a bumpy road and the journey has had both positive and negative points.

I've been adjusting the dose but in so far the 3 main benefits I can claim from it are:

- some sleep improvement;

- less pain intensity;

- apparent normalising effects on some blood markers such as LDH (lactate dehydrogenase).

However I feel exhausted to an unbearable point and continue prone to inflammation. I've decided to continue treatment with LDN because I've read extensively about it and many authors say it may take up to a yer to come to fruition.

Meanwhile I've resorted to naturopathic medicine and I'm under treatment as well.

We're all different in the way we react to medications and because I've been reading so much suffering here with so little hope of remission that I thought of encouraging you of not giving up and trying new things.

I would like to share with you a recent study on LDN whose Abstract is:

"The use of low-dose naltrexone (LDN) as a novel anti-inflammatory treatment for chronic painJarred Younger, [corresponding author]  Luke Parkitny, and David McLain

Abstract

Low-dose naltrexone (LDN) has been demonstrated to reduce symptom severity in conditions such as fibromyalgia, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and complex regional pain syndrome. We review the evidence that LDN may operate as a novel anti-inflammatory agent in the central nervous system, via action on microglial cells. These effects may be unique to low dosages of naltrexone and appear to be entirely independent from naltrexone’s better-known activity on opioid receptors. As a daily oral therapy, LDN is inexpensive and well-tolerated. Despite initial promise of efficacy, the use of LDN for chronic disorders is still highly experimental. Published trials have low sample sizes, and few replications have been performed. We cover the typical usage of LDN in clinical trials, caveats to using the medication, and recommendations for future research and clinical work. LDN may represent one of the first glial cell modulators to be used for the management of chronic pain disorders.

Keywords: Anti-inflammatory, Chronic pain, Fibromyalgia, Glial cell modulators, Low-dose naltrexone, Microglia"

Younger, Jarred, Luke Parkitny, and David McLain. “The Use of Low-Dose Naltrexone (LDN) as a Novel Anti-Inflammatory Treatment for Chronic Pain.”Clinical Rheumatology 33.4 (2014): 451–459. PMC. Web. 13 July 2015.

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