One month on LDN

Hello all. Today is officially one month since starting LDN. After some major set backs around the two week mark, I can say that I'm starting to see some improvements. There isn't blood as often, my stools are starting to look better and feel better, I don't have to go as much anymore. OH, and my fistula is feeling a hell of a lot better now as well.
Two weeks in while taking LDN was terrible for me. I was bleeding a lot, running to the bathroom and just plain suffering. I never had stomach pain like that before. I though maybe it spread to my small intestines. All I know is that I'm feeling some relief now and I hope this keeps up. My 21st birthday is coming up August 20th. All I want for my birthday is to be able to drink ONE beer with my friends without any consequences pertaining to my crohn's disease.
Let me tell you, LDN isn't a walk in the park. Anyone who is going to start taking, don't expect it to work overnight. Some people get worse like me. I'm still not great by any stretch of the imagination, but any progress to me is good. I'll keep you guys updated next week to see if this up trend continues.

I have heard you need to use the ldn for at least 12 weeks to give it a good shot.

Bosnianboy I am glad to hear its working better for you. My oldest grandchild shares your birthday, and I hope you get to have that beer. Hugs!

Thanks guys. You only took it for a few days? Noo it takes weeks to fully work. Most people don't get full results until six months. Usually around the three month mark you'll start to get nice improvements. I'm holding out for a long time. I don't want to give up on it yet.
pmedic: I'm not on any diet really. I don't eat too much sugar and drink soda, aside from that not really. I would have done the SCD, however it's too hard being away at college. I don't have enough time with my summer classes. I don't want to jinx myself, but I think I'm starting to see some improvement. Fingers crossed i keep seeing improvement. I'm expecting some bad days ahead of me again, but I won't quit on it.

That's great news. Hope you keep improving. Please keep posting your progress, very encouraging. 

I'm glad that you're seeing some improvement :)

BeeSting said...
Hope LDN will continue to work for you! For me it still works, and this is my 4th year on it. I wish for that LDN will work even so good that you can have a beer on your 21st birthday! Take some acid blockers before you'll have the beer. ;-) it is always helping me from getting trouble.

I would strongly advice you to use LDN together with a milder maintanance medicine for Crohns. The result will be even better and last for longer. If you want, you can even use a diet like SCD or the GAPS, there are even more good diets avoiding sugars and flours.

BeeSting, I have a few questions about LDN if you don't mind my asking. Recently, I found out that LDN is actually an immunosuppressant, not an immuno-stimulator, so therefore, how would it work in combination with the biologics in general sense? Many just say they will cancel each other out without knowing that LDN is an immunosuppressant. Is it possible that they might work synergistically to bring down the inflammation?

And what kind of fillers do you prefer and where do you get your LDN from? Skip's? Hypo-allergenic ones(spinach?)

Post Edited (CollegeStudent) : 6/26/2011 10:13:47 PM (GMT-6)

College Student,
thanks for asking. As I understand they explain it like:
Naltrexone is making a suppressive effect on OGF, Opioid Growth Factor, which is a met enkephalin (endorphin), and the suppressive effect of OGF is not like those of steroids, it does not depress immune response, it has the effect of restoring normality. This is not a simple one dimensional system, but one with complex pathways and OGF is a critical part of the system working properly.

When using Naltrexone, the endorphin system is suppressed to get the rebound effect. When the OGF suppresses the T cell proliferation, it takes a few hours to undo the stimulation caused by the blockade of OGFr’s (Opioid Growth Factor receptors) before the OGF can get to work on the system to modulate it properly. I am beginning to understand that in chronic disease, cytokine levels get high. Long term, this leads to a loss of OGF and OGFr’s but also leads to a very weak immune response to pathogens, coupled with a residual immune activity. If anything, OGF eliminates this residual skew in the immune system which in turn allows the immune system to go back to ‘normal’ response to infection. As a result, this would look like an immune system booster when a pathogen appears, because we go from having a 10% response in chronic sickness to a 100% response in a properly functioning immune system. For a better understanding, you might want to read Nicholas Plotnikoff’s book “Cytokines, Stress and Immunity” recommended on the LDNScience website.

www.ldnscience.org
want to understand how naltrexone works versus Crohns / u.c.?
http://live.psu.edu/story/53494

Fillers: avicel

First do no harm! LDN may work, have a few initially mild side effects and may help, often more in combination with a maintanance mild Crohns medicine.