LDN for Pain, Fatigue, Fibro. Here’s Why It’s Not a Magic Bullet (Low Dose Naltrexone)

LDN (Low Dose Naltrexone) has gotten much attention in recent years because many people report resolution or improvement of significant problems like chronic pain, fibromyalgia, fatigue, and autoimmune problems.

Fibromyalgia is an important syndrome because it shares underlying biological issues with so many problems.  There is overlap of the underlying imbalances in fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, CFS/ME, chronic pain, neuropathy, and other diseases.  That's why this video is important for almost anyone suffering from pain, fatigue, neurologic dysfunction, psychiatric illness, or other chronic issues that your doctor can't fix.

LDN is an off-label use of a very well-used and safe drug. It stimulates the body’s natural production of endorphins and enkephalins. These are signalling molecules that do two very important things.

First, endorphins and enkephalins activate your opioid receptors, which can have all sorts of benefits including blocking pain, improving mood, increasing energy, reducing irritability of the intestines, and so on.
Second, endorphins and enkephalins gently turn down your body’s production of inflammatory chemicals. Those inflammatory chemicals are involved in chronic pain, fatigue, fibromyalgia, neurologic degeneration, irritable bladder, depression, anxiety, and auto-immune disease.

So there are good reasons why LDN can help pain, fatigue, and fibromyalgia. And a few small controlled trials show that it reduces pain and reduces inflammatory chemicals in people with fibromalgia.  To my thinking after a couple of decades of experience, it makes more sense to start with LDN before Lyrica or Cymbalta, which are commonly-prescribed first-line drugs.

But fibromyalgia is a complex illness with many factors. It’s important to take a broad understanding of the things that can drive fibromyalgia, so you can do what can be done about them. LDN can be part of the picture, but in my experience, it works better as part of an integrative approach. If you have fibromyalgia, chronic pain, or chronic fatigue, it’s also important to address stress, trauma, negative emotions, insomnia, hormonal and nutritional issues, low-grade infections, intestinal permeability, mindful movement, mitochondrial function, and so-on.

LDN is not for everyone. It’s important to find a competent prescriber who understands your illness, to see whether it has a good chance of being effective for you. But there is no incentive for a drug company to do large controlled trials. So LDN is likely to be an “off-label” use.

I hope you enjoy the video.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Do you want more quality information and inspiration from Dr Shiller about healing chronic pain and chronic illness? Get a free copy of his e-book on "Three Reasons Why Your Pain Isn't Healing, and What You Can Do About It".
Get your copy here: https://andrew-david-shiller.mykajabi...