I have blogged before about my Mother's illnesses. She had 2 diseases that were AutoImmune Diseases. Sometime in the early 90's, she was diagnosed with Primary Biliary Cirrhosis which targets mainly middle age women. This required her to be put on a transplant list. She had the transplant successfully in 1995. She did remarkably well, for the next 15+ years. She was a tried and true believer in Western medicine and her transplant Doctor who advised her to never take any natural remedies. In fact he and her other medical team did not even recommend a change in eating habits. Sometime in 2011, she was next diagnosed with the autoimmune disease Scleroderma. In my research I did discover, that these 2 diseases sometimes, go hand in hand, wreaking havoc on people. Since my mom was adamant about continuing with Western Medicine we continued to go to Specialist, upon Specialist. There was no successful answers, nor treatments for her condition and she continued to decline. There was certainly some symptom management, but nothing that really alleviated or stopped the progression of her symptoms. In fact some medications may have made her condition worse and I blogged about that here: http://www.lifesustainers.com/blog/2016/antibiotics-side-effects
Back when I was caring for my mother, my research on these conditions and possible alternative treatments never turned up, this LDN treatment, which has been around since 1985. This is when a Dr. Bernard Bihari, MD first began experimenting with it. Normally in higher doses, Naltrexone was used to help heroine addicts. However Dr. Bihari found that using a low dose helped those affected by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. In the mid-1990's, Dr. Bihari used LDN with Lymphoma and Pancreatic Cancer patients with dramatic results. Then he tried it with those who had an autoimmune disease, like Lupus with great improvements. His colleague, and childhood friend, David Gluck, MD who specializes in Internal and Preventive Medicine continued to promote the awareness of LDN, as Dr. Bihari unfortunately died in 2010. Dr. Gluck continues to promote the awareness of LDN, Low Dose Naltrexone and it's ability to help so many diseases via this website: http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org
With many anecdotal trials and other research, it has been shown to help many other autoimmune diseases, central nervous diseases, other Cancers and Lyme. The list of diseases are numerous:
Cancers
Bladder Cancer
Breast Cancer
Carcinoid
Colon & Rectal Cancer
Glioblastoma
Liver Cancer
Lung Cancer (Non-Small Cell)
Lymphocytic Leukemia (chronic)
Lymphoma (Hodgkin's and Non-Hodgkin's)
Malignant Melanoma
Multiple Myeloma
Neuroblastoma
Ovarian Cancer
Pancreatic Cancer
Prostate Cancer (untreated)
Renal Cell Carcinoma
Throat Cancer
Uterine Cancer
Other Diseases
Common Colds (URI’s)
Emphysema (COPD)
HIV/AIDS
Depression (Major; and Bipolar)
Lyme Disease (LATE Stage)
Neurodegenerative:
ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease)
Alzheimer's Disease
Autism Spectrum Disorders
Hereditary Spastic Paraparesis
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
Parkinson's Disease
Post-Polio Syndrome
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Primary Lateral Sclerosis (PLS)
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy
Transverse Myelitis
Other Autoimmune Diseases:
Ankylosing Spondylitis
Behcet's Disease
Celiac Disease
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
CREST syndrome
Crohn's Disease
Dermatomyositis
Dystonia
Endometriosis
Fibromyalgia
Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
Myasthenia Gravis (MG)
Nephrotic Syndrome
Pemphigoid
Primary Biliary Cirrhosis
Psoriasis
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Sarcoidosis
Scleroderma
Sjogren’s Syndrome
Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS)
Systemic Lupus (SLE)
Ulcerative Colitis
Wegener's Granulomatosis
My mother also had Sjogren's Syndrome also listed above. She was told it was a symptom of the Primary Biliary Cirrhosis. Also I did not know this, but my mother was on Synthroid. I was not aware of this until I became her primary caregiver and was tending to her medical care. Synthroid is a drug used to treat hypothyroidism. Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis is in the autoimmune diseases also listed above and is also known as chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis, which often leads to an underactive thyroid gland (hypothyroidism). Hashimoto's disease is the most common cause of hypothyroidism. When the thyroid is being attacked it also leads to other autoimmune diseases. Were the autoimmune diseases my mother had a progression from her thyroid issue? I really did not know how many years she was on Synthroid and I did not make this connection until it was too late. I still looked for other ways to help her though as I said before, she was reluctant to try the alternative treatments that I did find (like nutritional supplementation and dietary changes).
My own health issues lead me to the path in Holistic Nutrition. I took the Institute of Holistic Nutrition's program while my mother was still living. My mother made her transition to the spirit world in March 2015. However, as I said previously, I did not come across this LDN treatment until just recently. I listened to Dr Izabella Wentz's Summit, "The Thyroid Secret" streamed online in January of this year. She also blogs about LDN, and Hashimoto's and you can check that out here: https://thyroidpharmacist.com/articles/5-stages-hashimotos-thyroiditis/ and here: https://thyroidpharmacist.com/articles/5-stages-hashimotos-thyroiditis/
Another article about the scientific research for LDN is listed here. https://selfhacked.com/blog/top-22-scientific-health-benefits-low-dose-naltrexone/ The little (R)'s in the article are links to the research.
Dr Wentz, provides a list of Dr.'s that are aware of her protocols. Here is a list of those in Ontario. They may have knowledge of LDN and would possibly prescribe it. It is medicine, that is only made available through prescription and only a compounding pharmacy can compound the low doses considered for these treatments for these specific diseases.
Provided by Dr. Izabella Wentz, your Thyroid Pharmacist
I did not find this information in time to see if it would have helped my mother. Hopefully, it can help someone else affected by Autoimmune and other diseases listed above. I provide this for your information, please do your own research on your diagnosed disease.
