Low Dose Naltrexone?
 

Has anyone here tried Low Dose Naltrexone (1.5 to 4.5 mg)? Looks like it is gaining popularity for treatment of fibromyalgia, neuropathy and other chronic pain syndromes. Sounds interesting. Also, supposedly increases endorphin response, thus improving mood. I'm not taking any drugs at the moment, but pain at night is starting to affect my sleep. Thought I might try this first, since it has very low side effects (at such a low dose).

I am kinda proud of myself. On Sunday I learned that my sister was taken to hospital with pneumonia, so I wanted to go visit her ASAP. Problem is: it's a 6 hour/550 km drive in total, and the furthest I had been by car since 2010 was about 50km.

Lots of stress before taking off, not sure if it would work, making contingency plans for when it would become unbearable. Anxiety stepped in. Felt cramps as soon as I took off. Bugger, having to feel this for 6 hours more is going to be torture.

But as is so often the case, anticipated pain is 100 times worse than actual pain. After 30 minutes or so, I felt I was actually OK. I also felt - weird - that I deserved to be capable of doing this, of responding to an emergency. From that point on it actually went smoothly, despite torrential rain and some snow. I mentally changed the travel into a trip, rather than a chore/torture. Feet stopped feeling like they were poured in concrete. They "shut up", and I reached my destination without any hiccups or discomfort.

Spent 3 hours in the hospital, sister is through the worst and is on the mend already, and drove back without any pain at all. I guess I'll never understand the mind tricks PN can play, and how I can influence that.

All this happened on day 1412 - yesterday - and gave me confidence for the future. :)

I think that you are right to be proud of yourself.

I reckon that your sister will value your support and it is good to read that she is getting better.

Good job :)!

1734 days sober.

I wish I was as cool as Wide-O.

Back Again, its been a while.
 

Howdy friends, I hope all are well and hanging in there,etc. I haven't posted or even logged in for a while , I couldn't even remember my password. Couldn't be age, could it? Nawwww...

If you don't remember my story or are new here, briefly, I was diagnosed with PN in January, 2013. I quit drinking then, and only had a brief change of mind for a few months, the gory details are enumerated in previous posts if you are bored and want to check it out. Anyway, I have gotten steadily worse the entire time, despite almost complete abstinence during that time. My Neurologist and GP now think I just have Idiopathic PN, they haven't experienced someone with a slow and gradual, but persistent worsening of symptoms in the absence of alcohol. I think they are wrong , but whatever...I do know that the list of medicines that contribute to PN continues to grow, unfortunately, and I have used about 5 of them....antibiotics (yes, antibiotics), statins, a preventative TB medicine, etc, etc, etc....So if one mixes all that stuff with even a modest amount of alcohol, I suppose it's a wonder we don't see even more PN. Yikes. On the good news front , you may know that VM202 is in Phase 3 trials for this crap and looks good. It just received "fast track" approval for Lou Gerhigs disease so with any luck, we should have this option soon. I think it is discussed elsewhere on this site, a quick search will get you the news otherwise. Hope all are doing well!! (oh, I just started Gabapentin, so far so good.)

1766 days sober

Good to hear from you Newstown, was wondering where you wandered off to!

Hey Newstown, of course we remember. ;) If it were solely down to drinking, it might still remain the same in a worst case scenario, but getting worse after a longer time of sobriety does indeed indicate there's more going on. In the PN forum there's always be plenty of talk about co-morbidity, i.e. several causes for the same disease in one person.

Still, if it was also due to you taking statins or those antibiotics, I'm assuming you stopped taking those, and it still gets worse, is that correct? For me it's still getting better, but very very very slowly. Definitely not getting worse though, of that I'm 100% sure. It's now more a "sometimes very annoying" disease as opposed to a "constantly burning horrible pain" one.

Let's hope that medication goes forward soon, it would make a lot of people happy...

Hey there Wide O, nice to talk to you again. You are correct, I don't take any of the meds that seem to be making the list longer of things that probably cause neuropathy. I took statins for cholesterol a few years ago, but nothing now. My docs more or less agree with you that my symptoms are probably not Completely due to alcohol, although I think it was probably a mix of alcohol and probably the statins and other meds....I even sold industrial chemicals for a time that are no longer even legal. Those could have played a role too. It could be multi-factorial as you suggest in your note. However, I do believe that alcohol played the biggest role by far..if not completely responsible. I just don't meet anyone who has these recoveries that we hear of...it makes me wonder. In fact, I sometimes drop in on a PN support group at the clinic. There are 5 folks there who have alcohol related neuropathy. 4 of them have had an experience similar to mine, they have slowly gotten worse, only one has stayed the same, none of them have improved. Hey, maybe it's something in our water here!! Ha, don't think so. Glad to hear you improving, maybe your water is special...;) Talk to you and everyone soon. (Oh, yes, I am excited about the VM202, it actually improves function, it appears, and doesn't just address symptoms. Hopefully we will see this available sooner rather than later. )

I am copy and pasting my response from another thread as it *may* be helpful in this one too....

--------------------------

"This is another method that may, or may not, work for him. I know it works for me.

Step 1. I made a list of people that have been instrumental through my growing days of sobriety. They are the ones that have invested TIME in me to support me on this journey. I keep this list on a table in my bedroom where I walk by it a couple times a day, a place where it catches my eye.

Step 2. On my iPhone I have an app (it's free and super easy to setup) that counts the days since Aug 2, 2011. One click of a button and I know to the day how many days I have beat the urge to drink.

It has a reset button.

I have gotten to the point where the fear of hitting that reset button, the fear of disappointing that "list" is more important to me than taking a swig of alcohol. I would NOT want to face a majority of those people with the news of relapse and I know that my current life would drastically change if I were to hit that reset button.

Yes, an app helps keep my sober....but that also works for me. "

Heh, the last program I ever wrote (used to be an IT wiz) was such a counting app, which gives me days & money saved. I changed it 2.5 years ago to also include smoking. So far I saved (roughly, in USD) 42,000 for both combined.

As you say, for some it helps, for others it makes them nervous. I look at the "score" almost every day. I like the little ritual.

I didn't include a reset button as it wasn't in the specs. ;)