I’ve been taking LDN for 2 years now. It is the one intervention that has provided the most direct cause and effect link and greatest benefit. Went from poor sleep interrupted every hour due to pain to long deep sleep best in many decades. Also my ESR is usually below 5 which is quite good
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They discuss LDN at 2:38
I enjoyed hearing this discussion about the potential brain benefits and its good safety profile.
I started taking it a few months ago for that reason and the positive effect it might have on hashimotos.
Even if it turns out not to help our brains, I’d stay on it just for what it’s done for my sleep. My sleep was already good after starting rapamycin, but now it’s off the charts.
Also of interest, unless I had a bum CGM, it has also lowered my fasting glucose. (I’d have to test this with a couple more cgms to be sure).
And unexpectedly, I have lost most cravings for food. I miss it because I love to eat more than most people, but as someone who has always had to be careful with what I eat, it’s a nice turn of events to have to work on gaining the couple of pounds back that I lost.
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How do people take low dose considering that the pills are 50mg. That is pretty hard to chop up.
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You can get as low as .25 mgs from a compounding pharmacy. I found results as low as .25 mgs, believe it or not. I am using .5 mgs on occasion, inconsistently only because I need to order more. Most people try to get up to 4.5 mgs as low dose. I’ve never done that. I especially try to take it surrounding my Rapamycin dose. My best result is that I can resist wine and snacks better, even with low dose.
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As @Nlo said, I get it compounded. You can get it for $35-45 ish a month.
There are people online who share how to dilute the 50mg pill in liquid and then it becomes dirt cheap and much easier to access. If you are interested and can’t find it, let me know and I’ll see if I can find it for you.
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Same here. Tried it for psoriasis. Saw no improvement whatsoever. Tried N-Acetyl Glucosamine and saw a much more pronounced effect, cheaper and available over the counter.
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I get 30x 50mg tablets… So if I can dilute it myself I prefer to do that. If I ground the pill up and take 1/10 each time is that the way to go? How often do I need to take it. What kind of side effects are there?
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This is from the LDN facebook group that will explain how to dilute it, I had joined it for a bit to see what I could learn. The admin there will answer all sorts of questions, so I do recommend it.
I started low and within just a few weeks I went up to 4.5 with no problems other than sleep. Definitely don’t start at 4.5.
In the fb group, I discovered many people don’t tolerate it well at all and don’t stay on it or need to be on ultra low doses, such as .5. For some it doesnt help, for many, it seems life changing. I wasn’t on there very long but most people I noticed had various forms of constant pain they were seeking treatment for.
Figuring out the dose seems to be the biggest challenge for most people. I noticed that some people needed to keep it low, but for others, they did poorly when it was low and had to go higher. I could see how many people would give up while trying to figure that out.
The main side effect most people seem to have, including me, is having very vivid dreams. I was disturbed by it for the first 1-3 weeks, but now I’m used to it. I rarely had any awareness of ever dreaming, so it was very different for me and felt unrestful.
Over the first couple of weeks or so, my sleep was actually very poor on it and I said I was probably not staying on it. I committed to staying on it for one month, and by then, things flipped, and all the sudden I started sleeping like a baby. BTW, for those who don’t sleep well on it, they recommend trying it in the morning. That seems to help. I was about to try it, but then didn’t have to.
So, for me, after a few weeks of poor sleep, I’ve never had any side effects I know of, aside from vivid dreams.
I take it daily and don’t know if there are other dosing protocols. The only thing that is concerning to me is I worry if I had to have emergency surgery that the pain killers might not work. I don’t know how much I should be worrying about this, and perhaps it’s not such a worry at low doses. I think if you have a planned surgery, you stop it a couple days prior, but I’d have to confirm this.
You might want to check this page out
https://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/index.html
In googling the dilution instructions for you, I noticed it potentially helps some dermatological conditions! Here you go
https://jddonline.com/articles/an-update-on-off-label-uses-of-low-dose-naltrexone-in-dermatology-S1545961624P1224X/#:~:text=The%20efficacy%20of%20off-label,recent%20years%20throughout%20the%20literature.
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For those that get vivid dreams on LDN, have you found moving the time when you take it mitigates this?
I notice that if I take it 2 hours before bed compared to just before bed the dream intensity does lower, most studies for neuroinflammation dose near to bedtime
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I get vivid dreams every night already! Yes my sleep is very broken up. I wake up 3 to 4 times each night. So hoping to cure this with LDN might be challenging? Lol
How much is it? In Australia the regular 30x 50mg pack is like $10 from the local pharmacy.
I didn’t know there is potentially a better benefit if taking it at bedtime (but maybe not).
I take everything a couple hours before bed only so I am not drinking immediately prior. :).
It looks like it is cheaper in Australia.
I actually bought the 4.5 mg capsules.
I did not experience significant effects from taking LDN, except that it appears to alter my taste perception and negatively impact the flavor of certain foods. Does anyone else feel it affects their sense of taste?
This is from Jagdish.
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It doesn’t make anything taste bad to me, but it has made everything not taste wonderful… it’s all fine… even my rare guilty pleasure of white pasta is ‘fine’
Even chocolate is decent, as opposed to living and breathing for it.
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The problem is I live to eat 
. Hmm how long does it takes the taste buds to return to normal? Anyway until I try it will be hard to work out. I’m eating a lot less these days anyway.
At the levels that I take, I don’t notice that food tastes bad. Rather, I find that I can stop at a normal portion, and not feel cravings or deprived. How cool is that?!?! I am traveling right now and wish I had brought my ldn!! 
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I was prescribed LDN by a Chronic Fatigue Clinic for my brain fog I was dealing with. Correlation isn’t causation, but my brain fog has cleared after a month or so of using it. I was up to 7mg a nite, but down to 5mg now. I get the 50mg tablets and dilute it with 50ml of distilled water. Then use a dispensing syringe to measure 5ml.
For me the vivid dreams has been a feature, not a bug. They have not been disturbing and they haven’t been too crazy. Just more vivid dreams.
Its still n=1 anecdotal but I would recommend trying it for anyone with brain fog like symptoms. I did not “officially” have Chronic Fatigue (ie they have a list of symptoms and I didn’t have most of them, just brain fog a lot of the time.
Seems to be a good compliment to Rapamycin which I’ve been taking 6mg/week for a little over a year, a little longer than I’ve been taking LDN.
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What a great report!
And ha on the vivid dreams being a feature… I failed to mention that in my first couple of weeks upon starting, I dreamt, for the first time, I was being murdered!!! Fortunately nothing like that ever happened again… I was upset all day!