r/LowDoseNaltrexone

I started taking it originally at night, and it was definitely giving me insomnia. Luckily, I have a trazodone prescription and it wasn’t so bad, although the dreams were vivid and still wasn’t sleeping as well as usual. I switched to taking it in the morning, thinking that if it kept me awake at night, it would give me an energy boost in the morning. It was OK for a few days, but then I started waking up feeling extremely groggy and even after taking it still feeling zombie like for most of the day. I’m not sure when the best time to take it is, does anyone try to take it in the middle of the day? Definitely looking for the sweet spot.

I started LDN for RA, Hashi’s and Sjögrens 10 weeks ago at 0.5mg. My RA flared for 4 wks, so I dropped down to 2.5mg, which improved the pain, but my TSH rose from 2.2 to 4.69. I upped my Levo dose and thought it would eventually settle, but I had so much hair loss and - weirdly - a lot of grey hair. I can’t work out if the LDN is making me go hypothyroid and these are the results, or if the LDN is directly causing this.

I’ve also felt like my brain has been cloudy. I recently had a brain MRI, which found incidental white spots, however there’s no way of knowing how long they’ve been there.

I can’t keep going, so I’ve stopped, but I feel so disappointed because I had high hopes for it. Is it worth trying again with zero filler in the formula?

For folks who already had wild dreams, did you notice your dreams got *more* vivid with LDN?

I already have intense deams (plus occasional sleep walking/talking/yelling etc), and I'm wondering if I change from my AM dose to PM that my dreams will be even *more* extra?

Reason for changing the time of my meds is that they knock me out for about 2hrs each morning 😴

Hi everyone! I started on LDN at 1.5mg about 3 weeks ago, and the past 2 weeks I’ve had consistent spotting- heavier than normal spotting but not heavy enough for period. I haven’t had a period in months, I have endometriosis and skip my period with my birth control. My doctor said this is not common side effect and she hasn’t heard it before since it regulates other inflammatory mediators in the brain and does not affect hormones. I’ve also been taking vaginal estrogen 2 times a week, but I’ve been on this for over a year. Anyone have spotting/vaginal bleeding as a side effect??

Hi everyone, has anyone experienced vomiting as a side effect of LDN, and if so did this subside over time? I started some liquid LDN at a low dose and felt good and gradually increased the dose, and then switched to capsules. I experienced a couple of very unpleasant vomiting episodes. As far as I could tell I was not otherwise unwell, and it didn't seem connected to anything I had eaten. The episodes happened about a week apart, and each one lasted a few hours and then stopped. Other than this, I felt like it was helping with fatigue. I am curious as to whether this is something others have experienced, and if so whether there was anything you did to help reduce it or whether it passed as you adapted to the LDN. I am also wondering whether it could be commented to something in the capsules format, as it never happened when I was taking a liquid sublingual form?

For context I was taking it for Hashimotos - another hypothesis I have is that it may have decreased how much thyroid medication I needed and caused me to go slightly hyperthyroid, which could cause vomiting.

Any experiences or thoughts are appreciated! Many thanks

Hi, for the people who find success with LDN while blocking the receptors, for disorders lke cptsd anxiety ect... Did you find a way to have the same results but without redosing every 3-4 hours? I was looking into making extended release capsules but wanted to see your experiences and opinions.

I've been stable on 3.0mg LDN for a few weeks now. I get all my LDN from Belmar Pharmacy. Just wondering if any one can provide some insight or share their experience.

I was originally prescribed 4.5mg by my pain management doc. My pcp recommended titrating up by 0.5mg steps. I am going the titration route, and so I have a bottle of 0.5mgs, i also have a bottle of the 4.5mgs from the original prescription.

Typically I would take 6 of the 0.5mg pills for 3.0mg. As I am going to be staying on 3.0mg for a while, i thought i could take half of the 4.5mg and two of the 0.5mg for a total of 3.25mg. Thus not wasting the 4.5mgs. Titration was done only with the 0.5mg pills. I had no side effects after getting to around 2.0mg. And did not have any side effects going from 3.0mg to 3.25mg. after a few days on 3.25mg, my pain symptoms returned. Yesterday my doc recommended i go back to exactly 3.0mg, with the 6 pills.

After taking the 6 yesterday, I immediately felt some side effects, i.e dizziness and nausea. The headache from initial titration has also returned.

Based on what Im feeling I had the initial thought that the 4.5mg pills were the wrong dose, and could likely be 0.5mg as well. If i was actually taking 3.25mg, 'decreasing' to 3.0mg should cause all these side effects right?

Thank you in advanced! My head and stomach are killing me.

TLDR; 10 months of long-COVID symptoms, CFS diagnosis, switching from amitriptyline to LDN

Im a 29F who started experiencing long-COVID/CFS symptoms about ten months ago. This past fall I was working 10-12 hours a day, often 6 days a week (new lawyer) when I started feeling "sick". I thought I caught whatever was going around my office, but for months I experienced severe headaches, constant flu like symptoms, extreme fatigue, exercise intolerance, dizziness, insomnia, and depression. I thought I was just in the trenches with work combined with a bad flu I couldn't shake. Before this period I was in the best physical shape on my life, lifting weights 3-4 times a week and pilates twice a week on top of tons of walking and socialising.

Eventually I went to the doctor and found out my ferritin was at 19. I was blown off and told this is normal by an older doctor. Thankfully I was dating a med student at the time who told me that new consensus is that women should be at or above 50. I got an iron transfusion and was able to stop being actively "sick". Unfortunately, even though my major flu like symptoms improved, I continued experiencing extreme full body fatigue, exercise intolerance, dizziness, sleepiness and fever sensation after eating lunch, anxiety and depression. (Ladies, if you have low ferritin and the ability to get an iron transfusion I would recommend this did make a massive difference when I was at my lowest. I got mine from a naturopath and it was 100% covered by my extended health but uncovered it would have been ~$500 CAD.)

Around the 7 month mark I decided to finally get a primary care provider (Canada problems) and a naturopath and dig deeper. I got a ton of blood work done which all came back normal. My naturopath gave me a few different vitamin IVs and injections, these didn't do anything. I got referred to an internal medicine doctor who diagnosed me with chronic fatigue syndrome and put me on amitriptyline. For a variety of reasons my PCP and I found this guy to be a bit, suss, and she has referred me for a second opinion. She felt like him jumping to a CFS diagnosis without further investigation was a bit lazy. However, she said I could continue with the amitriptyline since I was already on it and see how it goes. My naturopath had been strongly suggesting I am a good candidate for LDN and would rather see me on that but wasn't comfortable de-prescribing me from the amitriptyline since she wasn't the one who prescribed it. When I asked my PCP about LDN she said she had several patients with my same symptoms profile on LDN (don't know why she never mentioned this). She said since I already went through the hell that is getting onto the amitriptyline I could try going up in dose and seeing how I feel and then if I wasn't happy with that I could switch to LDN.

This brings me to my specific medication related situation. I started 10mg of amitriptyline about 6 weeks ago. My experience getting onto it was rough. For the first two weeks, I had extreme drowsiness and brain fog. I felt like I was in a daze until about 5 or 6pm and I was sleeping minimum 12 hours a night. I definitely was getting deeper sleeps than I have in months but I also got vivid dreams. Eventually, the drowsiness subsided and I started having more energy but I still was having dizziness and POTS like symptoms. However, at around the 6 week mark I started feeling the best I have felt since this all started. I had energy, I felt happy and lighter, and I no longer had the drowsiness. I did still need 11-12 hours of sleep, had vivid dreams, and had a worsening of symptoms after I ate lunch. I felt like I could maybe consider going back to work but the 11-12 hour of sleep thing is not compatible with my line of work.

I am extremely lucky that I have a super accommodating employer. When I shared the CFS diagnosis I was encouraged to take time off work and I've now been off work just resting for 4 weeks. While I have this time to focus on my health I figured I may as well try the LDN so that I am dealing with all the potential medication related side-effects while I'm off work. I titrated off the amitriptyline and just started on 1.5 mg of LDN last night. Since titrating off the amitriptyline I definitely feel worse. I woke up today with such a headache. It sucks to go from finally having some sense of relief to going back to feeling bad. I am really clinging to the idea that the LDN will provide me the same relief as the amitriptyline or better with less side-effects. I am really worried I will trial the LDN for weeks, not get any benefits, and then have to go back onto the amitriptyline and re-experience all of the initial side-effects I had the first time. I also can't be off work forever, nor do I want to be, so I am feeling impatient.

I am mostly writing this post so that I can write an update once I've trialed the LDN longer. I'm also writing this because I have read every single reddit post I could finds on CFS and LDN and figured I may as well add my experience. I feel really lucky to have received the level of healthcare I have but it has required a ton of self-advocacy. For example, my internal medicine doctor suggested just trying to de-stress and rest for a month before trying the amitriptyline and I shut that down. At that point I had already been experiencing symptoms for 7/8 months so I said I simply was not open to that idea and felt I had tried enough lifestyle management tactics. He ended up prescribing it on the spot.

Hopefully I can come back with some positive news about my experience with LDN. If anyone has been on amitriptyline and switched to LDN or vice versa for similar symptoms I would love to hear your experience.

I should also add that I am lucky I have not experienced any pain related symptoms in my journey with this. No joint paint/fibromyalgia-esque symptoms so I can't speak to those. For reference I would list my symptoms from most severe to least as:

- fully body sensation of fatigue (feels like my body weighs 10000 pounds)

- brain fog

- depression, way worse before my period (addressed this by switching to birth control where I don't get a period)

- post exercise malaise

- insomnia, worsening of anxiety and depression immediately before bed, unrefreshing sleep

- dizziness

- headaches

- noise sensitivity

- persistent sore throat, 3+ months

- bloating

- worst seasonal allergies of my life, associated ear infections

hi! so i‘m on day 17 after starting ldn at 0,1mg for me/cfs (post covid, +dysautonomia +POTS +MCAS). i‘m currently at 0,35mg.

in the first days i noticed a little less pain, better sleep and some side effects (confusion, dizziness, headaches). the effects + side effects would vanish quickly. so i titrated up to 0,2mg on day 6. same thing happened again but only for one day. so i did 0,225 a few days later with no headache, dizziness, confusion whatsoever. just my pains were still better.

one day later, on day 9 the heatwave with up to 40°C started and i had very strong PEM starting on the first hot day. i did quite a lot on that day as well. since then i feel like LDN completely stopped working. my sleep‘s been shit again, waking up more easily, heavy heavy pain (which is normal for my PEM).

i still titrated up to 0,35mg and had no side effects at all but seem to also have no wanted effects anymore.

today is the first day that‘s a bit cooler and i‘m starting to feeling a bit more normal. but i still don‘t notice anyyything from the LDN anymore.

i was pretty upset all of last week, been very sensitive and have been feeling quite depressed because of the unexpected PEM. i put the strong emotional reaction (cried for 2 days straight) on my PMDD and physical + emotional stress from the heatwave (i felt a bit left alone plus i don‘t sweat at all so i had to manually cool myself down all day. was a bit of a shit show).

i‘m wondering: PEM from the heat + LDN dose too low to feel any benefit while in PEM/crash? LDN dose too high and PEM from the LDN + heat? i would intuitively titrate up to 0,6mg to reach my starting dose. (0,5mg was the starting dose my doc suggested, titrating up 0,25mg every week or when side effects vanish. but i wanted to go lower which he said was fine). i talked to the pharmacy about storage, didn‘t do anything wrong in that sense.

any experiences of LDN being less beneficial in strong heat? or any ideas what could be going on? thanks <3

Forgive the terse writing, I'm just trying to keep this short.

I have POTS, EDS, & Sjogrens and was prescribed LDN to potentially help sometimes severe coat hanger pain. It might be helping, but I'm not even totally sure as just after starting I became extremely sedentary due to some bizarre things that have happened since then and my pain would often be at it's worse when trying to exercise.

2-3 days after starting at 1.5mg my right ankle randomly started bothering me and became really stiff, liking to crack from flexing it and then by the night it felt like it was going to explode and was in terrible pain, I didn't sleep. Next day it was a bit better but the same process kind of repeated by night and then I also noticed it had swelled up quite a bit all around the ankle, with a little in my 1st metatarsal as well. Went to urgent care, said to treat it as a sprain, gave me a splint and I started using a crutch on that side. It slowly recovered (still with pain and other issues) but I was able to start walking a little again after about 2 weeks. After a few days I was crutchless (around the house).

Then I (a little late) upped my dose from 1.5mg to 3mg as instructed and that same day, by the night it was acting up extra so again and the swelling increased to about 80% of its previous max. I returned to a crutch and have been on it since (~1.5 weeks). The swelling is now much lower again but I feel like I can't walk on it at all and there is still a fair amount. In addition to the occasional pain it also on-and-off has this weird nerve pain issue where it feels like the foot and part of that calf are being tickled but in a way too intense way, kind of like accidentally touching a live AC wire or rubbing "the head" against cloth post "finishing", or one of those stupid prank handshake buzzers, where the feeling is so intense it distorts into something really uncomfortable, especially at night. It's also kind of like if you know what hitting a ball on the short part of a bat is like on your hands, or when you bump a limb that fell asleep against something. You get the idea. At it's worse it almost feels like it starts to bleed into the upper leg too but that could just be a perception thing. There is also some sharp pain in the foot here and there.

In addition, most of the entire time I've been on this I've also on-and-off experienced some weird feelings of muscle weakness, increased spasms, soreness and a more milder version of the sensation above in a few other places, namely the wrists/forearms. The left foot also seems to experience some sharp pains and a touch of the other stuff but it never swelled up and I can still use it, mostly with no issue. Also have had chills occasionally, though that is something I've had on-and-off for a while now, though I think the frequency has increased.

The POTS related blood pooling in that foot has also be consistently worse than the other ever since all this.

The prescriber, although remaining open minded, doesn't think the LDN is related, which I'm willing to believe, but the timing is also incredible.

Just curious if anyone else has ever had anything really weird like this happen right after starting LDN. I'm pretty good at not wearing a tinfoil hat, but it's often quite hard when I seem to have weird sensitivities to various medications, so I'm trying to feel out if there's any real legitimacy to a possible connection.

LDN is a god send!

However, I began dealing with zero libido (I’m a male, late 30s) and for weeks I was feeling great overall but lack in libido was annoying me so I decided to lower my dose incase that’d help…and it did!

After doing my own research, I noticed that naltrexone was being administered for different addiction, such as sex addiction…even though 4.5mg is substantially lower than the recommended dose of 50mg, I realized that even LDN can affect this at a much lower level.

Another point, if you’re like me and you encounter facial flare ups, it’s best to time any increase/decrease dose during a time that your skin barrier is strongest. For example, if I have mild itchiness on my beard (a problem area of mine, it gets flaky and red when I flare), then avoid changing your dose in either direction.

Once your skin barrier or flare is controlled (personally I get between 3 to 14 days of clear skin if flare is at bay) then altering your dose should have minimal side effects because your cytokines are likely stable and your Ldn dose won’t cause too many issues.

I’m currently at 3mg for a week and will attempt 1.5mg later to see what I experience.

Never expected Ldn to be a cure but truly believe that the healing of my opiate receptors and increased exercise has enhanced my quality of life.

Hi! I’m doing IVF and my clinic had me start on 4.5mg of LDN to help with inflammation prior to my egg retrieval and transfer.

I did my very first dose last night and had extremely vivid dreams, which I expected, but I woke up with a sore throat and sort of just feeling like the early stages of a cold/flu. Is this to be expected?

Hi everyone,

I recently started my LDN journey and got my first batch from a compounding pharmacy. It’s a liquid formulation (custom recipe, 1.5 mg/ml).

I've been doing some research online, and I read that due to the first-pass metabolism and potential bioavailability issues, it might make sense not to swallow it right away. Instead, some sources suggest holding the liquid under the tongue or in the mouth for about 30 to 60 seconds (sublingual absorption) before swallowing.

I’m curious about your experiences:

How do you take your liquid LDN? Do you hold it in your mouth, or just swallow it immediately?
If you switched from swallowing to sublingual (or vice versa), did you notice a difference in effectiveness or side effects?
Did your doctor or pharmacist give you any specific instructions regarding this?

Would love to hear how you all manage your daily dose! Thanks in advance.

Note: Translated from German using AI.

Anybody else experienced this? I got the usual side effects for the first 1-2 weeks (anxiety, fatigue, muscle/joint pain, etc) and then more for a couple days at both dose increases I’ve done. But now I’m at 4 weeks since starting LDN and I’m starting to feel an increase in sadness, hopelessness, and depression that I haven’t felt since starting the LDN. It’s still manageable and I’m planning to push through as long as it doesn’t get significantly worse, but it’s crazy how much I just want to cry sometimes the last couple days.

I started at 0.25mg and I’m now up to 0.75mg, so I’m still pretty low. Also I’m primarily taking it for MCAS and dysautonomia fwiw.

Anyone here try low dose naltrexone for adhd symptoms/fatigue/energy/focus?

My rheumatologist recommended this for me and some research says it could actually help with adhd related symptoms.

Just curious if anyone here has tried it and what your experience with it is if so.

I’m currently on Adderall 20mg IR twice a day but it goes through me so fast. Then i crash. I drink tons of water. Eat the protein. Take other supplements. Just wondering if this can help me.

I started ldn 2 years ago and now I'm at 4.5mg dose. I hadnt realized how much it helped with my allergies, that I've had so bad ever since I was born... Pretty much allergic to all plants in spring and fall and animals too even tho I have 2 dogs, love them more than I hate the allergies. Anyways i had a lapse in my medication while I was moving and was having issues with my script and this spring was hell for me, I was testing myself for covid constantly because allergy meds were not working but my allergies were as bad as they've ever been in my life... Cut to getting back on ldn at my high dose of 4.5 and boom no more allergies

Made me realize I also had no allergies last year too which I didn't attribute to ldn, just assumed I wasnt allergic to the town I was in

Ldn is a godsend, getting back on made me realize this: no more horrible pain, less inflammation, the allergies thing!!, ect. I have to take my dose at night and figured that out a couple months in 2 years ago because it does make me sleepy

Anyone else notice this with their allergies too?