Woolygimp

I surprisingly came across some information regarding a therapy involving small doses of Naltrexone, normally used to combat drug addiction, and it's benefits on several autoimmune related conditions. There have been several case studies of people with varying autoimmune disorders showing great improvement on the therapy, and the results so far have been said to be extremely promising. Many more studies are currently being planned. It's even being used to treat Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, along with RA, MS, Crohn's, Sjogren's, and so on.

Beta-endorphins are important regulators of the immune system. Naltrexone, which is a pure antagonist to opiates, causes an artificial blockade of the endorphin/opioid receptors in the brain. However, unlike the normal (~50mg) dose of naltrexone used to treat drug addiction, which maintains this blockade continuously for 24 hours (preventing any derived pleasure from taking the forbidden drugs), low dose naltrexone (~3mg to 4.5mg) blocks the endorphin receptors for only a couple of hours. During that time, endorphins fail to attach to the receptors and the body compensates by creating more endorphins. (Note that Dr. Bihari prescribes LDN to be taken at bedtime to take advantage of the body's pre-dawn boost in endorphin production.) Once the low dose naltrexone dose has been metabolized, the body is left with a "normal" amount of endorphins as compared to healthy controls, which consequently "normalizes" the immune function. The link between endorphins and immune system regulation is a good candidate for more research.

I've spent the past few hours doing research as this is the first time I've even heard of it, and there are a LOT of success stories out there. Coincidentally, when going on LDN therapy one of the things they recommend is a gluten-free, casein-free diet. This drug, supposedly, has a demonstrable efficacy, with several doctors noticing very real improvements in several of their autoimmune crippled patients.

In people with Crohn's there have been documented cases where the intestinal lining has healed following LDN therapy: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17222320

Now I would've thought there would at least be a couple threads about this on celiac.com but I've been unable to find any. Surely someone out there with celiac has tried this?

I'm pretty sure my Celiac has caused an ongoing autoimmune reaction that just won't disappear, i.e. damage to my endocrine glands and minor Sjogren's/Thyroid problems. I'm wondering if I'm a candidate for this stuff. Not only that but what effect would it have on my Celiac's to begin with? I haven't found many articles linking Celiac and LDN together which is a bad sad, especially since Celiac is impossible the mother of all the other autoimmune disorders.

Here's a good website for information regarding the drug:

http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/

A link to clinical trials:

http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/ldn_trials.htm