D i s c o v e r a n d A d d r e s s R o o t C a u s e s o f F i b r o m y a l g i a , C h r o n i c F a t i g u e a n d C h r o n i c I l l n e s s

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Volume 30 (Summer 2014)

Top 12 Gluten Myths

Interdisciplinary Care Best For Chronic Pain

Low Dose Naltrexone: A “New” Treatment for Fibromyalgia

Seven A Day Keeps The Reaper At Bay

How To Have A Healthy Relationship When You’re

Chronically Ill

The Most and Least Toxic Sunscreen Options

How To Keep Bugs Away

LIVE TeleSeminar for FCI Members

6 Fibromyalgia Solutions Jul/Aug/Sept 2014

her MS stopped progressing.Word spread. Remember, this was be-

fore the Age of the Internet, so people only had telephones and snail mail. People with all sorts of autoimmune diseases (and some cancers) traveled to see Dr. Bihari. His successes with many of these condi-tions mirrored his successes with HIV/AIDS and MS.

Years later, small studies bore out his clin-ical results, with researchers at Penn State conducting studies on LDN for Crohn’s disease and the University of California (San Francisco) conducting an equally suc-cessful study on LDN for MS. (I will glad-ly send readers links to these studies. My email: Julia@HonestMedicine.com.)

Of most interest to readers here, Dr. Jared Younger at Stanford University conducted a study of LDN for people with fibromy-algia. These results, too, were impressive. Conclusion: “The preliminary evidence continues to show that low-dose naltrex-one has a specific and clinically beneficial impact on fibromyalgia pain. The medica-tion is widely available, inexpensive, safe, and well-tolerated.” (See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23359310, Low-dose naltrexone for the treatment of fibro-myalgia: findings of a small, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, counter-balanced, crossover trial assessing daily pain levels.)

WHY DO I WANT TO SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT LDN TO FIBROMY-ALGIA PATIENTS?

Because LDN raises endorphin levels and forces the body’s immune system to act correctly, LDN is one drug that acts more like a nutritional supplement than a drug. (In HONEST MEDICINE, Dr. David Gluck, a colleague of Dr. Bihari’s,

I want to thank Yvonne Keeny for inviting me to write this column. It’s a real honor.I learned about Yvonne and the Fi-

bromyalgia Coalition from Betsy Tim-merman, a fibromyalgia educator I met through a group on LinkedIn. Betsy and I are both passionate about helping people with autoimmune diseases. Through her work, Betsy provides people with fibromy-algia “unique techniques, tools, targeted products and education,” designed to pro-mote healing. And I have written an Ama-zon.com bestselling book, which features four treatments for very serious diseases. One treatment is Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN), a non-toxic, off-label medication that is used for many autoimmune diseas-es, including fibromyalgia.

All the LDN success stories featured in my first book were contributed by pa-tients or relatives of patients with multiple sclerosis since, for years, MS patients have been the most vocal supporters of LDN.

WHAT IS LDN?Low Dose Naltrexone is a very low dose

use of a drug that was approved by the

FDA in the mid-1980s for heroin addicts, and years later, for alcoholics. At that time, Dr. Bernard Bihari, a Harvard-educated neurologist/psychiatrist who was work-ing with heroin addicts in New York City, discovered that, while naltrexone in high doses affected patients terribly—the side effects were huge—in very low doses, this off-label drug was not only NOT toxic; it also raised endorphin levels and caused patients’ immune systems to function cor-rectly. (He said LDN “modulates” or “or-chestrates” the immune system.)

First, Dr. Bihari prescribed naltrexone in very low doses (at that time, 3mg) to his drug addicted patients who also had HIV/AIDS. In many cases, it stopped the pro-gression of their disease in its tracks. Then,

he reasoned that it might also work for people with other diseases which have, at their core, an immune system dysfunction. This includes most autoimmune diseases and many cancers.

A friend of his daughter’s was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. At that time, there were no drugs on the market for MS. She asked Dr. Bihari if his new drug might help her. He thought there was no harm in trying. As with his HIV/AIDS patients,

Low Dose Naltrexone: A “New” Treatment for Fibromyalgia

by Julia Schopick, Patient Advocate,Health Writer and Author of “HONEST MEDICINE: Effective, Time-Tested, Inexpensive Treatments for Life-Threatening Diseases”

Naltrexone molecule (from Wikimedia Commons)

Fibromyalgia Solutions 7www.fibrocoalition.org

states that LDN “tricks the body” by forc-ing the immune system to function cor-rectly.)

So, I believe that LDN may provide yet another answer for many of you who need a “boost,” while following nutritional and lifestyle methods of treating fibromyalgia. Betsy Timmerman herself uses LDN and recommends it to her clients, especially when the approaches she recommends need a boost.

SUPPOSE MY DOCTOR WON’T PRESCRIBE LDN FOR ME?

More and more doctors are prescribing LDN for their patients. In fact, patient ad-vocates have lists of doctors from all over the U.S. and abroad who are on the “LDN Bandwagon.” Thus far, there have been nine conferences devoted to educating pa-tients and doctors about LDN: seven in the U.S. and two in Europe. Doctors and patients come from all over the world to attend. Many of the doctors speak about their LDN patient successes, and others come to learn about it from other doc-tors—and from patients.

That’s the good news.But there is still bad news in this de-

partment: LDN requires a prescription, to be filled by a compounding pharmacy, and many doctors won’t prescribe it. So patients sometimes have to convince their doctors to “let” them try LDN.

I learned a great deal about how doctors think from my late father, who was a gen-eral practitioner in Connecticut back in

the so-called “good old days” of medicine. (I put “good old days” in quotes because my dad felt there was a lot wrong with the medical system even back then.)

He described patients who came to him armed with articles from the Readers Di-gest. He was not impressed and actually looked down on that kind of “authority.”

As I listened to patients’ stories of how they were trying to convince their doctors to prescribe LDN—and how they were often turned down—I realized that these patients were sharing information that was equally unimpressive to their doctors: printouts from the Internet. I knew, from my experiences with doctors over the years (personal and professional), that doctors do NOT like getting random printouts from online sources—some of which are good; some are not.

So I analyzed what it takes to convince doctors to change their minds about a treatment they weren’t taught about in medical school—a treatment their col-leagues don’t yet know about. I put to-gether a packet of information about LDN for patients to take to their doctors. I also provide them with strategies with which to share the materials. The results so far have been stunning. More people are con-vincing their doctors to prescribe LDN for them. And many people with autoim-mune diseases are benefiting.

The news about LDN is growing. For proof, check out the Facebook and Yahoo LDN groups. There are LDN groups for

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patients with several autoimmune diseas-es, including fibromyalgia and chronic fa-tigue syndrome. (See www.facebook.com/groups/108424385861883/)

For more information on LDN, in addi-tion to my book, HONEST MEDICINE, please read Elaine Moore and Samantha Wilkinson’s book, The Promise of Low Dose Naltrexone Therapy. For a true account of one wife’s journey to find a treatment for her husband’s multiple sclerosis, read Mary Boyle Bradley’s Up the Creek with a Paddle. All three books give lots of infor-mation about this cutting-edge treatment so many people are calling a cause celebre. LDN may complement your natural treat-ments rather than working against them.

Julia Schopick has been a public relations con-sultant for over 25 years. She became a patient advocate and health writer almost by accident—or rather, out of necessity when, in 1990, her husband was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. It was then that Julia added “patient advocate” to her many hats. During the years from 1990 to 2005, when her husband died, Julia found several inno-vative treatments for him—treatments his doctors didn’t know about. These innovative treatments kept him alive for 15 years—12 years beyond the doctors’ expectations.

But, sadly, Julia found that her husband’s doctors were not interested in learning about any treat-ments they themselves hadn’t recommended. She set out to educate people about how to find such treatments on their own, first through her website, www.HonestMedicine.com, and then, through her book, HONEST MEDICINE.

Julia is now in the process of writing a second book totally about LDN, with true accounts from people with a variety of autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Parkinson’s disease, asthma, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, myasthenia gra-vis, Crohn’s disease—and fibromyalgia.