I was on hydrocodone 10/325 as needed for almost a year. Took one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It is the only thing that helps me to function. Now that I’m on LDN, I’m not taking the hydrocodone and can’t seem to get anything accomplished. But the pain doc doesn’t want me on the hydrocodone anymore which I can understand but I hope they can find something else to help with pain. So far nothing else has helped.

I took low dose Naltrexone (LDN) for some months, but I have a different understanding of what it is supposed to accomplish. First, you CANNOT take it if you're also taking any opiates. If you do, it will cancel out your pain meds and you may experience withdrawals in a matter of hours. When you have been taking opioids for a long time, it's only natural that your body will stop producing some of it's own natural opioid-like pain killers...the "feel good" chemicals called endorphins. Both endorphins and opioids bind to the same receptors in the body to send those signals to your brain that say, "You're OK, no more pain." The endorphin producer cells get LAZY, then when you stop taking the opiates, those cells don't always get right back to work, meaning that you don't even have the natural stuff that makes you feel "normal", much less any extra to help with pain. Some researches think this may be why addicts can't stop abusing drugs, because once they stop, they can't even feel "normal" again. They may NEVER feel good or feel joy and so they go back to drugs. LDN is supposed to TRICK the body and stimulate the production of your own natural feel good endorphins, putting those LAZY cells back to work. But, Naltrexone, low dose or normal dose, is not a painkiller.

Rjheindl, it can take up to a month to get good results from LDN. When I started, I felt a little better after about three days, even with the 1.7 dose, but that is unusual. In a previous post, I wrote about my friend who did the same gradual increase I did from 1.7 to 3 to 4.5 and found she did better at 3 than at 4.5. It works on the opiate receptors to block them, which causes what's called a rebound effect - the body produces more and receptors become more sensitive. It may be that for some people the 4.5 dose blocks too many receptors. It also works best taken at a time that it will be most active in the middle of the night - about 2 am. So most people do best if they take it between 10 pm and midnight. My suggestion is to hang in there until you can change the dose, or wait a month, then talk to your provider about trying 3 instead of 4.5. Hoping you feel better soon.

Another suggestion is to cut out sugar, or minimize as much as possible the amount you take in. That should help everyone with fibro. Hard to do, but sugar is highly inflammatory, which increases pain.

Thanks everyone. I started at 4.5mg. But said that I can go up if I haven’t seen any improvement. Got to wait two months before they will increase it.

It took about a month and a half for it to fully work into my system and figure out weather taking it in the morning or night was better to take it