Low Dose Naltrexone Blog

October 11th was the 4th annual conference on LDN in Los Angeles.
There were about 80 to 120 attendees mostly consisting of
medical professionals  & LDN users or people otherwise interested in LDN. Mainly from Los Angeles area attended but we spoke to Canada ( Toronto),  Turkey, Colorado, and some from East Coast. Of course our group Hong Kong and Phoenix.

I noticed much more interest in cancer this year and more
attendees with cancer and many questions about cancer and LDN. Some physicians treating patients with cancer with LDN attended and asked questions.
One physician who is adding LDN with chemotherapy to his
patients finds his patients tolerate chemo better and do much better.
Most  who are doing chemo to add LDN along with their treatment. A
walk   in……a young man with adrenal cancer who just heard about LDN  was getting all the information he could and even got a doctor’s
name and was suppose to call and get his LDN on Monday. His current
treatment with chemo is not working well for him.

Met one lady from Turkey who has stage 4 Melanoma ( delightful
lady) and she has been on LDN for 7 months and doing great. She has 18 tumors and did a cyberknife to her brain earlier this year
successfully. She looked wonderful and we discussed our mutual
cancer and how we are doing with LDN. She attended with her husband and her mother.

Dr. David Gluck opened the conference with current LDN news and
ongoing trials. He mentioned new books coming soon to be published
about LDN and all the efforts from this small group getting more
and more attention.

The reports and talks varied from Ph’D microbiologist( chemical
analysis of LDN and how LDN possibly works) to MD’s to
pharmacist’s Dr. Skip’s talk which is always enjoyable and informative with studies conducted by his students on LDN.

Dr. McCandless discussed her on going work with Mali Africa HIV
trials with pictures of the group she is working with in Mali.I
noticed that every speaker touched someone in the audience who was
looking for help. Since her work is with autism some parents there
were looking for help for their children with either autism or
crohns.

A doctor from Scotland, Tom Gilhooly was extemely interesting to
hear his endeavors to get a trial going in UK. He spoke with great
interest and humor. He announced that their will be a “First ever”
LDN conference in Europe April 25th, 2009. I was thinking to put
that on my calendar and try to attend. I will be in UK.

Dr.Burt Berkson spoke with his slides about actual cases for
Pancreatic cancer and some other patients, noting while they did
their course of LDN and stayed on LDN did quite well. Some have
been with stage 4 pancreatic cancer for 4-5 years now and doing very
well.

Although some patients thinking they didn’t need LDN anymore, went
back to their oncologists and stopped LDN after achieving remission
only to be told to have more chemo by the oncologist. All of these
patients have died in a short time off of LDN and more chemo. It
was striking to see those who stayed on LDN and those who thought
they were fine and stopped.

Met many wonderful people who have emailed with support to us over
the past year and they are even more wonderful in person. I would
encourage anyone taking LDN to try to attend one LDN conference.
It is most rewarding.
Cyndi Lentz has posted photos to facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009013&l=37cf8&id=1125766174

Dee

Well I have beat all expectations of 4-9 months survival. I have
been on LDN now for 20 months and doing fine with lungs metastases.

Good news from friend in UK with Multiple myeloma who has been on
chemo for a couple sessions and ” taking LDN” also. He has suddenly
improved and they are stopping his chemo as bloodwork is so good.

Doctors are surprised by his sudden wellness but family emailed me
to say that LDN is doing the trick. He hasn’t told doctors he is on
LDN so they are perplexed why suddenly he is so much better.

I had wished he started LDN sooner ( I told him about it months ago)
but he was hesitant and listened to the doctor’s plan of conventional
treatment ( which there is no cure for multiple myeloma). At least he
is on LDN now and doing well. Just talked to family members and they
were all celebrating last night at this miraculous turn around.

I have found two more doctors in my area who will prescribe LDN now
so making in roads on that front. Although I was “turned away” by
many I contacted initially as Naltrexone “wouldn’t do me any good”
they said. ( I have been on it for almost 2 years with stage 4B cancer)

But persistance pays off when you keep the push to educate these
doctors about LDN,some will listen.

I will be attending this year’s LDN conference in Los Angeles October 11 2008. Hope to show the medical community one example of the life saving benfits LDN has to offer.

Dee
http://www.ldn4cancer.com

May 15, 2008 CT SCAN shows the nodules still growing slowly which gives me time to try other treatments which will target the largest nodule directly.

June 13, 2008 I underwent Radio Frequency Ablation (RFA) to destroy the largest nodule in my left lobe. I’ve now reset the “clock” on the largest tumor growth, expecting that the LDN will continue to hold down the growth of the existing nodules, extending my high quality of life. LDN has had no side effects with me, and anyone seeing me would never believe I had cancer, since I feel and appear healthy.

It’s now been 16 months since diagnoses with metastatic lung cancer, and well beyond the 9 months my oncologist had given me even with chemotherapy. LDN has been successful in controlling the cancer growth with no side effects, a success beyond anything that conventional medicine has been able to achieve for my cancer type.

Dee

I ran across an interesting news article titled “Cancer cure ‘may be available in two years‘ ” which described published research by Dr. Zheng Cui from Wake Forest University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center titled “Spontaneous Regression of Advanced Cancer in Mice“.

The detailed study they’ve performed involved transfusions of “super strength” cancer-killing cells from mice with strong immune systems resistant to a virulent strain of mouse cancer, into normal mice without the strong immune system.

Cancer induced in the normal mice disappeared after the transfusion of the cancer-killing cells into the normal mice, an observation commonly referred to in the medical community as “Spontaneous Regression” since science has no current explanation why the cancers disappeared.

“… Based on these results, Drs. Cui and Willingham and their colleagues suggest that a previously unknown immune response may be responsible for spontaneous regression.”

If you read their detailed research in the link above, you can’t help but notice an interesting similarity to the way in which LDN has been theorized to work on cancer cells, by up-regulating the body’s immune system.

The difference is that LDN is using the body’s own immune system to fight the cancer’s “…by increasing the natural killer (NK) cell numbers and NK cell activity…” which is one of the mechanisms that this new mouse research has identified as one of the reasons for the “spontaneous regression”.

The introduction of donor cells into the body may produce unintended consequences that may also be dangerous, versus working on the body’s own immune system to induce similiar responses.

The cancer researchers have identified a previously unknown mechanism that mainstream cancer research has not accepted as possible but has now been found occurring in nature (the researchers just “…happened upon a single mouse that surprised them with its ability to resist several forms of cancer“). Their final statement at the end of the research article says it all: “We can only be grateful that Nature never read our textbooks”

Dee

February 3rd, 2008 marks 12 months after getting the CT scan results confirming metastasis of my cervical cancer to my lungs (stage 4B). At that time my oncologist gave me 4-9 months survival even with chemotherapy (palliative only), and advised me to get my affairs in order. My cervical cancer is not responsive to any known conventional chemotherapy agents and metastatic cancer is a certain death sentance.

Not having any conventional treatment hopes, I went unconventional, since the unknown (unconventional, “unproven” treatments per FDA) is preferable to the known (FDA approved chemotherapy for metastatic cervical cancer guaranteed not to work) and started LDN 4.5 mg nightly on Feb 12, 2007.

From my latest CT scan (Jan 15, 2008), LDN has slowed the Doubling Time of the largest identified CA lung nodule to 225 days (when calculated from previous scan) versus the rate on Feb 3, 2007 of 33 days.

If the Doubling Time had remained unchanged (cancerous nodule doubling in size every 33 days), then the oncologist’s calculation of 9 months would have been accurate as largest nodule would have been near 9 cm in size by Nov 1st 2007, and conventionally accepted as the point where death will occur.

With the extra time that LDN has given me, my objective is to try out different complementary regimens, which will not conflict with LDN (the immune system modulator) and try to target the cancer cells more directly. LDN has proven, in my case, it’s ability to control the growth rate of my cancer so LDN will be the foundation on which I will add other treatments.

The first treatment I added to my daily LDN regimen was a high pH supplement. On Nov 13th, I started taking Cesium Chloride (CsCl) orally, approximately 6 grams per day, ingesting 96 grams total over a 30 day period (finished on Dec 13, 2007).

I waited 30 days and on January 15, 2008 started on the Artemisinin (ART) protocol as recommended by Dr. Singh, one of the early promoters of ART and a complementary treatment that Dr. Bihari had also tried when he was still practicing.

For my lung cancer, ART sounds like a more targeted protocol than CsCl because ART enters the bloodstream and cells which are high in iron content (characteristics of cancer cells) are the ones which will attract the ART, leaving normal cells more or less untouched. ART has been demonstrated as being toxic to some cancer cell lines (cervical is in the list) but as with other treatments (e.g. toxic chemo), getting the cancer cells to identify themselves is the holy grail.

My ART treatment is currently underway and I will know if there is any benefit at the next CT scan planned for April 2008.

Dee

My last CT scan on November 1st shows the tumors growing very slowly, but not yet completely stopped. However that may also be due to the resolution of the low dose CT scan since changes were less than 2 mm for the largest nodule (now estimated at 2.5 cm from previous 2.3 cm). Some obvious errors in the radiologists report doesn’t give me a high confidence level that the CT interpretation was rigorous.

So I’m doing my own personal clinical trial on some of the alternative treatments espoused on the net which I think will be complementary with LDN to try an enhance the effectiveness of LDN.
LDN boosts the immune system while the complementary treatments will target the cancer cells more directly.

This LDN-centric approach is not something I’ve read about on the net and has a logical basis:

• The complementary treatment targets the cancer cells and put them into distress
• The LDN boosted immune system can more easily identify the distressed cancer cells and destroy them using the immune systems arsenal of biological weapons.

The first complementary treatment I’ve decided to try is the high Alkaline protocol. I’ve selected Cesium Choloride (CsCl) as the Alkaline mineral to supplement my diet.

There’s much written about CsCl on the net and in a nutshell it penetrates cancer cells causing them to undergo apoptosis by raising the cancer cells pH from an acid level (due to a cancer cells anerobic nature) to a high alkaline (pH level. Normal cells can thrive in a high alkaline environment so are unaffected, but cancer cells cannot survive.

In the cancer cells distressed state, the LDN boosted immune system may be able to find the distressed cells more easily (normally cancer cells evade the immune system by clever “cloaking” mechanisms)
My first complementary protocol which I started on November 13th, is Cesium Chloride. I started taking 6 grams per day (orally 3 grams, twice daily) leveling off to3 grams per day (1.5 grams twice daily) 2 weeks into the protocol, with appropriate Potassium and vitamin supplements.

I will complete this protocol by December 8th, after taking a total of 90 grams CsCl. Will then go on Christmas holiday and on return in January have a CT scan to measure the effectiveness of the CsCl complementary treatment.

An effective treatment will be evidenced by a reduction in the nodule sizes from the November 1st scan.

My next complementary treament is already lined up in January when I will try an Artemisinin protocol which should complement my LDN. More on that later.

Dee

On the eve of 3rd annual LDN conference it still amazes me how people are needlessly dying and suffering because of medical bias and ‘Big Pharma’s hold” when they could be helped. I had read numerous books and articles and it became apparent to me that better alternatives existed and that the truth was being suppressed because of ignorance and blatant hostility to alternative medicines.

I’ve come to see that the extent of hostility was far more than I’d ever imagined. The natural doctors are doing what’s right, prescibing LDN for those in need while most oncologists would rather let you die following the chemotherapy regimen which is proven not to work in most cases, than try alternative approaches which anecdotally have had positive results.

My oncologist told me I was terminal and only palliative chemotherapy was the only option left, which is not an option at all. He would not  look into Low dose Naltrexone and even now that I am stable will not even respond to my updates or charts.

“Only 10% of the oncologists would prescribe at least one type of CAM and this attitude correlated significantly with previous physicians’ use of CAM and with being a clinical oncologist as well as with having questioned patients about CAM use. Most oncologists (80.7%) would not indicate the use of CAM, mainly for lack of scientific proof of its efficacy (56.2%). Click here for article.

With the number of people who are dying with conventional oncology it amazes me why alternatives are not embraced by the oncological community who peddle their treatments which make you sick and in most cases add only a few painful months to a patients life.

Low dose Naltrexone public awareness needs to be significantly increased so more can be helped. With the hope of 6 clinical trials commencing in 2008 with LDN, maybe this conference will be the catalyst for all those in need in 2008.

I know it has saved my life,

Dee

Here’s a link to a New York Times story of a woman who died from a clinical trial for a gene therapy drug designed to treat rheumatoid arthritis. The drug is designed to suppress the immune system in the local joints, which mainsteam medicine thinks is the reason for the arthrititic inflammation.Common sense says that if you suppress the immune system, then you’re prone to other infections which can become more serious than the condition being treated by the drug. In this case the “… cause of death was a fungal infection, histoplasmosis, that had gone out of control, destroying her organs“.But she was also on two other immune-suppressing drugs., one of them called Humira and the combination could have been the cause of death as she had been on Humira for some time.

She died at the University of Chicago Medical Center, so one must assume she had the best care possible but to no avail.Compare that conventional approach with the LDN approach. LDN doesn’t suppress the immune system, but normalizes the immune system and relieves the rheumatoid arthritis symptoms without the serious side effects of the immune-suppressing drugs.Pass this story on to your friends who might be thinking of immune suppressing drugs for their arthritis and steer them to LDN as the safe alternative. Since LDN only normalizes a deficient immune system, many other health problems that are immune related  can also be helped (cancer, AIDS, MS, etc)