Is LDN like Pentasa, or 6MP??

[Sea_Star]

Hi everyone!

I used to run away from 6MP and mainstream treatment since mild Crohn's was nothing compared to the anxiety I was feeding poison to my body and possibly allowing Lymphoma to occur, at such a young age (even though the risk is low)...

so I found a doctor who combines traditional therapy with alternative ideas, and he thinks diet DOES have a component in IBD (something about processed foods and sugars causing a reaction....) so he prescribed 1.5mg of LDN and the SCD diet. This is Dr. Roland Shepard in Tampa. But my concern now is..if this will halt progression, because even though I may feel fine, there may be silent inflammation :/ Now I'm wondering if I should go back to mainstream and take the risk lol...my question:

Does LDN work like Pentasa, only topically? Or does it really stop inflammation in deep layers??
He said they don't really know how it works...but...I don't want a bowel resection OR cancer....

and i thought picking a major was hard... :/ :eek2:

Thank you all for your input!

 

[Clash]

Pentasa is like the one like a topical ointment as it is only effective on the top layer of the bowel whereas inflammation with CD runs transmural or the whole depth of layers of the bowel wall. That is why pentasa is generally effective for UC which only inflames the top layer of bowel but not so effective with CD. But it also the one with the least side effects among traditional CD meds.

6MP is and immunosuppressive drug so it works to suppress the immune system in an effort to quell the inflammation.

LDN works completely different in that it obstructs brain endorphins causing a rebound effect in the pituitary glad and the excess of that release balance the immune system. Or something to that effect.

Each work in different ways and have different levels of efficacy, also they take varying times to reach efficacy. These are all questions you should ask your GI when deciding on a treatment

My son is 17 and was dxed with CD 2.5 years ago. We opted to go straight to remicade in an effort to get quick healing of the bowel and less risk of future surgeries. Unfortunately, although this took care of the majority of inflammation there is still some simmerring inflammation left. Since we have upped the dose tweaked the schedule and added methotrexate there was nothing left to tweak or change so we dropped remicade. These are hard decisions and ones that should be made with ad much understanding about what the treatment entails, the level of efficacy generally seen and the opinions of you GI and medical staff.

Good luck with your treatment.