LDN and painkiller question

[JDTM]

Hi folks, been a while since I've chatted with a lot of you, but I hope everyone is either doing OK or on the mend. As for me, I've encountered a slight bump in the road -- I woke up last night with some severe stomach pains, coming in waves. Hopefully they will subside soon... But anyways, here's the situation and a question:

I took LDN (along with my usual dose of Pentasa) at 11:00PM before I went to bed. By the middle of the night, the stomach pains started, but I tried to sleep it off. By 4:45AM, I had had enough and I opted to take the painkillers that I had on hand. (I have oxycodone, and up until this point I have not taken them at all, as I've never really felt the need; I've been either doing well, or the pain that I've had has been mild or manageable. I took two pills this morning though -- figured I'd make it count. My goal in taking them is simply to stay out of the hospital.)

Given the time between taking LDN and the painkillers, I figured that whatever opiate-blocking properties the LDN had would have worn off by then. Does anyone have any idea what might have happened? Do you think the LDN interfering is to blame, or do you think that something else is going on? Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[JDTM]

Just looked at the label, and to clarify, what I took was oxycodone-acetominophen, 5/325mg. So all in all I took 10mg of oxycodone, and about 650mg of acetominophen. My stomach is still killing me.

 

[Clash]

I saw you asked for additional support on this JDTM. Are you still in pain?

I haven't read any articles lately but all that I have read about LDN seems to indicate spacing the doses far apart should not cause any issues. I have a friend who took LDN for her MS and she was advised that pain meds should he taken at least 5 hours after LDN. She was unable to continue on LDN as there were some side effects but she never had any issues with taking the LDN at night and the pain meds the next morning.

Is it a possibility that you are having a flare? If you have still been experiencing pain then it would seem you haven't reached even clinical remission with your IBD and maybe some tests would be in order. A good one might be a fecal calprotectin which would tell you do you have inflammation occurring in your GI tract.

I hope things have improved but if not it might be time to speak with your GI.

 

[JDTM]

You aren't the only one with this advice... I have a gastro appointment today, as per the nurse's suggestion.

I really really REALLY hope it's not a flare, but I wouldn't necessarily be surprised. We'll see. In the meantime, I am feeling somewhat better -- managed to eat some things and my stomach isn't hurting yet today, so that's good!

 

[Clash]

Good to hear no pain yet today. I hope the appt goes well and you aren't flaring. Update when you can!

It sounds as if a bit of simmering inflammation has been going on. Regardless of the med, remicade or LDN if it isnt keeping the disease at bay it may be time to make some more treatment tweaks. Simmeringinflammation can cause as much damage even more than acute flares.

Hoping for the best!

 

[Jmrogers4]

Just saw this, yes it seems you are taking them far enough apart to not interfere with each other.
Glad you are going in, better to get it checked.
We did so well on the LDN for so long but just couldn't pull him out of the last flare and had to switch to remicade in January.
Hope it all goes well today, keep us posted.

 

[JDTM]

Quick question -- was Jack able to stay on the LDN while taking Remicade? I'm curious about what's going to happen in the event that my GI thinks it's a good idea to switch up my meds. I'm hoping that this will be something that I just beat down with budesonide, but I'm guessing I'll have to get some bloodwork done at minimum so that we can figure out what's up.

 

[Jmrogers4]

We were given the option of continuing it but choose not to although both his GI and I hemmed and hawed about it for a while since it had worked so well. I think it might have again given enough time but since we are in those prime growing/puberty time we figured we didn't have a lot of time to give it. kwim? So once he is done growing the plan is to start on LDN again.
If it is a flare and you can knock out the inflammation with the budesonide and give the LDN a chance to get things back under control. According to Jack's GI there is not really anything against taking a course of steriods and the 10mg rule was really for the trials as at that level it's not really theraputic and so would not skew any results of the LDN working or not.