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LDN Diary: My experience as a UC-er trying LDN (low-dose naltrexone) as an adjunct therapy

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magicbeans

Day 10 of 1.5mg LDN, April 2, 2023

I've been taking 1.5mg before bed and have been waking up feeling grumpy, groggy, foggy, and tired. I'm a natural morning person and I find this change very strange and uncomfortable.
 
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magicbeans

Day 11 LDN, April 3, 2023

I switched my dose to the morning and WOW, what a difference!!! No grogginess, no grumpiness, no tiredness upon waking. I am naturally a morning person and my theory is that morning people should take LDN in the morning.

I've also noticed that LDN seems to make it more difficult for my body to metabolize CBD, so it's better to take these two very far apart. I take CBD in the evening before bed.
 
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magicbeans

Day 15 LDN, April 7, 2023

1.5mg taken upon waking on an empty stomach.

The LDN has a profound effect on my mood. I've always been prone to Bipolar 2-like mood swings which occur over the span of about a week. I've never been formally diagnosed, but pretty much met all the clinical markers for Bipolar 2 in my teens and twenties. Several days of despair, followed by 1-2 days of euphoria that didn't quite reach full-blown mania. As I age into my 30s, these mood swings have continued, but have become much more subtle.

The LDN seems to recreate these mood swings, but over a scale of 12 hours, rather than a scale of 1 week. For a few hours I will feel a small amount of fogginess or despair (anhedonia), and then the anhedonia rebounds and I feel en energetic micro-mania/euphoria. I must say that the despair is very difficult to endure, and if I didn't have a meditation practice, the despair might even be very dangerous. But for me, I get through the couple hours of despair with mindfulness knowing that it will end.

The rebound effect will feel both energetic and euphoric, with one of those feelings being dominant depending the overal feeling-tone of my day. Yesterday the rebound effect was very energetic and I was able to do some extremely productive programming work in the evening (very hard for me to code in the evening usually). Today the rebound effect is extremely euphoric, and I feel a great sense of calm and wellbeing.

Note: it seems like when I take the LDN on an empty stomach, the anhedonia is almost undetectable (presents as a mild nausea and tiredness), and the rebound euphoria occurs less than an hour after dosing. When I take LDN with food (as I did yesterday), the anhedonia happens about 5 hours after dosing and lasts for about 2 hours, and the rebound euphoria happens about 10 hours after dosing. Definitely prefer empty stomach dosing!!!

I have the intuitve sense that these rebound periods of euphoria-energy are what induce mucosal healing in the gut, and the magic of LDN is that it produces this euphoria in the body on a consistent daily schedule. That's also why it would, in theory, take a few months to resolve physical UC symptoms. Can't wait for my August bloodwork to compare with the bloodwork I got a couple days ago!!
 
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MrWheat

Location
Fort Lauderdale
magicbeans said:
Day 11 LDN, April 3, 2023

I switched my dose to the morning and WOW, what a difference!!! No grogginess, no grumpiness, no tiredness upon waking. I am naturally a morning person and my theory is that morning people should take LDN in the morning.

I've also noticed that LDN seems to make it more difficult for my body to metabolize CBD, so it's better to take these two very far apart. I take CBD in the evening before bed.
Click to expand...
How do you know how well CBD metabolizes?
 
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magicbeans

MrWheat said:
How do you know how well CBD metabolizes?
Click to expand...
I know when it metabolizes poorly because I wake up feeling hungover. This usually happens when I take too much, or when I take it at the same time as the LDN (probably because the LDN reduces the amount of receptors the cannabinoids can bind to, thereby creating more unbound, "free" cannabinoids in my body that end up overwhelming the liver).
 
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magicbeans

Day 50 LDN, May 22, 2023
4.5mg daily, taken on an empty stomach first thing in the morning. I wait at least 1 hour before eating so the LDN has time to metabolize a bit.

I'm now almost two months into LDN. The only negative side effect I experience is a very mild nausea around the time I take the LDN, but TBH I'm often nauseous before eating anyway, so it might not even be the LDN.

I've seen a huge shift in my motivation this week. I was able to do today, in just one day, several errands which I have been putting off for the past six months. Including enrolling in a Calculus course I've been wanting to take for a whole year and weeding my terribly overgrown garden. Until today, I just didn't have the motivation to complete either of these tasks.

I have an absolutely wild amount of energy. Way too much energy. More energy than I even know what to do with. It's strange. I'm so accustomed to navigating my constant fatigue and dread of doing things, but now I'm feeling just the opposite: having completed my huge pile of chores and work, my reservoir of energy and motivation still feels full.

My physical UC symptoms are about the same. Still seeing blood in the stool, but only going once a day and the stool is solid. One positive change is that I'm not feeling any urgency or cramping in my colon, so that's great.

I must say, feeling THIS MOTIVATED is such a wonderful new feeling for me. This week, I have felt like the superhero alter-ego of my usual fatigued, listless self. I hope this motivation and energy persists. It's hella useful.
 
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