Monday, June 17, 2013

Low Dose Naltrexone for Pets

 
                           



There is a yahoo support group called "LDN for Pets" - It has much info on using LDN for cats, dogs and horses - and I imagine other critters as well.

Dr. Skip (Skip's Pharmacy - one of the best LDN compounding pharmacy!) is part of the community and knows much about proper dosing.  And some of the members have much experience with using LDN on their own pets.

For those who are interested, the proper dose of LDN is very small and the formula is this:

.03 mg. x weight

BTW - one can obtain Naltrexone 50mg without a prescription via:

NaltrexoneRx.com

I had tried using LDN on one of my cats a few years back - I am not sure that it helped because I did not use it regularly on Panda - I had just started using it myself.  Plus, she had carcinoma of the ear that had already spread to her brain so it was probably already too late.   And indeed, if one does a search on the web for "LDN for Cats" there are a few folks who did try using it on their own cats.  With not much success - however,  all of the cats were already close to end stage in the various disorders that they had.   Again, LDN as a "last ditch" resort to a crucial problem - so many people have turned to it for the same reason - traditional medicine no longer works for them or never did.

New Orleans has become a very expensive place to live - we have the highest car insurance rates in the country - perhaps the world.  Our utitlities are sky high as well as water bills.  Housing is through the roof - no wonder we have such a high homeless rate here.

I have been struggling for years to get by - lately things have been really bad - and of course the time that a few of my cats have become quite ill.  And are now 12-15 years old.  I was able to take one cat to the vet and am still paying on the $207.00 bill.  My heart is breaking because Mr. Magoo has hyperthesia - he is very sensitive to touch and has ripped a lot of his fur out.  He needs desperately to go to the vet for labwork to try and figure out what underlying condition(s) might have brought this on.  He has always been on a high quality diet - with no grains whatsoever. And he was always a cat who loved the slicker brush and zoom groom - not anymore.   My holistic vet is trying to help - Magoo is currently on antibiotics (as are two other cats in the house) as well as homeopathic remedies - nux vomic and hypericum, which do seem to help him.

I made the decision to start him on LDN the other night -  I only gave him .01 mg the first night and upped it to .02 the next night - he is a big guy @14 pounds so his goal dosage will be 0.39 mg.  We will see how it goes. He seems a bit more nervous today so I will try every other night dosing at 02 for a time - see how it goes and then work our way up.  Hopefully, he will be able to have labs sometime soon.

Of course, I would recommend to everyone who wants to start their own pet on  LDN, to have labs done first and to let their vet know what you plan to do.   As I do not have enough money for toilet tissue at the moment, I cannot do it.  So I am using one of my last five 3mg LDN capsules to give to Magoo.   In a dark vial, dump in the capsule - add 3ml (same as mg) of bottled or distilled water - and shake.  Draw up required amount in syringe and give to pet.  Same if one has other strengths of LDN capsules or a 50mg tab - but use 50ml of water. Use the same amount of water as the mg of ldn used.  Keep in fridge - it will keep a long time.

I will update on Magoo's progress as we go along - I am hoping that it will help and that I am not too late in starting to treat whatever the poor guy has.  He is one of the 5 cats that survived for two weeks without food or water following the levee breaches after Katrina - all of those cats are heroes to me as well as being my "children"  -  I cannot tell you the stress and heartbreak that his illness has brought to me.   Again, the LDN is what has kept me going and I pray that it will do the same for Magoo.

NIGHTMARE -  Last Thursday, after noting that Magoo was drooling,  I pried open his mouth and found a nasty tumor underneath his tongue.  Extremely shocking and very sad finding - and after finally getting an appointment for him for exam and labs - this.   And feeling like an idiot that I did not see it earlier - I had been in his mouth 3 times daily for a couple of months.

Awaiting holistic vet's call - she briefly looked at it on Friday.  She wants to try and shrink it before doing anything else - trying Thuja - 1M and 50M.   Meanwhile, I let Magoo skip a couple of days of the LDN - I am so afraid of cell proliferation with this.   However, after spending hours upon hours reading about this insidious disease, and how almost all cases end badly,  I figure that Magoo has nothing to lose with the LDN.  Started over last night with 0.15 mg and will go to every night dosing of 0.20 tonight.  The less is more approach obviously did not work for him -  well, hopefully, we will know more once the poor guy has lab work -  I am devastated over this - Goo is my boy - a sweet sweet spirit.    Playing this poverty game might have cost him his life.

UPDATE JULY 5TH 2013

Vet visit for labs and xray show clean scans and normal liver & kidney function tests. Slightly enlarged heart and liver.   Elevated white blood cells because of UTI.   Tumor that looked red and ragged last week now looks more pink with smooth edges.  Vet thinks might have shot that it is lymph related and not SCC.  On antibiotics for 8 days and then see how he is - then, if still needed, go to another vet for biopsy.

Been syringing his mouth with calendula and grapefruit seed extract mixed with bottled water several times a day.  0.02 LDN almost every night.  Vet not thrilled but did write Magoo a script for liquid LDN that will be filled at Skip's Pharmacy.  And as Magoo weighs in at 15-16 pounds, his correct LDN dose is more like 0.45 mg.  But again, less is more with LDN, particularly in those with impaired liver function.  So keeping fingers and paws crossed that it is not SCC!!!!!!

5 comments:

Renee said...

Hi how is kitty doing? hope all is well.. hugs

Unknown said...

How is Magoo doing?. I've heard LDN can take 3-6 months to work in humans, so it could take this time in pets too. Also a number of other treatments could help like sodium dca, "hemp" oil, liposomal vit c and so on. I've posted as jondoeuk on http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144836&page=12 a lot of different things to fight cancer too

UrbanFirefly said...

Hi -
I wonder how you and Magoo are doing. I found you because I am in a similar financial boat, have a lot of my own chronic health problems, and more than anything, I am worried about my dog's health. She is half Shar-Pei and has skin problems. It was bad enough when she had the tiny water sacs in bunches all down her back legs, but now it's up around one of her eyes and under her chin. She has been grain free for about 10 of her 11 years, and eats very well. I give her Honest Kitchen grain-free along with MCTs and other good stuff, and have even worked her up with high dose Vitamin D with appropriate K2 and even iodine, and nothing has any effect one way or another. So frustrating.
I am working on my Dr. to get me onto LDN, and I think it could help her as well, but I have to be able to afford to get her to the vet again first of course, and $1800 worth of surgery for her in January is taking a long while to recover from.
In the meantime, I did try that link you gave for the non-prescription, but it's a generic link page now.
I wish you well.

Nola Chris said...

I need to update this post - Magoo passed last Sept 2013 - But LDN sounds like it could very well help your dog.

LDN For Pets is a great group - many very informative and experienced
folks over there who have been using low dose naltrexone on various
pets including horses:


https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/LDN_4_Pets/info


I also need to update the places to find non script LDN pharmacies - the above group can also steer you to the right places.

Good luck!

Nola Chris

meowduchat said...

Thank you, Chris, for posting your blog. I'm sorry you lost Magoo.

I just wanted to post a comment. And, like Chris, I am not a doctor. Actually, I've never even used it yet (about to start on myself and my pets). I just wanted to add, don't be discouraged if you see a case where a pet was given LDN but didn't make it. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

- When you're fighting any kind of invader (cancer, viral, bacterial, etc), you have to deal with 2 issues. 1) Getting rid of the invader and 2) Regulating the immune system.

Although it is possible for the immune system alone to fight off an invader, it often can't. Sometimes it doesn't know HOW to fight the invader, or it overreacts and attacks organs, joints, etc. LDN is used as an immune regulator. It won't necessarily cure cancer or a virus or a bacterial infection. So if you're dealing with Lyme disease, for instance, your pet can get a lot of relief from LDN (but I'm not sure LDN alone could cure the disease). It will help keep the immune system from going crazy and attacking joints, etc. And it might even trick the body into living in harmony with the invader for a while. But the invader will proceed to inflict damage that will eventually take its toll. Often, it's the immune system response that seems to cause more harm (i.e. inflammation and destruction of tissue).

Supposedly, there are some invaders that only cause problems because of the pet's immune system reacting, and are completely harmless otherwise (i.e. coronavirus). So the trick is to get the immune system NOT to react. My cat died of FIP and I just didn't understand why the coronavirus mutates into FIP in some cats but not others. The impression I got from reading was that, if the cat's immune system doesn't respond to the coronavirus strain then it won't progress and turn into FIP. It only progresses in the cats who's immune system reacts. Again, this is not something I'm entirely certain of. Just the impression I got from reading. So, in the case of my cat, I do think LDN would have allowed him to live a much longer life. All of the symptoms he suffered were due to the toll of immune response over a period of a couple of years (thickened intestinal walls, inflammation, skin lesions, and in the end, severe anemia).

LDN has the added benefit of increasing endorphins with very little risk of side effects. So, at the very least, it can't hurt to let your pet feel better when they're sick. I do plan to try to convince my vet to use it on my dog. If they say no, I'm doing it anyway (and telling them so). Best of luck to you all!