Moden Medicine

I have yet to mention anything at all in the way of treatment options or my own personal views on any of the medicines out there as of yet, so I will do this now with two of the medicines I have reading a lot about and have had on my mind these past couple days. In my next post I will be sure to review and talk about all Crohn's related treatments, these two however stick out to me so much right now because they can potentially effect so many lives, not only those who are dealing with Crohns. As we all know, any relief from what we are faced with day to day is a gift, a maricle, and nothing short from being a true blessing.

This is a treatment that has been getting more and more good reviews. This one is called Low Dose Naltrexone or LDN for short. It has been known to treat all kinds of autoimmune diseases, HIV/AIDS, cancer, and central nervous system disorders. It has been known to have a 67% success rate in remission for those with Crohns and 89% responded in some way during the clinical trials. It is not FDA approved worldwide however. It seems to be very promising, but it is also like with all medicines not for everyone. Anyone who is currently taking any type of narcotic containing paid medicine will have to stop taking that medicine, LDN blocks the opioid receptors in your brain and has also been used in treating heroin addiction. You will have to scroll about half way down the page to get to the place that mentions LDN, but here is a link I found containing an interview with Dr Berkson regarding LDN, http://tinyurl.com/djyldv . A big thing that jumped out at me was that anyone who is taking an immunosuppressive are cautioned to not take this. Unlike all the other treatment options most of us have heard of, this doesn’t suppress the immune system, it actually boost’s it. Meaning for most autoimmune disease patients such as myself, you would have to taper down on your normal medication and stop taking it before starting this. That can be very hard and for some life threatening! On the upside, it has been known to change lives very drastically and compared to most of the medicines out there is really very cheap, under $40 a month. For more information regarding LDN, just follow this link, http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/index.htm .

A drug that was identified as clofazimine and it has been around since the 1890’s! Now if that isn’t a slap in the face to anyone who has or knows someone who has an autoimmune issue! It is a small article, so I will post it here so you can all read it rather than providing a link, seriously it goes with the old saying “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it”. Things like this make me wonder just how many other treatments and cures could be right in front of us and we never know about them because the medical field is always so worried about advancements mostly I feel for their own self satisfaction. It doesn't mention anything about Crohns for the most part, but since Crohns is an autoimmune disease I am thinking in time it would also be used to help treat that. That is, if they dont "forget" about it once again. Here is the article I found, seriously I could rant about this until I turn blue in the face, so I will skip the ranting and go to the posting..!

HealthDay

By Robert Preidt

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 4 (HealthDay News) -- A century-old antibiotic used to treat leprosy may prove effective as a treatment for multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases, Johns Hopkins researchers say.

They screened thousands of U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs and identified clofazimine, created in the 1890s, as a drug that targets a molecular pathway that plays an important role in guiding the body's immune response.

"We never expected that an old antibiotic would hit this target that has been implicated in multiple sclerosis, psoriasis and type 1 diabetes," Jun O. Liu, a professor of pharmacology and molecular science, said in a Johns Hopkins news release. "People have been working for years and spending tens of millions of dollars on developing a drug to inhibit a specific molecular target involved in these diseases, and here we have a safe, known drug that hits that target."

The study was published in the journal PLoS One.

"Until now, clofazimine's presumed target was not human cells, but bacteria. But we discovered the drug has a tremendous effect on human immune cells that are heavily involved in both the initiation and execution of an effective immune response," Liu said.

The prolonged accumulation of calcium inside of immune cells is one of the key steps involved in turning on the body's immune response. The researchers found that clofazimine blocks the flow of calcium into immune cells and tamps down the presence of calcium in the cells, actions that short-circuit the signaling pathway involved in autoimmune diseases.

HealthDay

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That is all for this post, I will return again soon, Take care everyone.