Ask Larry:

Your question: When starting the LDN (I am starting at 0.5mg) how long should I stay on this dose before moving up a little? My goal is 4.5 but my doctor said to take it very slow.

Since you do this all the time I was hoping you might have a recommendation.

Larry’s Response: That’s a good question, but I don’t have a good answer.

The vast majority of people start at one given strength and stay there. The standard naltrexone dose is about one hundred times higher than LDN and there is very little information about dosing at the tiny amounts.

When we started dispensing LDN almost everyone was using 3mg daily. Then, there was a movement to 4.5mg, probably because someone had the idea that more is better. There certainly isn’t any scientific evidence that 4.5 is better than 3.0, but the trend is not that most of our sales are for 4.5mg. Large numbers of people use 3mg with great success.

LDN basically remains an unknown. When it works for someone the dose seems unimportant as long as it is far lower than the recommended dosing for the commercial product. Some doctors and customers feel better starting low and moving up – a very small number. As a result, I don’t have a good feel for how a person should advance to 3mg or to 4.5. From my perspective, the sooner the better. If the history suggests people prefer 4.5mg to 3mg, it also suggests that anything under those amounts are less likely to be as effective.

I think 4.5mg is safe and so is 3mg.

If ramping up is a concern, I’d think changing every 2 to 4 days would be about as conservative as you can get. The naltrexone is OUT of your system within a few hours and there isn’t any cumulative effect that I know of.