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In Tiny Doses, An Addiction Medication Moonlights As A Treatment For Chronic Pain
Wednesday 25 September 2019
 Lori Pinkley of Kansas City, Mo., has struggled with chronic pain since she was a teenager. She has found relief from low doses of naltrexone, a drug that at higher doses is used to treat addiction. (Photo by Alex Smith/KCUR) |
In Tiny Doses, An Addiction Medication Moonlights As A Treatment For Chronic Pain
Lori Pinkley, a 50-year-old from Kansas City, Mo., has struggled with puzzling chronic pain since she was 15.
She's had endless disappointing visits with doctors. Some said they couldn't help her. Others diagnosed her with everything from fibromyalgia to lipedema to the rare Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
Pinkley has taken opioids a few times after surgeries but says they never helped her underlying pain.
"I hate opioids with a passion," Pinkley says. "An absolute passion."
Recently, she joined a growing group of patients using an outside-the-box remedy: naltrexone. It is usually used to treat addiction,in a pill form for alcohol and as a pill or a monthly shot for opioids.
As the medical establishment tries to do a huge U-turn after two disastrous decades of pushing long-term opioid use for chronic pain, scientists have been struggling to develop safe, effective alternatives.
When naltrexone is used to treat addiction in pill form, it's prescribed at 50 mg, but chronic-pain patients say it helps their pain at doses of less than a tenth of that.
Low-dose naltrexone has lurked for years on the fringes of medicine, but its zealous advocates worry that it may be stuck there. Naltrexone, which can be produced generically, is not even manufactured at the low doses that seem to be best for pain patients.
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