Naltrexone and mood

[KatieSmiles]

Putting this out there for anyone to comment.

I have been taking 50mg Naltrexone daily for about a month and I think it's actually helped my mood/depression. This confuses me because I thought one had to be careful about becoming depressed on this med and for me it seems to have done the opposite.

I sleep better, I wake up earlier, refreshed and life in general is happy and trouble free.
It's the same good feeling I had when taking prozac a number of years ago, which I had to discontinue using because of sleep issues and wicked dreams I had on it.

Has anyone else had this experience taking Nal? Any thoughts?

[Guest]

Naltrexone and mood

Katie

I just feel good because alcohol is not longer exerting the massively negative effects on my life that it once did. I have a lot more freedom as a result, sure I get down during the day but I also have periods of feeling fine or even ecstatic too.

So it could be Nal or it could be the fact you feel more in control of your alcohol intake perhaps? I believe this effect would be described as a psychosomatic side effect - not that it doesn't exist, it's just in indirect SE.

[KatieSmiles]

Naltrexone and mood

I fairly certain this feeling is caused by the med, not because of my control of alcohol intake. Maybe it will be short lived, will wait and see. I'm not complaining, I truly feel great!

[Greg]

Naltrexone and mood

I took naltrexone for a few weeks or bit longer roughly 2 years ago, when still drinking and according to TSM. I didn't give it enough time, mainly due to worrying that it was causing my depression to worsen. However I now think this could have been a negative placebo effect, as I was worried about nal blocking endorphins and causing depression that way. It may have just been underlying depression too, not a nal side effect.

I'd tell anyone to stick with it if it's helping. I have heard of very low-dose naltrexone supposedly helping mood, so maybe full doses may also help mood rather than worsen it. I asked an addiction doctor about this and he said heroin addicts hate nal due to perceived or real depression from it, but he also said this hasn't seemed as much of a problem with alcoholics who take it. He theorized that this may be due to the intense despair already felt by most alcoholics, so that any extra depression caused by nal may not be noticed, and may also be offset by improvements in mood if the drug helps reduce or stop alcohol intake.

[KatieSmiles]

Naltrexone and mood

Interesting Greg.
I really didn't want to try Nal because I thought blocking ones endorpins sounded bad, but being the curious sort that I am I decided to go for it and pay attention to my mood. So outside of TSM, I swear this med is making me feel BETTER not more depressed. Too early though, to say for sure.