Naltrexone in the management of fibromyalgia: latest findings

Chronic inflammatory diseases are complex to treat and have an impact on a large number of patients. Due to the difficulty of treating these diseases and the great impact on quality of life, patients often seek off-label medicines to gain relief from symptoms.

Naltrexone, a drug used to treat alcohol dependence and opioid addiction, has been used in low doses off-label for treatment of pain and inflammation in fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease and other diseases.

A research group has now looked at the evidence to see if low-dose naltrexone is safe, tolerated and helpful in people with chronic pain and inflammatory conditions.

They found that low-dose naltrexone has a good safety profile and is tolerated but fewer studies showed that it actually worked. Most focused on subjective measures such as quality of life or self-reported pain. The team concludes:

“These studies do demonstrate that low-dose naltrexone has subjective benefits over placebo, but evidence for more objective measures is limited.”

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