DICKINSON, N.D. ( KXNET ) — More medications are also being used off-label, meaning a medication is prescribed for a different purpose from what the FDA originally approved. Doctors and scientists continue to discover multiple uses for different medications.

Steve Irsfeld is a local generational pharmacist who is compounding one of those medications, helping patients across the region.

“I’m a second-generation pharmacist. I also have a daughter who’s a pharmacist. So, kind of entrenched in our families,” said Steve Irsfeld, pharmacist at Irsfeld in Dickinson.

Steve Irsfeld is also the owner of Irsfeld Pharmacy in Dickinson. His father was a pharmacist as well and wanted to bring compounding local.

“We started compounding which is basically customized medications that we make in a lab specifically for patients,” said Irsfeld.

In 2005, a local patient with Multiple sclerosis, or M.S., had heard about a study on Low Dose Naltrexone and Irsfeld compounded the medication for him.

“Fast forward to 2015, and we started going to conferences and they were talking about how this drug was working, the mechanism of action, the potential benefits to our patients. That’s when we started to get ourselves educated on it and started visiting with providers about it using it as an option for their patients,” explained Irsfeld.

Naltrexone was first commercially produced in the 1980s and was used to reverse the side effects of opioid drug overdoses. In the case of an overdose, a dose of 50 to 100 milligrams would be used to rescue a patient.

Now, some doctors use it in low doses to treat a number of problems such as Fibromyalgia, endometriosis, arthritis, depression, Lupus, HIV/AIDS, Autism, brain inflammation, Parkinson’s disease, M.S., Neuropathy, and can reduce the size of tumors, and much more.

Low Dose Naltrexone’s dose will depend on the patient, but 1 to 5 milligrams is the standard. In this low dose, there’s a partial blockage of the opioid receptor in the body, and that causes opioid receptors to become more sensitive and increase in numbers.

“Then, we send a message to our brain to produce more of our bodies own opioids, which are endorphins. When we tell people that we have a medication that can potentially increase endorphins by 300%, a lot of times, people get a little excited about that,” said Irsfeld.

Increased endorphins equals increased energy, better mood, and reduces pain in the body. When a doctor prescribes a patient Low Dose Naltrexone, they send the prescription to Irsfeld in Dickinson specifically. This way, Steve and his team at Irsfeld can press the naltrexone into lower doses and they keep up to date with their patients.

“What we do is we usually start them out at a low dose and inch them up every week looking for an effect, or benefit or side effects. We have a pretty robust follow up program. We’re going to be reaching out to our patients periodically checking in on them. They’re calling the pharmacy,” said Irsfeld.

Steve and his team at Irsfeld keep track of their patients’ symptoms through an online tracker in which they have to input every Sunday. This will help them determine which dose works best for them.

If you’re interested in learning more about LDN and how it could help you, you can learn more about it on Steve’s podcast on the Irsfeld Pharmacy’s website .

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