Page 25 - Winter2008

Moods and the

Immune System

How Low-Dose Naltrexone Can Make You

Feel Better, Mentally and Physically

By Thomas Cowan, MD

remember a poignant and pivotal moment when I was
in medical school back in the early 1980s. I was doing
I gastroenterology with a proctologist, a doctor who treats

diseases of the anus and rectum. The patient was a farmer

who had a frank way of talking. He told the proctologist
that he had an itchy butt.
The doctor then explained that there would be a number of causes of his
condition. It could be parasites, it could be ulcerative proctitis, it could be
cancer of the rectum or anal region, and that he would have to order some
tests. So he ordered a stool test, he ordered a blood test, and he did a sigmoid-
oscopy and a colonoscopy of the lower GI, which is a barium X-ray of his
lower bowel. And all this cost about ten thousand dollars and took a couple
weeks.
Then the farmer came back to his office and the doctor said, “I’ve found
out what’s the matter with you. You have pruritus ani.” Pruritus ani in Latin
means “itchy anus.” I started to laugh, which probably wasn’t a good thing
for my grade. I knew a little bit of Latin at the time and I said, “But he told
you that.”
But the proctologist was very serious: “Yes, but this is an official medical
diagnosis. There is a very specific treatment for pruritus ani, using cortisone
creams. You can find it in the textbooks.”

WINTER 2008 Wise Traditions 25