To sleep, perchance to dream [laramie]

I’ve had trouble increasingly over the past few years with my sleep: waking in the middle of the night and then finding my mind too active to drift off again. Yesterday I came across an entry on the Natural Living LJCommunity from someone with the same problem, and among the treatments mentioned was Melatonin. I did some research on it: a substance secreted naturally in the pituitary gland that helps regulate sleep. So, I went out the local Whole Foods shop and got some, (along with some CoQ10 and green tea) and tried 1 mg last night. That didn’t help, but it’s recommended to start with the small dose and work up to find the dosage that works. (1-3mg was recommended.)

One of my new cable stations has been airing an interview with a ‘healthy aging’ expert, which has gotten me interested in taking my vitamins again. (I was also pleased to learn that I have been doing some things right all along: like drinking lots of water and preferring fish (especially salmon) to red meat, and preferring nuts as a snack.)

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I have the formal diagnosis of "sleep disturbance, profound" for many years. I started taking melatonin about five years ago, starting with 3 mg and gradually going up. I am now at 24 mg (eight 3 mg pills). I saw a doctor, a sleep specialist, last week, and I will be going in for a formal sleep study at Regions Hospital, but one thing I asked him was if I'm supposed to stop or cut way back on the melatonin; and it turns out so little is known about melatonin that nobody even knows if this dose really is outrageously high, or if it's a reasonable thing for someone with my level of sleep problems to take. It seems high to me and I won't go any higher, but at this level it is almost, not quite, functioning as a knockout pill. (Even so, I still have some bad nights, and have a couple of Ambien pills left for when that happens -- but sometimes I can take an Ambien and still not sleep. I wish things were better.) I chew up the melatonin while lying down, as they work much faster that way, even though they taste pretty awful. I hesitate to do anything that looks like prescribing medicine without a license, but will only say that for me, this works. The cheapest place to buy melatonin, I'm afraid, appears to be Wal-Mart, but the GNC nutrition stores also carry it and sometimes have "deals" where the price goes down if you buy a couple of bottles. Also you can find it at Walgreen's.

Nate Bucklin

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Thanks for the tips on sources for melatonin.

24mg does sound like a large dose, but it also sounds like your sleep problems are out of the ordinary; maybe your pituitary is producing even less than the usual diminishment that comes with aging?

Maybe it would be easier to take the pills if you dissolve them in water ahead of time and mix them with honey?

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laramie

To sleep, perchance to dream

Melatonin

Re: Melatonin

June