Melatonin As A Sleep Aid - Experiences & Dosage??

Having a rough patch of insomnia & GP suggested trying Melatonin to help 'drop off'.

Anyone using it & can share whether they find it effective, the dosage level they are using & side effects?

As a side comment, have found a previously low level Tinnitus issue has kicked up several notches when switched from CPAP to APAP machine recently, & is feeding into the insomnia.

Thanks
95C4

The tricky thing about melatonin (which is a hormone, not a drug) is that you can't know if you have a deficiency without a blood or urine test.

If you are deficient, a corrective dose would be between 0.3 mg to 1mg.

Since commercial melatonin is available in up to 3 mg dosage, a dose of 1 to 3 mg could flood your body with up to 10x normal dose of excess melatonin (depending on your level of deficiency), resulting in side effects from restlessness to anxiety, etc.

Another issue is that there is a lot of cheap, substandard melatonin out there. I would research a good pharmaceutical grade brand before purchasing.

3mg...no side effects.....check with your doctor!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They are commonly sold in 3 mg, 5 mg or 10 mg tablets, but I found that even the 3 mg dose was way too much for me, personally. They made me feel very groggy the next day, and I don't recall getting to sleep much faster.

I bought some 1 mg tablets and would split them up, usually .3 - .5 mg. It still wasn't any miracle treatment, but at lower doses there weren't side effects. I'd suggest starting small and gradually increase the dosage over a few weeks to see how your body reacts.

3mg for me with no issues. I feel, but with no data, that it helps me fall asleep faster. I used benadryl before and that worked too, but it feels like melatonin is working better. My best nights, both statistically and length of sleep, have been with melatonin. YMMV.

Been taking .3mg tablet at bedtime (yes, not 3mg, 5mg, or 10mg, but .3mg), and it seems to help me getting to sleep, and getting back to sleep when I wake up. No noticeable side effects, but I've only been doing this for about a month. I don't know how old you are, but I"ve read that the body's melatonin production falls off as you get older. That doesn't mean that it will help, just that it might. Doesn't hurt to give it a try, especially if you keep the dose low.

RogerSC wrote:Been taking .3mg tablet at bedtime (yes, not 3mg, 5mg, or 10mg, but .3mg), and it seems to help me getting to sleep, and getting back to sleep when I wake up. No noticeable side effects, but I've only been doing this for about a month. I don't know how old you are, but I"ve read that the body's melatonin production falls off as you get older. That doesn't mean that it will help, just that it might. Doesn't hurt to give it a try, especially if you keep the dose low.

.........................
Well I would qualify as a Senior Citizen
Where did you get 0.3 mg tabs?

95C4

as far as I know the minimum dose you can buy is 3 mg. What you can is simple, just bit this into 2 or 3. No need to be so precise

cpapernewbie wrote:as far as I know the minimum dose you can buy is 3 mg. What you can is simple, just bit this into 2 or 3. No need to be so precise

................................
Having asked the question, I decided to dig around & found Amazon sell at least 2, if not more, 0.3 mg tabs, which I believe is 300 mcg. User Review comments tend to support a view that 'less is more' with this stuff.

95C4

I agree with suggestions to start small and increase the dose incrementally to avoid the possibility of a rough night finding out you started too high. I started at 3mg and had a night from hell with nightmares and fitful - borderline tortured - sleep. In the end I worked back up to 1mg and stayed there for a long time. Did it really help? I don't know. During the same time period I was starting to better control my limb movements and was already effectively treating my OSA, so maybe just some time of allowing my brain to heal and redevelop healthy sleep patterns was what was going on. I did eventually stop the Melatonin, not because of any side effects, just because I wasn't convinced it was helping as my sleep without it was the same as with it. You never know unless you try.

95C4 wrote: Well I would qualify as a Senior Citizen :)
Where did you get 0.3 mg tabs?

95C4

From amazon.com, lots of choices there. Just be careful to pick one of the .3mg ones, since there are lots of different dosages available.

Here's one that's an "add-on" (which I find annoying unless I'm already ordering a bunch of stuff *smile*) if you're already ordering stuff from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GG ... UTF8&psc=1

or there are various other ways of ordering them...I like to keep the quantity down on my first order, just to try them.

I use a melatonin+theanine sleep aid, I think it's 5 mg melatonin, but I use a pill splitter to take half a pill at a time.

My experience has been that melatonin is of great help in getting me to sleep despite having a pulsating mask on my face, but it doesn't keep me asleep. After 3-4 hours I'm awake again and usually end up taking the mask off so that I can sorta' get some rest!

Now... I've tried this a couple of times -- since it makes you sleepy enough to fall asleep but not keep you asleep, I've found I can take the other half-pill at 3 a.m. or so and that often works to let me wake up without feeling groggy. If I take the full pill when I go to bed, I end up groggy the next day. No idea why.

(individual results may vary...)

Melatonin did not work for me....I tried taking more, and it didn't work. My doc prescribed Rozerm. He said it was like melatonin x 16. That put me out, usually. The problem is it, it made me more tired the whole next day, which most sleep aids do to me. Rozeram wasnt bad though, it was a gentle sleep aid

Here's an article about the major study that changed everybody's minds about melatonin dosages, which RogerSC alludes to below:

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/melatonin.html

RogerSC wrote:Been taking .3mg tablet at bedtime (yes, not 3mg, 5mg, or 10mg, but .3mg), and it seems to help me getting to sleep, and getting back to sleep when I wake up. No noticeable side effects, but I've only been doing this for about a month. I don't know how old you are, but I"ve read that the body's melatonin production falls off as you get older. That doesn't mean that it will help, just that it might. Doesn't hurt to give it a try, especially if you keep the dose low.

Ditto Roger's comments. IMO 0.3 to 0.5mg is plenty and works great for me. NOT 3 TO 5MG FOR THE MATH CHALLENGED AMONG US

ptl4now wrote:Melatonin did not work for me....I tried taking more, and it didn't work. My doc prescribed Rozerm. He said it was like melatonin x 16. That put me out, usually. The problem is it, it made me more tired the whole next day, which most sleep aids do to me. Rozeram wasnt bad though, it was a gentle sleep aid

I would not be the guinea pig for that stuff

cpapernewbie wrote:as far as I know the minimum dose you can buy is 3 mg. What you can is simple, just bite this into 2 or 3. No need to be so precise

This works fine... I just bite 'em in pieces approximately 0.5mg in size. No need to be precise. Here's a brand I trust and have used for a quite awhile:
http://www.amazon.com/Source-Naturals-M ... B000GFPCRU

A BIG bonus is that the bottle lasts a LONG time if you bite them in 0.5mg pieces (approximately)

1mg Melatonin at WalMart
http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng ... tonin+1+mg