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Topic: Why haven't you tried melatonin? (Read 2775 times) |
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Virginia
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #25 on: Jan 2nd, 2004, 3:33pm » |
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Ok, I bought some Melatonin last night at the drug store but I made the mistake of getting the 1mg bottle instead of the 3mg but I guess that's not a big deal.
My question is this...for those of you taking 9 or 10 mg per night, do you have trouble waking up in the morning? I mean the bottle says it's a nightime sleep aid and if I want to eventually take 9mg, then I would be taking 9 times the recommended dosage??
Thanks,
Virginia
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The Clusterhead formerly known as 9erfan.
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Giovanni
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #26 on: Jan 2nd, 2004, 4:12pm » |
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Start off with a lower dose if you wish. I believe that some of the people above have used 5 or 6 with good results. I had started off with 9 mg with great results. Hope it works for you.
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Giovanni
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #27 on: Jan 2nd, 2004, 4:23pm » |
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Virginia,
Here's some information on dosage:
A drop in nocturnal melatonin has been linked with cluster headaches, and melatonin supplementation has shown a low but significant preventive capacity for cluster headaches. In a blinded trial, 10mg of melatonin was given to 10 subjects and a placebo was given to 10 controls for 14 days. 5 out of 10 treated patients reported a decline in attack frequency after 3-5 days of treatment and then experienced no further attacks until melatonin was discontinued. The melatonin was taken in a single evening dose. [Cephalalgia. 1996;16: pp.494-496]
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CJohnson
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #28 on: Jan 2nd, 2004, 5:17pm » |
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Melatonin suppresses corticosteroid activity. It seems that indoles, like psilocin and melatonin, don't play together with corticosteroids, like prednisone. Melatonin could interfere with fertility. It is also contraindicated during pregnancy and lactation.
Melatonin is a hormone that is produced naturally in the body. Supplementation of naturally produced hormones, even one as benign as melatonin should be carefully monitered. Here is a parallel example:
Testosterone is a naturally produced hormone. Bodybuilders supplement with anabolic steroids (quite different from corticosteroids) which are literally synthetic testosterone. Any bodybuilder who uses steroids will tell you that steroids absolutely must be cycled. That is, you take them for a few weeks and then you stop taking them for a few weeks. The reason is by putting synthetic testosterone into your body, you stop the natural production of testosterone - to disastrous effect. Once the bodybuilder ends his steroid cycle, he must start a post cycle-cycle of some other substance to counter the effects of the lack of testosterone production.
Melatonin supplements are, in most cases, man made melatonin. I don't know what happens to your natural production of melatonin - which is already screwed up if you have clusters - by supplementing with man made melatonin, but it would behoove you to find out if you are considering this approach.
http://www.wellfx.com/InfoBase/vitamin_melatonin_.htm
That said, I intend to research the matter and am considering melatonin for myself because of the many positive effects it can have, cluster and non cluster related. Also, many bodybuilders suggest melatonin to combat the sleeplessness associated with some kinds of testosterone supplements
PFDANs
-Curtis
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t_h_b
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #29 on: Jan 2nd, 2004, 7:06pm » |
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9erfan, why don't you try take 0.5mg (half of a 1mg tab) to start? That's still a lot more melatonin than your body makes and that dose has all but eliminated my CH.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 2nd, 2004, 7:07pm by t_h_b » |
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No, it's not a headache--it's a Stage Ten Primary Chronic Periodic Idiopathic Trigeminovascular Cephalalgic Crisis.
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jflynn
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #30 on: Jan 5th, 2004, 10:06am » |
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9mg made it tough to wake in the morning for me. I now take 3mg and no more CH at all. However, the studies all used 10mg as dose. Everybody is different, experiment for best results. I wouldn't go above 10mg without asking a doctor or otherwise knowing it was advisable.
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Virginia
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #31 on: Jan 6th, 2004, 3:10pm » |
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Well, I think this stuff is upsetting my sleep cycle instead of helping it.
First night: 1mg
2nd night: 2mg
3rd night: 2mg
4th night: 5 mg
I'm sleeping worse than I was before, waking up every hour or so with shadows. What's up with that???
Virginia
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The Clusterhead formerly known as 9erfan.
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ave
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #32 on: Jan 6th, 2004, 4:56pm » |
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Flyn, I don't see why you should not react to any posts of mine. Afraid you'd lose control and start reviling me?
Well, I'll take the risk.
You have a theory, that
Quote:| since so many of us have expended great time, money and effort in trying to manage the clusters we are conditioned to believe that such a simple approach is not possible. |
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and:
Quote:When it's sugegsted that a $5 bottle of OTC remedy can work our brains respond "bzzt! overload, does not compute!" and we do our best to refute it. We think to ourselves "the last approach I tried didn't work and it cost me a fortune and that guy was a Johns-Hopkins doctor, no way these stupid vitamins would help."
In another thread a member is weighing a 1.5 year trial of lithium or gamma knife surgery yet won't even acknowledge melatonin. Unfortunate |
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Very unfortunate, yes, for the sufferer to have so much pain as to envisage the gamma knife.
Also a very harsh judgment on your part. For you have been incredibly lucky. You found something that works for you.
And now you cannot understand why others don't try your solution at once. And you impute all sorts of twisted reasonings to clusterheads.
I think it is all much simpler. I gave a number of very practical reasons in my earlier post. Here are some more.
It is, you see, hard for a clusterhead to suddenly stop medication that may not be ideal, but at least does something to relieve the pain or severity of the attacks.
Hence my question, that seems to have taken you the wrong way: (Nixon knows why) "does melatonin interfere or clash with any of the usual clustermeds?"
For if so, I can see very few people who would be willing to change over in mid-cycle (Jos is a rare example and it took great determination and heroisme on his side to give up his meds and wait for the shrooms to "take" ).
Chronics don't have much down time, in which to get off meds and on melatonin; they would be even less willing to stop meds that gave relief.
But if one can keep on taking one's meds, there's another dilemma. When to stop taking the regular meds?
An example with the meds I know. Verapamil takes some time to build down. Suppose you are all medfree, just supported by O2, that does not always catch every attack, especially the night ones... You are relying totally on melatonin.
And what if it does not work? Some 10 days in hell getting Verapamil to kick in again. Might put people off something powerful!
These might be some of the reasons, that people don't flock to the melatonin counter.
I cannot judge the efficacity of melatonin. I just question your stance on why people might not at once adopt your proposed solution.
And I am still waiting for an answer, by anyone who knows (if you don't know just say so): can or will melatonin clash with the usual cluster meds?
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CJohnson
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #33 on: Jan 6th, 2004, 5:03pm » |
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on Jan 2nd, 2004, 5:17pm, CJohnson wrote: Melatonin suppresses corticosteroid activity. It seems that indoles, like psilocin and melatonin, don't play together with corticosteroids, like prednisone. Melatonin could interfere with fertility. It is also contraindicated during pregnancy and lactation.
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Inderal inhibits melatonin synthesis.
PFDANs
-Curtis
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| « Last Edit: Jan 6th, 2004, 5:07pm by CJohnson » |
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ave
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #34 on: Jan 6th, 2004, 6:37pm » |
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Thanks, Curtis.
's what I wanted to know.
pfd&n's
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henzey
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #35 on: Jan 9th, 2004, 4:29pm » |
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Hey, it is my first time joining this message thread. It appears that there are several of us women CHeads from another message thread who have actually had negative reactions to melatonin--and we all also happen to have irregular menstual cycles. Would be interesting to see if a really good study of this comparing men versus women of various ages! I was sure hoping the melatonin would help me but it just gave me a almost a daylong shadow of varying intensity until it finally wore off about 5 pm the next day. Even a low dosage (less than 1 mg) did this. Any ideas as to why?
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civics queen CHead
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ave
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #36 on: Jan 9th, 2004, 4:49pm » |
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One cause springs to mind; with clusters it is often that what helps one clusterhead turns out to be a trigger for the other
Like, heat or cold, alcohol, excercise...
getting pregnant, having a baby, having an operation...
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henzey
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #37 on: Jan 9th, 2004, 4:56pm » |
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Yep....I agree. Since this happened to me four consecutive nights, yet disappeared when I stopped taking the melatonin, it appears to be at least something of a trigger for me. Would be curious to know if any MEN had similar negative experiences to melatonin that persisted.
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civics queen CHead
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Giovanni
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #38 on: Jan 9th, 2004, 5:05pm » |
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It appears that approximately an equal number of people have had negative experiences with melatonin as people who have benefited from it.
That is what is so great about this board in that people can post their experiences both positive and negative.
Everyone who takes ANY medication/herbs/hormones should do a search on drug reactions and possible side effects before taking it.
As for me, I have had terrific results from this medication with zero side effects and consider it safer than the laundry list of drugs now offered by the medical community.
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henzey
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #39 on: Jan 9th, 2004, 5:10pm » |
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Good for you! Wish it had worked for me as I have to drink so much water with Topamax that I am floating away  but it works so I am NOT complaining at all. Hope I find a safer alternative...
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eyes_afire
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Re: Why haven't you tried melatonin?
« Reply #40 on: Jan 9th, 2004, 6:50pm » |
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Hey Ave (and anyone else who is curious), here's some info I ran into the other day. I actually posted it on another thread so perhaps you've seen it already. Read it all, it's good info for anyone considering melatonin. Unfortunately, melatonin didn't do anything good for me.
http://sleepdisorders.about.com/cs/melatonin/a/melatonin.htm
I hope the info is helpful,
--- Steve
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| « Last Edit: Jan 9th, 2004, 6:54pm by eyes_afire » |
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