Does anyone have any experience with melatonin?  I started out as episodic (usually around 2 am), but for about 10 years now, I have been chronic, with the hits coming at night at different times and often late in the afternoon, year round.  About a month ago, I started taking 10 mg of melatonin at bedtime.  While, ironically, it really has not helped my sleep so much, I have found that I have not had a night-time hit since I started.  Still getting my day-time hits though.

We did a survey a few years back on Melatonin. We found that for the people who were succesfully using it to get through the night, the average dose was about 10 mg. Some went as high as 18 mg, some found success by splitting their dose in half between standard release and sustained release. So in your case 5 mg. of each. The standard release got them to sleep, the sustained release got them through the night.

There was a thread awhile back that went into the differences between types of melatonin.

It was generally agreed that the "good stuff" is

n-Acetyl-5-Methoxytryptamine


Joe

Yes, this use at bedtime has gained some modest success and, certainly, the cost makes it worth a try.

An old timer to block nite time attacks: ergotamine, 2mgSL, dissolved under the tongue about 1-hr before bed.

Has lost attention for many years because it's not very useful as a abortive for attacks but still worth a try for this limited purpose.

Thank you Bob and Joe.  I appreciate the information!
slim

Melatonin totally wiped out my night time attacks at fifteen miligrams.
Anecdotal evidence, I know, but it seems to work for other people around here.

Headaches seemed worse during the day after taking melatonin at night. Some days after there were no headaches but the ones that got bad,  got real bad.. and untouchable. But it could also be coincidence since I've only taken melatonin (10mg time release) about 9/14 days.. When they get crazy like they have been I try to look for what I've been doing different. Not too sure I want to try it again.

I suspect many guys here use way too much melatonin, because they never tried the combination of regular + sustained release melatonin.

For me, a 3mg + 2mg sus combination proved to be more effective than 10mg regular melatonin.

15mg virtually stopped mine at night. I'm currently on Nortryptaline to try and break the episode (which isn't working btw). I take the Nor and 15mg Melatonin at night and that stops them.

Side effect: I get them early the next day, or with my first cup of coffee. Prevented this by not drinking coffee until after 10am. But...something triggered one at work just now. Not sure if it was the coffee, my burger for lunch or the artificial sweetener I used in my coffee.

But at least I can sleep at night!  :(