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How do I measure my melatonin?

Solipsis

Solipsis

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Mar 12, 2007
Messages
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So - i have melatonin powder, and in the past I have made blotters which have worked extremely well (I assume because of sublingual absorption) but I am almost running out and cannot use a GC microliter pipet anymore to make blotters.

Melatonin is not stable in ethanolic solution or that kind of thing. I do have a sub-mg balance but ideally I'd rather not measure it every time (and also I have to calibrate it again etc etc). Laying blotter in a solution 'bath' seems terrible because if you only make 1 blotter thick portions you very easily oversoak some parts while other parts stay dry (if your solution is exactly the absorbency volume). I'd have to perfect my method doing dry runs, or lay a stack of blotter images or whatever 5x5 is called.

I guess I could cut some with mannitol and use a regular mg scale as long as I make small batches in order to tolerate hot spots relatively speaking.

Any clever ideas?

What happens if you lay some blotters in an excess solution on the bottom in a container no more wide than the size of the blotter and just let it evaporate - can you avoid messy residue - will it just keep blotting evenly until it is all soaked up exactly at capacity - then let it dry the regular way?
 
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How do you know that it is not stable in ethanol? Is there another solvent in which it may be stable, like acetone?
 
It's way too prone to oxidation and I have no proper air-protection which would give me acceptable storage conditions as long as I'd keep it cool and dark.

Probably the reactivity as an antioxidant... could be that it can be stabilized, I think I am reading / piecing together that ascorbic acid and adjusted pH of 3.5 could stabilize it.

Acetone is way too volatile and I don't like that I can't (don\t want to) ingest it. If stabilized, water may actually work...
 
Sounds good, but why don't you just buy melatonin capsules?
And how about using 40% alcohol with Ascorbic acid? Should dissolve enough melatonin.
In water: 2mg/ml
In ethanol: 182mg/ml
 
There's an astronomical price difference and my homemade blotters were stronger than anything I ever got from the store. :)

thanks will try something like that
 
Yuck. Last time I tasted melatonin I remember it tasting very much like dirt. Perhaps the taste was due to the particular brand of pill I had and not the melatonin itself.

But if that is the way melatonin tastes then I won't be having any of your blotters. Lol.
 
Melatonin taste like... erm... "dust" of course, even pure melatonin.
It doesn't taste bad, just tasted... nothing, like dust powder that is insoluble in your mouth.

This is typical taste for amide (carboxamides) which most of them are water-insoluble powder.
 
Pomzazed said:
Melatonin taste like... erm... "dust" of course, even pure melatonin.
It doesn't taste bad, just tasted... nothing, like dust powder that is insoluble in your mouth.

This is typical taste for amide (carboxamides) which most of them are water-insoluble powder.
Click to expand...

Oh well... That I wouldn't mind. The pills I was referring to had a very strong "dirt" like taste to them when chewed. I know what you mean when you say a nothing like taste that is just the texture of an insoluble powder. This was not the case with the pills I had, the taste was quite strong. Must have been from something else in the pill.

Pardon my interruption then. Carry on...
 
Was there valerian in those pills? Cause that can taste pretty musky.

My blotters don't taste offensive at all. Also for some reason, like I said they seemed unusually potent so I found out I only require a quarter of a 1 mg dosed blotter (with small variance due to the method of making them but not that much, and they were all potent). When I take a few 0.1 mg pills from the drugstore it's less effective.

I should have ascorbic acid closeby since I actually enclosed my sealed batch(es) of melatonin in another vacuumseal filled with ascorbic acid, as the 'sacrifice antioxidant' for long term cold storage. :)

If tincture works (never seen it before) it might be even more effective sublingually absorbed. I wonder if things like melatonin N-oxide are formed and whether they are active in any way?
 
Solipsis said:
Was there valerian in those pills? Cause that can taste pretty musky.

My blotters don't taste offensive at all. Also for some reason, like I said they seemed unusually potent so I found out I only require a quarter of a 1 mg dosed blotter (with small variance due to the method of making them but not that much, and they were all potent). When I take a few 0.1 mg pills from the drugstore it's less effective.

I should have ascorbic acid closeby since I actually enclosed my sealed batch(es) of melatonin in another vacuumseal filled with ascorbic acid, as the 'sacrifice antioxidant' for long term cold storage. :)

If tincture works (never seen it before) it might be even more effective sublingually absorbed. I wonder if things like melatonin N-oxide are formed and whether they are active in any way?
Click to expand...

I really wouldn't play with oxidized neurotransmitters, some of them are really nasty. Althrough Melatonin also works as antioxidant in the body, there must be a way for the body to get rid of it when it's oxidized. But you could let a little bit of Melatonin oxidize and then add Ascorbic acid in the one batch and a not antioxidative acid in the other batch (diluted sulfuric acid) to see if the oxidation is reversible in vitro ;)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/11898866/?i=5&from=/21244479/related
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/21244479/
 
It does look like other oxidation products are formed than the N-oxide. Now that I think of it, it's a way differently substituted amide nitrogen rather than the alkylated amine in psychedelic trypts, so I guess it couldn't N-oxidize.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1262766/

Metabolites are also protective apparently? So even if kynurenin derivatives pass the BBB via amino acid transport or otherwise, it would be ok? It does appear that they can freely travel through the body, all being rather amphophilic.

The article does still warn that other reactions may occur when exposed to air, I always very well limit such exposure and am still not sure if I'd like to make a tincture - adding ascorbic acid would still eventually lead to oxidized ascorbic acid with continued exposure.

Melatonin appears very well tolerated. One concern I used to have was tolerance, and in combination with a lack of proper long-term use studies... but it turns out that there is something like reverse tolerance where taking melatonin does not discourage the body to make its own but encourages it to join in.
 
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Oxidized Ascorbic acid is at least not toxic.
I somewhere heared that the long term use of melatonin is not a good idea
 
Amml said:
Oxidized Ascorbic acid is at least not toxic.
I somewhere heared that the long term use of melatonin is not a good idea
Click to expand...

Ive heard this too and been warned by others not to use long term. Hopefully sollipsis is right about the "reverse tolerance". I suspect that may be the case based on my own long term use of the stuff. When I finally quit taking it, I did not notice any difficulty sleeping without it... I actually found myself sleeping better after a few nights. I took 3-5mg per night for six months or so.
 
Melatonin is mostly useful for when your own production of it is not well synced in a circadian rhythm hence the application for jetlag. If you use it chronically, it can be contradictory since you have to take it at the proper timing and go to sleep every day, if you do that you should soon be making your own proper melatonin doses in the brain, swinging in a rhythm. If you don't do that it's not proper use anyway.

I sometimes take it during some period and find it useful, not only is it sedating to me but it also helps probably because I have ADD and people who have that are more sensitive to getting their melatonin cycles shifted. But even I would say that during extended periods of taking it there are other factors involved working against a healthy sleep-wake cycle. And it's best to fix those issues, melatonin may have limited effect if you just basically keep negating it's purpose..
Blue light like from screens in the evening can really fuck with your melatonin production by the way for example, I now have blue light filters (no pun intended) on all my devices.
Light therapy can help - not to produce vitamin D or anything, but to do the opposite of blue light at night: deliver powerful light in the early morning.

Anyway, I never heard long term melatonin is bad but just assumed that it may be in some way because a lot of things are. But with the tolerance thing (I was told this by a neuropsychiatrist - I am not his client), I couldn't really say what would be bad about it. Do you have sources?
 
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/9095378/?i=2&from=/9406044/related
There are really no studies about the long term effects, but I believe taking a hormone/neurotransmitter that the brain produces naturally for such a long time is probably never a good idea. For sure not as bad as taking testosterone every day ;)
The most studies recommend a 3 months period for safety.
Have you already tried natural remedies for sleeping? Some of them are really safe to take.
 
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