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Melatonin side effects - anxiety?

A

AlexxRed

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 2, 2002
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293
Location
melbourne, Australia
Hi all,

I've been told that using Melatonin can cause anxiety. Is there any actual basis/evidence that anyone knows of in regards to this?

If so I'd be interested to know why?
 
Hello little boys, I'm your new god

Check out this:

The reports of melatonin's ability to improve mood and induce sleep led Carmen and his colleagues to undertake a therapeutic trial of melatonin in depression (39 ). In a well controlled cross over study they produced contrary to expectation a marked exacerbation in the patients' symptoms with increased dysphoria, more sleep disturbance and a further
decrease in the patients appetite. The administration of a single dose of melatonin to two schizophrenic subjects has also been reported to induce a marked exacerbation of symptoms with increased hallucinosis lasting up to 36 hours (40 ).
https://rikki.fi/tajkor/The_human_pineal-new_approaches_and_prospects.pdf
Click to expand...
 
Melatonin mainly gave me vivid dreams if I remember correctly. Not anxiety, but very vivid dreams.
 
Refluxer said:
Melatonin mainly gave me vivid dreams if I remember correctly. Not anxiety, but very vivid dreams.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it gave me batshit crazy dreams. Weirder and more in depth than any of the CEVs I've gotten on psychedelics, but without much of the prettyness of them either. Total raw insanity, too bizarre for my liking.
 
Not exactly a melatonin experience directly, but related...

Took Rozerum once, actually twice. It's a melatonin MT1 and MT2 receptor agonist, basically boosts the effect of endogenous melatonin. First night it did not do shit. Second night I decided to take 2 instead.

Let me tell you something. It takes a *lot* to get me even just a little rattled, much less disturbed. Like if somebody gets capped in front of me on the train on my way home from work, I'll get disturbed.

That shit gave me just unspeakable nightmares so bad I was downright anxious most of the next day. "When you can't sleep you can't dream". Yeah maybe so, but fuck that friendly commercial Honest Abe and the Eager Beaver shit. Never again.

Terrible. I would not consider taking melatonin after that experience.
 
3mg of Melatonin taken early in the morning, sublignually normally if using homeopathic medecines, can help you through the day some-what, not so much stimulate you but stop you from getting exhausted too early.

You can also use 3-6mg to stop mild anxiety and put some people in a relaxed state.

Higher doses 6-12mg, sublingually if using homeopathic preparations can induce a relaxed sleepy state, where images can usually be seen before you sleep. It induces hypanogic sleep and R.E.M and can induce weird and vivid dreams, but I've had some very ridiculoud panic attacks when using the stuff in high doses, like 6-10 x 3mg tablets. I've once woken up from a dream, forced with extreme adrenaline to the sitting position, and i was spinning around on my bed, at amazing speeds. It felt like I was the one spinning as I could see stereo, computer, and lights through my window with EXTREME tracers like I was the one spinning 260 degrees at insane spoeeds, but I think it must of been more like alcohol spins but 100 x more intense. After this I was forced back to sleep but I remember it vividly and it was terrifying. At the time I was using a bit of GBL though.
 
Splatt said:
3mg of Melatonin taken early in the morning, sublignually normally if using homeopathic medecines, can help you through the day some-what, not so much stimulate you but stop you from getting exhausted too early.

You can also use 3-6mg to stop mild anxiety and put some people in a relaxed state.
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Got a couple things I'm seeing here that don't make much sense... Firstly, isn't melatonin a hormone, and thus not a homeopathic product?

Secondly, how would taking melatonin during the day help stop you from getting relaxed? Further, wouldn't taking it during the day (at a dosage level anywhere near 3mg) screw with your circadian rhythm?

Lastly, 3-6mg really shouldn't be needed to put you in a relaxed state. 1mg should do the trick for most people, and maybe even less than that.
 
My response to melatonin varies. I find that it works better if taken with or especially shortly after vitamins B-6 and B-12. I always take it sublingually by crunching a tablet and holding it in my mouth with saliva for a good 10-15 minutes.

If I take it before bed, I find it works best for dreaming if I take it an hour before or thereabouts, rather than directly before. It tends to produce a slight increase in physical and mental comfort in me while awake, but it's not more than just noticeable. I usually take 3mg. Sometimes it helps my dreams to be more colorful and vivid and recallable, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I'll wake up feeling really good and refreshed, and sometimes I can barely drag myself out of bed the next morning. I think that has something to do with when I'm sleeping and how long, even though I try to use it at the same time whenever I do use it to prevent that.

When taken with or especially in the day or two after AMT, I (and some others in PD) have found it to vastly increase dream clarity and recall and vividness. Curiously, it also seems to produce a sort of powerful, symbolic, doomsday/end-of-the-world type of dream in myself and those others, that tend to be terrifying but so amazingly vivid and realistic that ultimately I consider it a positive experience. The most vivid one I had involved me waking up from my sleep, in my bed, exactly like I was actually waking up, but seeming to be in a different reality or something, where many things about my life were not even close to the same. My face was rotting away and my fiance and cats and job and everything I love were gone, just didn't exist. My parents thought I was crazy and were trying to take me to an institution or something. It was so vivid that I could not tell it apart from waking reality. I went through a whole process of panic, realization that it must be a dream, inability to get out of the dream or change it in any way, and finally, a horrible acceptance of my new fate in a lonely, fucked-up alternate reality.

As you can probably imagine, I was REALLY glad to wake up! But it was far and away the most intense dream I've ever had, totally indistinguishable from waking reality in vividness and lucidity.

I guess this thread isn't about that specifically, but I wanted to comment. As far as anxiety, I have never gotten it from melatonin.
 
The reason you're tired the day after sometimes is likely the dosage you're using.

I also think ~1hr before when you want to fall asleep is best, sublingually (usually use a little less than 1mg).

This trippiness aspect I've never even heard of tho! Gonna have to read up some more on melatonin!
 
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Homeopathic brands are extracted from a plant. Prescribed doses are synthesized. Homeopathic preparations are over the counter in the vitamens aisle in any shopping centre or chemist, unscheduled as a vitamen/supplement.
 
ah I thought you meant melatonin was homeopathic, I didn't know you meant that was a brand name, that's what you're saying right? Because regular melatonin is not a homeopathic product, homeopathic preparations are taken from a plant or virtually anything else (I believe one of the most popular homeopathic preparations in the world contains extract of Muscovy duck liver and heart. I've always lumped homeopathic 'medicines' in with faith healers and reflexologists...), and then they are diluted many, many times before the final product's ready.

I suppose you could extract melatonin from plants, but what would the purpose be? How could it be superior to lab made?
 
Here's the OTC stuff I'm talking about.
150yf2.jpg


Product Description:

Bioglan Melatonin helps relieve stress, nervous tension and mild anxiety.
Helps relieve insomnia (sleeplessness) when taken before bedtime.
Helps provide stamina and endurance when taken in the morning.

Directions:
Melatonin as an antioxidant and to help provide stamina and endurance the next morning:
Take 1 tablet 3 times a day with liquid.

Melatonin as anti-stress active:
Take 1 tablet 3 times a day with liquid.

Melatonin for relief of sleeplessness at night:
Take 3 to 5 tablets half an hour before bedtime or as directed by your healthcare professional.

Ingredients:
Contains as homeopathic ingredient 3mg Melatonin 6x per tablet .
 
That's weird!!! I've never even heard of a homeopathic melatonin... Like I'd ask anybody taking something diluted to the 6th power - do you find it works?

I guess I've just never been able to understand the idea that such infinitely small amounts of a substance would do something for you, and also that studies have never shown homeopathy to be more than placebo.
 
Splatt said:
Homeopathic brands are extracted from a plant. Prescribed doses are synthesized. Homeopathic preparations are over the counter in the vitamens aisle in any shopping centre or chemist, unscheduled as a vitamen/supplement.
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In Canada, the OTC melatonin actually comes with an ingredients label that lists melatonin as being "(From Cow's Pineal Glad"). Seriously!

As for me, Melatonin seems to have helped regulate my sleeping cycle after 3 weeks of nightly use. But otherwise, nothing. And no dreams either, as usual.
 
I don't think you'll find any solid evidence for: homeopathy, chiropractic, reflexology, faith healing, etc. You'll find a ton of anecdotal evidence, but I think you'll be hard pressed to find any respectable studies offering real proof.
 
there is some, but it is limited, unconvincing, and usually not HARD science in the fullest sense

hence i am curious to see any hard science especially for acupuncture and homeopathy...they certainly can be tested with scientific scrutiny if the experiment is performed right
 
you're not gonna find them because they don't work! <preps for flames>

No seriously, if accupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, reflexology, psychics, whatever, actually did what they claimed, it could be tested. The absence of any positive tests showing tangible benefits is *extremely* telling.
 
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