Six weeks on Melatonin... My thoughts

Post Reply New Topic

Sleep has always been a fleeting thing for me. Never easy to come by, never easy to hang on too once I could grasp it. As a little kid I'd lie in bed for a long time before I finally went under. When I did go to sleep I would stay out for the night,

But when I was 11 that suddenly changed. In addition to the lengthy amount of time it took me to fall asleep, now I wasn't getting very much to begin with. Only four or five hours a night. I'd wake up really early and not be able to fall back asleep. I would yawn my way through the school day.

During my time in Wyoming there were tons of nights where I would try to fall asleep only to find myself having to get back up after a few hours of trying and sit on the computer for a few hours only to go back to bed and lay for a few more hours.

And it was starting to happen again here in Iowa and I decided that I had enough and had heard that melatonin had helped many of us on the spectrum so I got some.

What's happened has been nothing short of miraculous. I fall asleep now within 30 minutes and even on nights where I can feel myself not wanting to sleep I can now stay in bed with out tossing and turning.

I've also noticed that I no longer need to have marathon sleep-ins on the weekend to catch up on sleep I missed through out the week.

I'd recommend this to anyone not already on it or tried it.

I have tried it and I can say that it really works. It is more effective than benadryl for me. I like the sleep shots that have melatonin. They are in the same bottle as a 5 hour energy, but with the opposite effect.

I take liquid melitonin. I really helps. I cant take prescription sleep medicines because they just put me in a dream state without me actually falling asleep so I actually end up with some sort of twilight sleep halucination for 3 hours.

Anyway, the doctor found that my melitonin levels in my body were low, so I was put on it. Also if you have melitonin depletion, never take Paxil as it will cause a major depletion of melitonin and you will end up sleeping all day and staying up all night and nearly flunking out in college like I did.

It's helpful for me to regulate sleep cycles, yes. The only thorough research on melatonin has been for jet lag, for which it works significantly better than placebo; but there's some promising preliminary stuff with autistics too. Considering it has a low toxicity and can be taken long-term without issues, there's probably no harm in trying it to see if you're one of the people it will help.

I've used it for a few years. It's the only thing that's really helped without any major side effects or losing it's ability to affect me after a couple of months. Right now it's not working all that great for me, and the slight side effect of making me itchy has gotten worse. So I'm giving it a break fora few months and seeing if that helps. But out of everything I've tried melatonin has been the best, even with the way it is for me right now.

I can relate if I dont take it I dont sleep as well but when I do take it I fall asleep in 30 mins and stay asleep all night and wake up feeling great.

Interesting. (coming from a chronic non-sleeper)
Much talk of taking it and it working - but what dosage are you using?

Started with 3mg, but went down to 1mg really quickly and have been using either 1mg or 2mg for years. Higher doses actually do less for me than lower doses. Kind of annoying since so many places like to sell the 3mg only and advertise it as triple strength - no, it's triple the dose, there's no guarantee that will translate to triple efficiency at all. In fact with melatonin it's quite common (but not universal) that a lower doseage works better.

I've been on melatonin since I was ten years old (now fifteen.) When I was about eleven, it stopped being as effective by itself, so the psychiatrist suggested to add Benadryl. Again, when I was thirteen, I wasn't sleeping well again, so put on a combination of melatonin, Trazodone and Benadryl. With melatonin alone, I can no longer fall asleep before, say, 2 or 3 AM, and even then, I can only stay asleep for a couple of hours. I have nothing bad to say about it; it certainly has worked miracles for me, someone who stays asleep for several days at a time without medication.

melatonin helps me...I sleep better with it than without it...but I still have great difficulty falling asleep sometimes.............

I'd recommend adding another medicine. It really helped me.

I can't sleep without it. It takes me an hour to fall asleep with it however.

I used to wake up in the night a lot until I got the time-release kind and now I don't do that as much.

I take 6 mg - 3 mg. I don't need as much if it is time-release it seems.

Autistics produce less melatonin.

Sadly, it has never worked for me Only alcohol and prescription sleep aids are effective.

My doctor says that it will improve the quality of my sleep even if it doesn't help me fall asleep, yet this hasn't proven to be true either.

But if you have sleep problems try it for sure!! !, it has a track record of being effective among some people with autism.

***********************************************************************

Check out my IMDB page!

What other medication would work but wouldn't make me too zoned out to study? I was on trazadone for a very short while but it just made me a zombie ( metaphorically speaking)=) Ativan has a similar effect on me..... I'm in my last year of uni now and need to be alert during the day. ...........................

Trazodone... I hate that stuff. My doc tried it with me and all it did was make me miserable, did not help sleep at all

****************************************************************************************************************************************

Check out my IMDB page!.

Personally I highly recommend, just once in your life, spending a month or so sleeping in what are just absolutely horribly uncomfortable conditions, with a very limited amount of time to catch that sleep.


Completely cured my insomnia - I can pass out anywhere now. Before that I tried melatonin and many other supplements, OTC sleeping pills, etc.