GABA

Is anybody taking GABA? I have been trying some natural things for sleep, and tried GABA early this morning when I was having a problem falling asleep. I did fall asleep, I had a bad dream and woke up with my heart pounding, it took a few hours to calm down, I will never take it again. Why is GABA touted as helping to relax when it caused me such fast heartbeat, I tried to take my pulse and I couldn't, I couldn't count that fast.

Liz

Liz, I have used GABA and found that it can lower blood pressure 30 points in 30 minutes. I definitely would not recommend using it to induce sleep because of the possibility of the reaction you received.
You might try melatonin in a dose of 5 mg to 10 mg. Ashwagandha and Hawthorn have possibilities too, but should be used carefully until you know how they effect you. Remember, everyone is a little different.
BTW, vivid dreams are a side effect of taking too much of many sleep inducing supplements.

I have taken PharmaGABA to go back to sleep from middle of the night wakeful periods and it works well for an hour or two. Here's a complete discussion of GABA and its side effects: I've never heard of it increasing blood pressure.
[thesleepdoctor.com]

PharmaGABA is sort of GABA on steroids. I use the chewable tablets as they work faster for me:
[bioclinicnaturals.com]

Re Melatonin for sleep; I take 3 mg and sometimes get weird dreams. The normal recommendation for sleep is 0.5mg to 5 mg. There was a study some years ago that taking 20 mg/night was good for breast cancer patients so my wife did it for a month or so and couldn't live with the dreams which disturbed her sleep.
[www.sleep.org]

I read most of the reports on GABA which are very glowing, my Holistic doc. gave me GABA to take. I won't be seeing him for quite a few months but when I do I will tell him about my experience. I don't know why it affected me the way it did, I recall I did try GABA a long time ago and I had a problem, I don't remember exactly how it affected me as it was so long ago.

I am glad it works for you and most people I guess. I know I will never try it again, it was very scary, my heart rate wouldn't come down for hours, that isn't supposed to happen. Perhaps something in my brain chemistry is out of tune with GABA, I get AURA migraines sometimes with certain supplements.

I havn't taken Melatonin for years because it also bothered me, I don't remember just how and I won't try it. My Holistic doc. gave me a supplement that seems to help, it has B6, Mag. and a few other herbs but no GABA.

thanks to all
Liz

Do not take Melatonin or high dose GABA (at night/early morning hours), except in very small doses. This recommendation is only IF your are getting such an early-morning 'startle' reaction the makes you wake up rapidly with a startled sense of urgency and often with a rapid HR too, plus possibly a clammy or even panic feeling.

This is a sign of a potential very low cortisol crash often due to, or exacerbated by, taking too much nocturnal melatonin or GABA .. both of which can have beneficial calming effects initially, and even often for many years for most folks at night who have a robust nocturnal adrenal function, but who simply need to rebalance their nocturnal circadian cortisol rhythm production by restoring natural daily peak cortisol output around 7am. With cortisol levels then gradually reducing in a fairly linear fashion through-out the day and evening until reaching a normal low point from around 1:00pm to 2:pm (again give or take a couple of hours) .

Melatonin is a very important and powerful anabolic hormone that is also, essentially, the 'orchestra leader' for our overall daily hormonal symphony.

Normally functioning adrenal glands will typically release very little late-night-to-early-morning cortisol, which is usually at it's nadir (i.e. lowest daily value) from 11pm to 2 or 3pm ... the timing of which may very an hour or two per individual variance.

People who are having trouble falling and staying asleep, and thus are often inspired to explore melatonin or GABA and other night-time herbal concoctions, typically have an over abundance of inappropriate excess cortisol production in the wee nocturnal hours. Typically, in the early morning hours when cortisol should be at its lowest intraday level.

It is not surprising that folks with such high levels of inappropriate nocturnal cortisol can often benefit greatly from a bit larger doses of sublingual Melatonin. This is especially true in the early stages of treatment for such an out of whack circadian cortisol expression. However, once your level of nocturnal cortisol gets re-set to a better balance again and your nocturnal cortisol becomes more appropriately low level again, then by continuing to take the larger doses of Melatonin or high dose GABA, this can suddenly increase one's tendency for a cortisol crash late at night causing one to wake up in a 'fight-or-flight' type startle response.

This is actually caused by the now better restored, and more natural, nocturnal low cortisol production of one's adrenal glands being suddenly pushed into an extreme nocturnal cortisol production deficit in the wee hours of the morning.

This can happen, paradoxically, because both Melatonin and GABA which have anabolic hormone properties, tend to reduce cortisol levels inherently. And since normal functioning nocturnal cortisol production is already at its low end of the daily production scale during early morning hours, then by taking what now amounts to large overdoses such as 3mg to 10mg of Melatonin a night when one's own endogneous Melatonin production (a good thing) is now being boosted significantly by a too-high added external dosing of Melation/GABA which is not a good thing for such folks.

What is now a Melatonin overdose presses the already borderline barely sufficient nocturnal cortisol levels into a sudden free-fall since the adrenal glands temporarily cannot preached enough cortisol, and thus resulting is a possible classic adrenal crisis.

Such a nocturnal adrenal overload that suddenly depletes cortisol production, then causes the now gasping adrenal glands to switch to is back up emergency adrenal hormone called 'ADRENALINE' ... hte classic urgent "fight or flight' hormone which is intended to meet urgent energy demands, including sudden drops in blood pressure or blood sugar when the body can't muster-up enough of the more steady-state, more calming and stable Adrenal energy hormone that is cortisol.

Adrenaline was intended to make us jump out of the way of a Saber-tooth tiger back in the day, or a speeding bus when we step off the curb too soon and the rocketship blast of adrenaline jerks us back onto the sidewalk, hopefully before we hit the front windshield of the bus.

However, even though adrenaline can work well in a pinch, is not at all a refined smooth energy hormone. Indeed, it is spiky in nature and is certainly not a good long term substitute for the much smoother cortisol, which is the single most necessary life-sustaining hormone in our bodies!

We humans can go without, or with very low levels, of most all the other hormones ... at least for a while and even though we may not feel very good we can usually still eke by. But with near zero cortisol production and without any urgent replacement of cortisol, then within 24 to 36 hours such extreme absence of cortisol is almost always fatal.

As the emergency back-up adrenal hormone, adrenaline is also famous for triggering not only spikes of the active thyroid hormone, T3, but when these spikes of T3 are also mixed with spikes of adrenaline, this is a very bad combo for us Afibbers, to say the least!

The message here is not that everyone need to avoid all supplemental melatonin or GABA. But rather, encourage folks to learn how to responsibly take these valuable hormonal/amino-acid agents in order to make the most of them, if and when the need is there, but lear to use them in the safest way possible without inadvertently overdosing by partnering with medical professionals skilled in the proper use of these agents.

Cheers!
Shannon.

Hi Liz - I've taken PharmaGaba for many years... PRN/occasionally/as needed ...but at only a minor portion of the recommended dose for reducing anxiety and promoting sleep when I feel I'm too 'wired' to fall asleep sleep easily and remain asleep. It works quickly and leaves no 'drug-like' hangover effects in the morning.

I learned about PG from a talk by Michael Murray, ND, who was with Natural Factors (then) and I believe he helped develop the product.... it has to be at least 20 years ago.

Dr. Murray wrote the booklet Stress, Anxiety and Insomnia - What the Drug Companies Won't Tell You and Your Doctor Doesn't Know that contains a segment on PharmaGaba and I have it in a pdf file if you'd like me to forward to you via email, I can do that.

The label indicates a dose is 2 chewable tablets provides 200 mg total. I've never taken the full 200 dose but find that either half a tablet or a whole tablet works well --- depending on my level of 'restlessness'.

I've shared samples with several friends who also find the smaller dose at bedtime helps tremendously to help settle in at night or help reduce anxiety during the day.

[naturalfactors.com]

Jackie

I have taken Zorex I.R.F for sleep, it pufs me out, but it makes me sleep and sleep. It has tetrahydfopataine.


antbody take this dru/i

It is awful

Shannon:

I have had a lot of blood work done by Dr. B over the years and I don't see where he has run a cortisol test on me. I don't know why as I have told him I have problems with sleep. I am getting very leery with some of these supplements as they have caused me problems.

I thank you for your reply.

Liz