Melatonin

Anyone know anything about the effects of Melatonin on the ANS? I read a little about it modulating the Autonomic Nervous System. I'm vagal all the way, and don't sleep well partly because I have trained myself to be vigilant about going into afib. I would like longer uninterupted sleep, and my m.d. suggested Melatonin.

Me no spikka da ANS, but i am a vagal afibber, and i have used melatonin for sleep for years without any afib trouble from it. Quite a few years ago a guy [John somebody, i don't remember John who] used to post here that melatonin was the afib cure the world has been waiting for. I did not find it so, but it is very useful for sleep. It used to give me very vivid and colorful dreams, but does not do so any more, no matter how much i take. Melatonin is now available in many different dosages, but at first it was only available in 1 mg and 3 mg sizes. I found that the 3 mg size left me feeling groggy the next morning but the 1 mg size made for peacefull sleep but no medicine head in the morning. YMMV, i guess. Personally i prefer to use the smallest dose that produces the desired effect. Good luck with it, and sweet dreams.

PeggyM

Ralph: Like most other non-prescription sleep aids Melatonin works for a couple of nights in a row for me then my body/mind somehow gets used to it. I use it maybe two nights/week now or more if I go on a trip with several hours of time change.

I rotate Melatonin, like Peggy says, the largest dose that doesn't leave me a hangover, with PharmaGaba, my second most effective and LTheanine, third most effective and nothing, fourth most effective. 5HTP and the other Serotonin affecting chemicals have other effects that I like less than not sleeping well..

Gordon

Ralph - you can certainly try low doses of melatonin but your sleep disturbances are from elevated cortisol from the stress response and adrenal hyperstimulation, the melatonin may not do much of anything.

If you read the discussions on intake of fluoride from sources like water, meds and foods that block the pineal gland's production of melatonin, then you have to detox from the fluoride, add iodine and supplement with melatonin until the pineal gland recovers-- if it can. Interrupted sleep or insomnia are both results of adrenal stress issues and inappropriate cortisol production. There are tests to evaluate that along with specific supplements and lifestyle changes that address adrenal dysfunction as it relates to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPAA)...

Most people who currently have or have had a lot of stress in their lives have this dysfunction... and often along with that comes thyroid dysfunction as well. Until those systems are assessed with testing and various supportive nutrients, you may not find relief.

Jackie

Melatonin is a wonderful hormone that has many beneficial functions beyond helping to stabilize the sleep cycle. Its also the master circadian conductor for most of the endocrine system and having sufficient Melatonin is key for reestablishign the critical timing for release of various hormones.

Melatonin is an anabolic hormone as well and it is produced almost exclusively at night when the lights are totally off anywhere from 10pm to 2 to 3am is the main peak of the Melatonin curve. Even one second of artificial blue spectrum light .. such as switching on your light to go take a pee at night.. or whatever, will totally shut off melatonin production for the rest of the night.

Melatonin is one of our most powerful endogenous anti-cancer agents. Its not surprising that the major increases in many forms of cancer has coincided with the advent of electrifiction and artificial lightening throughout the night.

National Geographic had a great cover story on this some years back called "End of the Night' t hat explored this issue in depth.

One of hte main world wide expert researches who was quoted often in taht article is Dr Russ Reiter PhD from University of Texas.

Here is a brief 1`0 minute except of an over than 1 hour long great talk on Melatonin and cancer. If you search around you can find the full length video of teh whole talk but this excerpt will give you a sample.

Dr Russ Reiter and Melatonin-Cancer-Artificial light connection The full lecture is excellent and shows how closely a lower amplitude of familial Melatonin production curves coincide with increased incidence of familial cancer.


Back to the cortisol issues Jackie is correct in that many people through long periods of their lives can experience excess cortisol production at night, and often too little during the day when it is most needed.

Too much Cortisol at night combined woith too little cortisol is a prescription for insomnia ,just as nocturnal deficiency in Growth Hormone production which declines often times right along with melatonin deficiency, also leads directly to insomnia.

This is because both Melatonin and Growth hormone, as well as T 3 thryoid hormone and to a lesser degree ther other anabolic hormones are all strong suppressors of cortisol production.


Nature designed the endocrine system to pump out the majority of daily melatonin and GH between 10pm and 2am, when we should all be asleep. Not surprisingly these are teh two strongest suppressors of elevated cortisol we have in teh body and nature designed these hormones to both peak at the same time .. at night.

When we start to lose our endogenous production capacity of Melatonin and GH we start to have sleep issue and not surprisingly we often find our cortisol circadian ryhthm which is at a peak around 7am to 8am and then steadily declines until it reaches a nadir around midnight right at teh peak of Melatonin and GH production!!

See the pattern??

Jackie is right then, in that high night time cortisol is often associated with insomnia, but its often from out of whack melatonin and GH as we age and dramatically complicated and excelerated by our nocturnal late night hours filled with artificial light at the wrong time!

If you have a large night time burst of cortisol a larger dose of Melatonin and/or GH will help suppress and lower taht excess cortisol. But a small dose will not do much.


On the otherhand, what happens when one is constantly stressed is that Cortisol which is your main anti-stress hormone becomes overworked and at some point you can no longer marshall those big spurts of cortisol on constant demand and then no matter what time of day or night it is, your energy crashes.

Some people take a large dose of Melatonin like some of these HUGE 5mg to 10mg subliqual doses you see over the counter. And while those can work well for people with very high excess nocturnal cortisol, once you get to the point where you endogenous cortisol is starting to drain away and you can no longer make the building blocks for cortisol on demand, then you much severely lower teh dose of Melatonin to be able to sustain the sleep effect and maintain its usefulness in resetting your circadian hormonal symphony.

If people with borderline low cortisol take too much melatonin every night they can sometime get awaty with it for a while, but they then get an insomnia rebound or it jsut seems to stop working as a sleep aid.

This happens by takign too much melationin for too long which furhter suppresses ones night cortisol level until they cant produce hardly any on demand at night, Then noctural hypoglycemia attacks without having cortisol on board to raise your blood sugar naturally to prevent hypglycemia.

When your body still cannot make any cortisol even in response to such a strong drug in glucose or blood sugar levels in teh early morning hours usually between 1am and 4 am
the weakened adrenal glands will resort to squirting out its fall back stress hormone ADRENALINE! .. this is really our fight or flight hormone and NOT a stress hormone but it will do in a pinch to prevent a full blown hypoglycemic crisis. However, it will make you NOT sleep too and often times you will wake up with a startle response and even wit ha terrible nightmare at times and have a hard time getting back to sleep.

If thsi happens and you are taking melatonin you should cut the subliqual dose WAY down to around 0.1mg at most right before bed.

ALWAYS use sublingual and not oral melatonin and keep in mind sublingual is 10 times stronger or more bioavailable than oral forms. So for example a 1mg sublingual dose is roughly equal to a 10mg oral dose!

You must always take sublingual melatonin immediately before turning out the light. Do not take it and they watch TCV or read for half an hour or you will blunt a huge amount of its effect.'

Put it under your tongue, and a good compounded liquid suspension form from a good Compounding Pharmacy like Medicine Shoppe in Redding Pennsylvania for one example, is Far superior to any tablet form I have found.

The key thing is knowing that with hormone replacement you need to learn the symphony and not just replace one or two, but at least several related hormones together to created that balance. The body knows what to do when you give it the right amounts in a general physiologic dose range of these bio-identical forms of these natural hormones and will sort it all out beautifully.

But if you find yourself very groggy in the morning and super tired instead of refreshed after taking melatonin such that its hard to get your head off the pillow, or if you wake at time with a startle in the wee hours of the morning with some anxiety or even with very vivid bad dreams, these are all dead-ringer diagnostic give aways of underlying adrenal dysfunction and nocturnal deficiency in cortisol production which will tend to happen nearer the end of the long term wearing out of the adrenal response for years and decades of unrelenting stress that has not be addressed.

People who get too fanatical with aerobic exercise as well will over stress their adrenals and impair anabolic hormone production as well and these folks will commonly have periodic nocturnal hypoglycemia issues from too large a drop in night time cortisol levels.

Just like too high a night time cortisol that commonly appears earlier in the long term adrenal dysfunction decay curve will also cause insomnia via another mechanism.

I have low adrenal function and can only take a tiny dose of melatonin each night of around 0.07mg sublingual and Im fine with that and sleep like a baby with that and 0.3mg of recombinant GH just before bed. Those two taken in the right modest physiologic doses when a real endogenous deficiency has been confirmed are the best sleep aids in the world bar none and they bring so many other wonderful benefits as well.

A good night sleep at the right times from around 10pm to 6am or so, with a consistent duration of a minimum of 6.5 hours and a maximum of 8 hours is the single best anti-aging health restoring thing you can do for yourself.

Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2014 02:26AM by Shannon.

I have a sleep disorder (caused by Paxil withdrawal syndrome) and have used melatonin for years to trigger sleep, its proper application. I like Source Naturals sublingual 1mg tablets, I cut them up according to how much I want to take.

Studies show as little as .25mg melatonin is effective. Take at nightfall and turn out or at least dim all lights. The darker the better -- installing blackout shades or curtains in the bedroom and using a sleep mask can help.

As Shannon indicates, computer, tablet, or smartphone lights are too bright at night and will interfere with the sleep triggers.

For several years, I took 2mg at night, now I find .25-.50mg to be sufficient to start. If I wake up before 2 a.m., I might take another .25mg with a magnesium glycinate capsule and a fish oil capsule.

______________
Lone paroxysmal vagal atrial fibrillation. Age 62, female, no risk factors. Autonomic instability since severe Paxil withdrawal in 2004, including extreme sensitivity to neuro-active drugs, supplements, foods. Monthly tachycardia started 1/11, happened only at night, during sleep, or when waking, bouts of 5-15 hours. Changed to afib about a year ago, same pattern. Frequency increased over last 6 months, apparently with sensitivity to more triggers. Ablation 6/27/13 by Steven Hao.

Yep Iatrogenia, that's how melatonin works and once people are able to reduce excess nocturnal cortisol levels with a bit larger dose of sublingual melatonin, they often can and should titrate their nightly dose down to the low end and those with borderline low to fully low cortisol even 0.25mg can be too high. That's where a good compounded sublingual suspension comes in handy for very fine titration and a really super absorbable and potent form.

My formula is 0.67mg melatonin per mil of liquid suspension which gives 20 drops per mil from a liquid syringe system. Even with such a low dose formula I only need two drops at night before bed giving me roughly 0.07mg of melatonin! That's plenty for me and I maintain very strong both urinary melatonin and urinary 6-sulfatoxy-melatonin metabolite levels with 24 hour urine testing, on such a tiny dose and sleep well every night.

With the light issue , it's really best to have black out after its lights out. Even just one second of exposure to the common narrow blue spectrum light found in both incandescent and most fluorescent lights will immediately dampen and flatten out your nocturnal melatonin production curve, such that it will essentially turn off any further production that night with such a light ,, just opening the fridge for a quick second of turning on and off a bathroom or bedroom light is enough to spoil the party for that nights production.

Please who wish to work on computers or use a light at night can cover their screens with a yellow plastic filter or use yellow or orange spectrum light bulbs if flashlight with a yellow lens cover to go the the bathroom in middle if the night or just wear some yellow goggle glasses people keep by their bed and this spectrum of more yellow to orange light will not trigger the pineal gland to stop melatonin production.

Their are even a few companies on the web selling all these glasses and light bulbs just to protect people's nocturnal melatonin production! Those at Least that won't give up their night owl life styles. :-).

Watch the full hour long video lecture by Dr Russ Reiter of a University of Texas called 'The End of Night' and you'll see the very compelling reasons to at least sleep in total darkness.

Shannon

Correct, these amber shades can reduce the stimulation from blue light:

- To wear without glasses: Skyper [www.amazon.com]
- To wear over glasses: Ultraspec 2000 [www.amazon.com] that fit over your glasses

Both of these are industrial safety glasses and may be available locally through, for example, a welding supply house.

______________
Lone paroxysmal vagal atrial fibrillation. Age 62, female, no risk factors. Autonomic instability since severe Paxil withdrawal in 2004, including extreme sensitivity to neuro-active drugs, supplements, foods. Monthly tachycardia started 1/11, happened only at night, during sleep, or when waking, bouts of 5-15 hours. Changed to afib about a year ago, same pattern. Frequency increased over last 6 months, apparently with sensitivity to more triggers. Ablation 6/27/13 by Steven Hao.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2014 04:31PM by Iatrogenia.

Shannon,

Thank you for this wonderfully informative discussion of melatonin.

I have severe chronic insomnia. My nutritionist says my body does not convert serotonin into melatonin due to a methylation polymorphism, which we found out by doing genetic testing. I usually wake up between 1 and 2 AM and cannot get back to sleep. I get a huge adrenaline rush then. I had my cortisol tested over a year ago, and it was too high at 11PM and again at 2AM, so I took Interplexus Seriphos to bring it down. This helped a bit, but I never got more than 5 hours sleep then, and now it doesn't help if I take it, and I'm back down to 3 to 4 hours sleep.

I have been taking 4mg of sublingual Superior Source Melatonin plus 3 mg of Douglas Labs Prolonged Release Melatonin for the past month. One reason I am taking so much is that my nutritionist read some research that this amount of melatonin can help close a weak LES, which I have.

I also have been seeing a hormone specialist and take 100mg of progesterone oral capsules and 1 mg of estradiol cream. I have never had my GH tested. Did you go to an endocrinologist to have this done? I know that GH is extremely expensive and insurance usually will not pay for it. Where does one get a reasonably priced GH from? Is it an injection? What other hormones should I be tested for? I know my testosterone is also very low, but when I got a sample compounded from a local pharmacy, my body rejected it--it shut down my entire energy field, according to my nutritionist.

I wear the special orange glasses at night and never use the computer after dinner. I turn down the lights at 8:30 as well, but I do watch some TV with the glasses on. My room is dark, but I do have an alarm clock with a lighted digital face. If I wake up, I often look at the time. I wonder if that is an issue??

Thanks much.

Nancy M

I was just asking whether melatonin might cause a problem for a vagal afibber like me (some drugs or supplements can increase or decrease vagal tone). I appreciate reading through all the info but it doesn't seem very relevant to me. I'm not suffering from insomnia - I don't lay awake for more than a minute or two - just in the habit of waking myself up into a conscious state every hour or two (to track heart status), and not liking the effects that is having on my overall feeling of a restful night sleep. I understand the reason I fell into that pattern, and I'm ready to let it go. Thought Melatonin might help me do that. Gonna try it a few nights and see

Sorry i did not make that clear. Melatonin should do exactly what you want. Please report back to us how it works out?

PeggyM

Regarding elevated cortisol at night, I'm wondering what our resident sages think of the use of the supplements Seriphos (phosphorylated serine) or Lactium (hydrolyzed casein), as recommended by Julia Ross ( of "The Mood Cure").

See: Correcting Cortisol Levels

I have tried both, they seem to help sound sleep, but leave a slight grogginess. I'm concerned that they might suppress adrenal function during the day, when it's needed.

Thanks!

PS: It seems to me that this topic might be important for afib, since many of us seem to have episodes in the wee hours of the morning.

--Lance



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2014 12:27PM by ln108.

Both of your responses were appreciated by me Peggy. It was some of the other responses that seemed off-point. I've used 1mg the last 2 nights with slightly noticable effect. I'll probably try 2mg tonight, though I'm pretty sure the main ingredient for me is going to be retraining my mind.

Lactium is very, very gentle.

It might work for a short while, but Seriphos can go paradoxical. I found a quarter-capsule worked for about 2 weeks, after that, no help.

______________
Lone paroxysmal vagal atrial fibrillation. Age 62, female, no risk factors. Autonomic instability since severe Paxil withdrawal in 2004, including extreme sensitivity to neuro-active drugs, supplements, foods. Monthly tachycardia started 1/11, happened only at night, during sleep, or when waking, bouts of 5-15 hours. Changed to afib about a year ago, same pattern. Frequency increased over last 6 months, apparently with sensitivity to more triggers. Ablation 6/27/13 by Steven Hao.

Be VERY careful with Seriphos unless you have documented testing confirming a 'consistently' high nocturnal cortisol level.

This may be common in people in their 40s and ecvewn early 50s but the opposite is far more often the case from 55 onward and often starting earlier in people prone to AFIB.

Adrenal deficiency is far more a trigger for later years AFIB than is excess cortisol which can play a role in earlier stages of long term adrenal decline in ones earlier middle ages.

Taking Serophos is youy are waking up early in the wee hours with a startle response, bad dreams or other hypoglycemic reactions is the very worst thing you can do!

It will only drive your already too low nocturnal cortisol through the floor and really crash you, causing huge compensatory surges of early morning wee hours adrenaline which is numero uno as an AFIB trigger!

Cortisol in true excess can also trigger, but it has to be very high. In even modest doses it is a calming steady stress hormone that gives a calm steady energy, not a hyper frantic, 'jump away from a speeding bus' kind of energy as is adrenaline.

Shannon

PS Im in Orlando at the Boston AFIB conference 2014 ( thankfully moved to Orlando this year) and hitting the hay now for mother busy day here of talks. Have had no time to post but will after the conference is over with lots of great info being shared here!

Shannon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Be VERY careful with Seriphos unless you have
> documented testing confirming a 'consistently'
> high nocturnal cortisol level.

Thanks, Shannon. Good advice!

--Lance

Melatonin gives me bad dreams. I wish I could take it.

Hard to believe that, with my sleep disorder, I have anything but elevated cortisol at night.

______________
Lone paroxysmal vagal atrial fibrillation. Age 62, female, no risk factors. Autonomic instability since severe Paxil withdrawal in 2004, including extreme sensitivity to neuro-active drugs, supplements, foods. Monthly tachycardia started 1/11, happened only at night, during sleep, or when waking, bouts of 5-15 hours. Changed to afib about a year ago, same pattern. Frequency increased over last 6 months, apparently with sensitivity to more triggers. Ablation 6/27/13 by Steven Hao.

DSENNET,

The bad dreams part with Melatonin is often a red flag for the adrenal deficiency response to too much nocturnal cortisol suppression by Melatonin as described in my post above.

Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2014 11:47PM by Shannon.

I ran across this product while reading A short Guide to Long Life. The product is " A sensitively-designed bedside device that records your sleep environment (noise pollution, room temperature, and light level), and provides with scientifically-validated light, and sound programs." [www.withings.com] Apparently an LED diming light optimizes the wavelengths and secretion of melatonin.

Tried melatonin a couple of years ago -- didn't like the effects so discontinued it.

/L

I was fascinated to read Shannon's info about melatonin production shutting off with blue light. I've had problems with morning blood pressure spikes, and I always get up in the middle of the night at least once to do a little night-time physical therapy for my injuries so I can go back to sleep. I've always assumed it was a cortisol or other hormornal stimulant that was the culprit.

I'm now taking a small dose of melatonin (about .75 mg) at the time of my night-time awakening to see if that would help mitigate the BP spike. So far, so good, about a 10 point drop overall in the AM (between 6 and 10) when the pressure has been abnormally high. It is still higher than I would like during this period, but not excessively so, as was the case before the melatonin experiment..

Good to hear TomB,

Melatonin used correctly in a good dose for you is a wonderful and safe hormone with a number of beneficial properties and like with most of our hormonal milieu it tends to significantly decline in function with the aging process.

Try to avoid any blue spectrum lights as in typical incandescent or fluorescent lights after going to bed as well as taking your dose of melatonin and make sure you use a sublingual form preferably,

Keep in mind that oral melatonin is typically a factor of 10 times less potent than sublingual. And if there are any digestive or absorption issues even more of a problem taking it orally.
By the same token be careful taking too large a dose sublingually as that can cause the nocturnal cortisol crash if one is borderline low anyway and is taking too much melatonin for their needs.

Shannon

Shannon, are you saying taking oral melatonin will reduce cortisol, causing a crash? Or that taking too much will go paradoxical, increasing alerting?

______________
Lone paroxysmal vagal atrial fibrillation. Age 62, female, no risk factors. Autonomic instability since severe Paxil withdrawal in 2004, including extreme sensitivity to neuro-active drugs, supplements, foods. Monthly tachycardia started 1/11, happened only at night, during sleep, or when waking, bouts of 5-15 hours. Changed to afib about a year ago, same pattern. Frequency increased over last 6 months, apparently with sensitivity to more triggers. Ablation 6/27/13 by Steven Hao.

I'm pretty certain Shannon suggested that taking TOO MUCH melatonin could result in TOO MUCH suppression of Cortisol, leading to a hypoglycimic state (not sure why that would happen), which could result in the body producing Adrenalin to adress that situation. That could of course trigger an afib episode.

Hi Randy,

Yes you read me correctly. Taking too much Melatonin can and will hammer a borderline low Cortisol level. Melatonin, not unlike Growth Hormone which is another nocturnal-release -only anabolic hormone has the exact circadian rhythm set up by nature to be at its peak at night when normally our endogenous Cortisol is at a minimum. With health adrenal glands and a reasonably well balanced overall endocrine system there will still be plenty of low level nocturnal Cortisol remaining to prevent any overt nocturnal hypoglycemia in the face of the natural endogenous bolus dose of Melatonin that typically gets released from roughly 10pm to 2am each night ( depending on when its lights out for you).

And vice versa too high a level of nocturnal Cortisol can also suppress an already borderline low melatonin production as in people who burn the midnight oil too frequently and feel like they were hit by a bus the next morning.

Its natures natural checks and balance system with Cortisol begin the vital catabolic hormone balancing and complementing the anabolic milieu of hormones such they they don't run away with too high of an expression.

Often times when people start off taking Melatonin to begin with, it is because they have sleep issues they may be producing too much nocturnal Cortisol even if they might be overall deficient in Adrenal hormone production over a 24 hour period. They can usually then tolerated huge doses of sublingual Melatonin such s 3mg to 5mg a night! But after a period of time, its not uncommon, particularly if one's overall adrenal output is borderline low to low and the problem is that it is just skewed such that you are getting way too much Cortisol production at night and not enough during the day when you need Cortisol's calm steady energy, that after a period of higher dose Melatonin you gradually grow intolerant to that higher dose that helped you sleep and from which you woke hop refreshed and with no early wake ups and no groggy head in the morning.

One you start getting symptoms of excess Melatonin like the early morning 'adrenaline' release startled wake up or bad dreams, from night time hypoglycemia arising from too much suppression of an already too low night time Cortisol level, then you need to dramatically reduce the Melatonin dose and look toward improving your adrenal support as well during the day.

Shannon

Thank you for the many responses on melatonin. I have been having so many afib attacks recently (4 in the past month) that I am looking for any trigger possible.
I do have a stent, pacemaker and heart disease so perhaps this is a sign of things to come. Hopefully my cardiologist can adjust my meds. I am waiting to see her. I am so grateful to be on this site.