Melatonin for Epilepsy-sleep cycle

[Guest guest]

This is a post from the epilepsycured list that I had saved on melatonin,

will send thru any others I have on it as it seems to be cropping up on here

bit lately too,

> At a conference on Epilepsy at NYU medical center March 22 2003

Dr.Josiane

> LaJoie MD a Pediatric Neurologist at NYU medical center, presented a

very

> informative talk on the use of Melatonin in treating epilepsy. It

appears

> that melatonin, a hormone helping to regulate sleep, bocks the effects

of

> glutamate and enhances the effects of Gaba. The relation to the sleep

cycle

> makes it even more likely to be effective in those who have night time

> seizures. The positive effect has been demonstrated in both animal and

human

> studies. She mentioned that NYU is doing a study with melatonin.

Melatonin is

> usually used in conjunction with other AED's, but I hope it might be

helpful

> without AED's. It potentiates the effects of some AED's such as

> carbamazepine(Tegretol) and phenobarbitol.