Re: melatonin and outbursts

[Guest guest]

My thoughts & our experiences, so far. It felt like my migraine girl

(when just under 2yo, been close to a couple of years now) had this

tendency to outbursts, when the amount of melatonin was too high of a

dose for her...what she needed would vary quite a bit the first six

months we added it....Overall, melatonin was sooo helpful for her, that

figuring out the doses was worthwhile for us...actually, this is a

major understatement ...before then, she had never, Never, Really

slept in her short life.

She also had another reaction that was more of an " out of sorts " and

melt down type behavior when her dose was too high. I am thinking that

there is a serotonin metabolism connection that I don't recall at

moment..think I tweaked her foods some to address that, but don't

recall the details, just the connection to serotonin, too much or too

little - maybe someone else might know? (also was nursing her at that

time, so could have tweaked my own supps to address this one too)...It

also seemed to take a good 4 to 6 hours (that would be after waking up)

for her to recover from too much of the melatonin, but after that 4-6

hour period was fine, and usually much improved, to boot. (hence, the

tweaking of the doses to find what worked for her without the side

effects

anyway, she needed 3mcg to 10mcg for a little over a month, initially

(doesn't seem to correlate to weight at our house - I have an older

child who still needs rather high doses & then another who does really

really good on 1/4 of a tablet every few days or so - this one child

didn't tolerate melatonin at all until recently- am thinking it made

her restless & out of sorts, but not positive on this.)

After that initial period, my migraine girl only seems to need it

sporadically and " self-doses " these days. I put a 3mcg in some milk &

she drinks what she wants...ummm, she will self-dose at about 1/4 to

1/2 of the milk most of the time these days - so just under 1mcg, more

or less. Btw, this is still the only supplement she will tolerate in

her food/drinks. big sigh, still refusing all the b's and etc..hope

that helps some.

Short answer - maybe lowering the dose would help, if the melatonin is

otherwise a good thing

fwiw

wishing you the best answers

elizabeth

>

> Hi-

> has anyone had any issues with anger and outbursts with their kids

the

> day after taking melatonin? My son has done well with going to sleep

> earlier with the melatonin, but the next day he seems angry and talks

> back more- especially in the mornings. School reports that he has a

> rough morning and then an ok or better afternoon. We are not giving

> anything else at this time. Thanks!

> Laurie

>

[Guest guest]

How much melatonin are you giving?

I find my son is having more vivid dreams on melatonin, but I don't

notice any morning side effects. He talks about having 'bad dreams'

now. Actually, we do have the positive side effect of being more

rested, alert and focused. I give him 1 mg.

I hope you can figure it out.

Pam

>

> Hi-

> has anyone had any issues with anger and outbursts with their kids

the

> day after taking melatonin? My son has done well with going to sleep

> earlier with the melatonin, but the next day he seems angry and talks

> back more- especially in the mornings. School reports that he has a

> rough morning and then an ok or better afternoon. We are not giving

> anything else at this time. Thanks!

> Laurie

>

[Guest guest]

A couple of thoughts:

People who do not sleep deeply enough for long periods will generally have

very vivid dreams when they resume sleeping deeply. This routinely happens

when people quit drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, or withdraw from

medication. In my experience, if the brain is chemically unable to sleep

deeply enough, melatonin has the same effect, but it is really secondary to

the fact that it is causing one to sleep deeply. People who are deprived of

adequate deep sleep are dream deprived. The vivid dreams are some form of

" catching up " , it seems. After a time, most likely the vivid dreams will

settle down a bit as this dream deficit is resolved. It is fairly common

for these vivid dreams to be experienced as " nightmares " but it doesn't

necessarily have to be experienced that way. If you know the mechanism

causing it, it gets easier to view them as just very vivid and not

necessarily disturbing.

My oldest son has done some reading on melatonin. I took it for several

months this year. It plays an important role in the immune system. So I

wonder if a negative reaction to it could be similar to the negative issues

associated with die-off reactions. Also, when I take melatonin at night, I

always take co-q-10 the next morning to counteract it and help me wake up.

Otherwise, I still feel half-asleep for many hours. And if you are

chemically half-asleep, you may be unable to " Edit " what you say and may be

speaking more from the subconscious. People who aren't well typically have

rather unhappy things in their subconscious -- anger, frustration and so

on. So perhaps co-q-10 in the morning would help with the outbursts.

HTH and good luck.

--

Michele

talithamichele@...

http://www.atraceofme.com

Send a letter. Get a bumpersticker. Make a difference.

http://www.solanorail.org

[Guest guest]

I have taken melatonin and that is the best sleep I've ever gotten. My

dad says he get bad dreams. Without it Mickie would be up all night.

Al least with it he sleeps till six.

May the negative side effects are being caused by something else.

Melatonin is supposed to be one the the least toxic substances on

earth.

Zurama

On Nov 19, 2007 7:37 PM, noaholiviaian <phaselow@...> wrote:

>

>

>

>

>

>

> How much melatonin are you giving?

>

> I find my son is having more vivid dreams on melatonin, but I don't

> notice any morning side effects. He talks about having 'bad dreams'

> now. Actually, we do have the positive side effect of being more

> rested, alert and focused. I give him 1 mg.

>

> I hope you can figure it out.

>

> Pam

>

>

>

> >

> > Hi-

> > has anyone had any issues with anger and outbursts with their kids

> the

> > day after taking melatonin? My son has done well with going to sleep

> > earlier with the melatonin, but the next day he seems angry and talks

> > back more- especially in the mornings. School reports that he has a

> > rough morning and then an ok or better afternoon. We are not giving

> > anything else at this time. Thanks!

> > Laurie

> >

>

>

[Guest guest]

Michele,

My son's 'bad dreams' have subsided like you describe (I started

melatonin in late August before school started). I always viewed the

dreams as a positive side effect of melatonin despite his perception

that they were bad.

Another thing for my son is that he no longer needs melatonin nightly

to fall asleep in an acceptable amount of time. I probably gave him

1 mg of melatonin nightly for about 45 days and then tapered off.

For the past 2-3 weeks I haven't given him any. I do notice he needs

about 30 minutes sometimes to fall asleep, but that is far better

than the 2-3 hours we battled this summer!

Perhaps we re-activated a system that went awry? My son was always

such a good sleeper aside from a horrendous period from 12-18 months

of age (right before he regressed; likely reflux) and Jan-August 2007.

Pam

>

> A couple of thoughts:

> People who do not sleep deeply enough for long periods will

generally have

> very vivid dreams when they resume sleeping deeply. This routinely

happens

> when people quit drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, or withdraw

from

> medication. In my experience, if the brain is chemically unable to

sleep

> deeply enough, melatonin has the same effect, but it is really

secondary to

> the fact that it is causing one to sleep deeply. People who are

deprived of

> adequate deep sleep are dream deprived. The vivid dreams are some

form of

> " catching up " , it seems. After a time, most likely the vivid

dreams will

> settle down a bit as this dream deficit is resolved. It is fairly

common

> for these vivid dreams to be experienced as " nightmares " but it

doesn't

> necessarily have to be experienced that way. If you know the

mechanism

> causing it, it gets easier to view them as just very vivid and not

> necessarily disturbing.

>

> My oldest son has done some reading on melatonin. I took it for

several

> months this year. It plays an important role in the immune

system. So I

> wonder if a negative reaction to it could be similar to the

negative issues

> associated with die-off reactions. Also, when I take melatonin at

night, I

> always take co-q-10 the next morning to counteract it and help me

wake up.

> Otherwise, I still feel half-asleep for many hours. And if you are

> chemically half-asleep, you may be unable to " Edit " what you say

and may be

> speaking more from the subconscious. People who aren't well

typically have

> rather unhappy things in their subconscious -- anger, frustration

and so

> on. So perhaps co-q-10 in the morning would help with the

outbursts.

>

>

> HTH and good luck.

>

> --

> Michele

>

> talithamichele@...

> http://www.atraceofme.com

>

> Send a letter. Get a bumpersticker. Make a difference.

> http://www.solanorail.org

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

How much is he taking?

>

> Hi-

> has anyone had any issues with anger and outbursts with their kids the

> day after taking melatonin? My son has done well with going to sleep

> earlier with the melatonin, but the next day he seems angry and talks

> back more- especially in the mornings. School reports that he has a

> rough morning and then an ok or better afternoon. We are not giving

> anything else at this time. Thanks!

> Laurie

>

[Guest guest]

I forgot to add that my kids both use this. My 12 year old is NT so

she told me that it gave her bad dreams or vivid dreams at first. We

decreased her dose. And make sure they take it 30 minutes before going

to sleep. It seemed to be worse if she took if an hour or more before

sleeping. She has been on it for 16months now and it works fine, the

dreams are gone.

> >

> > Hi-

> > has anyone had any issues with anger and outbursts with their kids

the

> > day after taking melatonin? My son has done well with going to sleep

> > earlier with the melatonin, but the next day he seems angry and talks

> > back more- especially in the mornings. School reports that he has a

> > rough morning and then an ok or better afternoon. We are not giving

> > anything else at this time. Thanks!

> > Laurie

> >

>

[Guest guest]

>>For the past 2-3 weeks I haven't given him any. I do notice he needs

about 30 minutes sometimes to fall asleep, but that is far better

than the 2-3 hours we battled this summer!

>>Perhaps we re-activated a system that went awry?

My 20 yo son, who reads a lot more science stuff than I do, has speculated

that perhaps my insomnia was caused in part by my body using up melatonin

for its immune functions (due to my serious health problems) and not having

sufficient amounts left over for using for the sleep functions it performs.

Given that our kids on this list generally have serious health problems

(metal poisoning, etc), it seems reasonable to me to suggest the same thing:

perhaps his body had exhausted his melatonin for immune functions and giving

him melatonin allowed the body to have enough to do BOTH functions long

enough to undo some kind of deficit. So now the body is able to keep up

with supplying both functions because there isn't some huge deficit or huge

drain or something.

--

Michele

talithamichele@...

http://www.atraceofme.com

Send a letter. Get a bumpersticker. Make a difference.

http://www.solanorail.org