Trying melatonin with ds

[sbgrace]

3 hours ago, PeterPan said:

So then, just thinking out loud here, if I wanted to try the melatonin (and that's an IF, not a going to) and if my purpose was to tell my brain to settle down, not so much a getting tired, when would I take it? I first started getting tired, as I said, at 42 when I started taking 5HTP. I never ever basically got tired before that unless I was getting dreadfully sick. Like two times it happened, and both times I had something horrific that landed me in Urgent Care. So normally I just tell myself to follow my routine and wind down. And I actually fall asleep really well now with the 5htp. I used to have a measure of lag (20-30 minutes, sometimes hours, depending), and now I'm pretty much like boom, 3 minutes. I really my Bible a little and I'm OUT. So maybe I should just leave well enough alone?

The reason it fascinates me is I have a family history of these weird blackout seizures and I was told by a family member that they were told by a neurologist that the brain wasn't shutting off. So it's possible to sleep and still have your brain going I think. I don't know, don't even know how I'd know if that was happening. Really though, my brain probably is, because I usually wake up and immediately get out of bed and go do something or a bunch of somethings that my brain has figured out. I wake up very ON and my brain will have made new connections of what I should research or do next on my projects or whatever.

Well anyways, that's rabbit traily. I just think I violated my major rule with ds, which is that I usually take it MYSELF before I give it to him. So that's why I was thinking maybe if I took it myself it would be easier to sort out what it's doing to him.

If you are going to sleep that quickly, I would leave well enough alone I think. Unless you think it would help you help him if you experience it. I don't think my son and I share enough genetics to compare like that. 

I would keep in mind that I have melatonin as an option if you yourself find that you need something more occasionally or after getting "off" somehow. That happens to me sometimes (my sleep just gets off or I am too keyed up on a given night to settle down), and I use melatonin to reset myself or settle. I use it at night, not evening, for myself, even to reset clocks type stuff that evening is ideal for as I find that more convenient (and I use cheap melatonin for myself, the 0.5 mg Pure Encapsulations I use for evenings for my son isn't particularly cheap). 

[Guest]

On 7/31/2018 at 3:17 PM, Sk8ermaiden said:

I have many friends with ADD or SPD kids who are on Melatonin and night terrors was the one thing they all mentioned. Their common advice was that it takes a "loading dose" before it starts up. If they've done it 4 days to a week or more in a row, that's when they notice it happen. 

 

This is what happened with us, and we had no input from the pediatrician when she recommended it on what to expect.

__________________________________________________________________________

When we went gluten and casein free, when my 9-year-old was newly 3, he finally started sleeping 9-10 consecutive hours. That was a first for him! Since he was a newborn baby he never slept for extended periods. At age 3, before the diets, he would sleep for 3 hours and be up for 6-7 hours. He never, not even when he was a newborn, ever woke up in a crabby mood. He always looked like he had had all the rest he needed. I nicknamed him Napoleon because of it. I too can get by on less sleep, and we are both nightowls. I have no need for melatonin (have never tried it), and really neither does my son. I tried to regulate his hours at the time, so he doesn't go to bed too late. I am finding natural ways now (healthy diet, exercise, bedtime routine) and following those instead. Neither one of us has ever had insomnia problems so I don't feel that everyone needs melatonin, but I do understand that there are those that do. I found that last article I linked really useful. It made more clear in my mind what my boy needs.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Guest

[PeterPan]

3 hours ago, Sk8ermaiden said:

I hope I am OK to respond to this. DD has ADHD, which can come hand in hand with disordered sleep. We recently started Melatonin with her. I have many friends with ADD or SPD kids who are on Melatonin and night terrors was the one thing they all mentioned. Their common advice was that it takes a "loading dose" before it starts up. If they've done it 4 days to a week or more in a row, that's when they notice it happen. So with DD, we never do more than two nights in a row and have never had a problem. That's not an option for everyone, but if you notice any side effects, taking a night off here or there might help. 

Also, we bought DD a fitbit with the sleep cycle capability (the Alta HR- not the kid one, it can't do it). It's amazing. It really gives me an insight into what exactly my day is going to look like once she wakes up. I also realized that she gets almost no deep sleep. With the melatonin, she gets 6 times as much deep sleep a night (which brings her up to the normal amount) and is better functioning and more rested, even with the same total number of hours of sleep.
 

Ok, that's FASCINATING. What a smart use of technology! And that's really interesting about your friends' experiences with night terrors. I'll just watch and see. 

So basically, your take would be that he's more revved and stimming because he's sleeping better? Wow. That's very wow really.

[PeterPan]

I did the 2nd half of the cut tablet tonight, but it was slightly smaller than half. I gave it earlier, I think either 5 or 6pm, with his dinner vits. By 8pm he was yawning and trying to wind down. Really though, I think 8pm is a NORMAL time for little kids to get tired, yes? He wanted to watch a movie and did, but still he was completely ready to go to bed, on his own, no prompts, by 9:30-ish. So giving it earlier in the evening is kind of interesting. I guess we'll see what happens tonight. I can't stay up to watch for disasters though, mercy.

We've had so much stress at night, just with behaviors being worse. I didn't anticipate that the melatonin would help with that. I thought it would just be ok, now we're going to sleep. Instead, it seems to be making the whole flow of the evening a little calmer.

I think if we stick with this we'll probably want that .5 mg from Pure Encapsulations. We could even fiddle around with pouring it to half of that and see how he does. I really like the perky alive side effect. Guess we'll see if anything weird happens tonight by giving it so much earlier. 

[exercise_guru]

I also use the fitbit for my son. Melatonin works fine for him but it gives my daughter weird dreams ( her counselor told me that is actually common so watch out for that). My kiddos outgrew much of their sleep problems and putting the dog in my daughters room has been getting her to sleep through the night. The cat loves to sleep on my sons bed and they both go right to sleep. Sorry I don't have much help because I don't know how I solved their issues. I was told  by the pediatrician to give melatonin about 3 hours before bedtime and turn down the lights. Let the body feel like it should go to sleep. I have also considered trying magnesium in the evening but I haven't needed to. 

On a different note I have suffered from significant insomnia for three years. I tried ambien and melatonin and antihistamines all with their unwanted side effects. Then a month ago I had a Methlyated B complex/B12 shot ( for a medical condition) amazingly I sleep wonderfully now. I fall asleep and sleep well all night. I will be getting this shot for the next 6 weeks until my levels come up ( I am a cancer survivor)  Because it is a complete Vitamin Shot I can't figure out which vitamin I was low in but it is amazing. I haven't slept like this for 3 years.  

[PeterPan]

42 minutes ago, exercise_guru said:

On a different note I have suffered from significant insomnia for three years. I tried ambien and melatonin and antihistamines all with their unwanted side effects. Then a month ago I had a Methlyated B complex/B12 shot ( for a medical condition) amazingly I sleep wonderfully now. I fall asleep and sleep well all night. I will be getting this shot for the next 6 weeks until my levels come up ( I am a cancer survivor)  Because it is a complete Vitamin Shot I can't figure out which vitamin I was low in but it is amazing. I haven't slept like this for 3 years.  

That's AMAZING!!

[PeterPan]

Well I pulled him off the melatonin. It was really great, but I think it was raising his methyl levels. We were having more and more aggressive behaviors, and that just wasn't workable. I had him at 0.5mg a number of days, enough that if it were good voodoo we would have see. I also didn't think the 6pm dosing was very natural. He just was tired instead of winding down naturally. Now it was nice, don't get me wrong, lol, but it wasn't natural.

It took a couple days for the effect to clear. I don't know. He's up right now, really tired from camping through a rainstorm, sigh. He needs the 0.1 dose, lol. I mean, what would that be, just a DROP of a liquid? Mercy. 

Well I just checked and he's asleep! I have to carry him up (all 65 pounds, ugh) because he fell asleep watching Mythbusters, which I told him he could do. I just hadn't thought he actually WOULD, lol. He must have been really tired! So good.

Yeah, I'm trying to remember what was happening. He was just waking up really driven and hard to connect with, walking out the door, really intense, and he was snapping a lot. I tried to add niacin and make it work, because yeah the effect of guaranteed sleep is slick. But messing up the overall balance of his behavior wasn't worth it. Every day was a little bit different, but the trajectory was not improving or of overall improvement. It was more like increasing intensity of wrongness that we couldn't put our fingers on, and it only took a couple days of increasing aggression for me to decide I needed to pull the plug. One day can be a whim or the moon or whatever, but not multiple days. He was also complaining of headaches. That's why I had been decreasing the doses, trying to see if we could find a sweet spot. I suspect that his "headaches" were actually grogginess, but I just think that means we were having a hard time getting the dose low enough to get the good (which was good!) but not the side effects. 

So for now, probably just safer not to. It's there if we need it, and I could try cutting into 1/4s a 1mg tablet maybe or trying just *drops* of a tincture. If he weighs double, which he will at some point, and it's still an issue, we might have more flex. 

Edited August 5, 2018 by PeterPan

[4KookieKids]

Aw, sorry to hear it had such side effects. ?

[exercise_guru]

Have you thought of trying a bath at night using epson salts? There is a lot of talk about sulfer and its relation with methylation. I did this when my daughter was young and it really did help with the routine and with the calming. Its like trying to simulate a hot springs bath but you don't need a high does. Also have you ever tried the dreampad by ILS? Its a pillow that you put an mp3 inside with music. The thing is its just an app that is free and you could easily try it with a speaker in his room each night ( that is what we did) I also put lavender on my daughters pillow trying to create a calming routine each night. 

I know if they are amped up and have biology working against you its not likely to work but I did try all of those things even for myself. That is why I was so suprised that the B12/Bcomplex worked. 

[PeterPan]

EG, interesting ideas. We've done some lavendar as a cream. Hadn't thought about the sulfur connection, hm. He listens to audiobooks for bed, but if they're good they just keep him up, lol.

Edited August 5, 2018 by PeterPan

[sbgrace]

I'm sorry you had side effects that made it not work for him. I'm glad he fell asleep well tonight. I do think you may have options when he's older/bigger--not just in melatonin or similar stuff dosing, but behavioral stuff around sleep seemed to work better with more maturity here. I think maybe Mightier helped a bit too, in a round about way. 

[4KookieKids]

8 hours ago, PeterPan said:

EG, interesting ideas. We've done some lavendar as a cream. Hadn't thought about the sulfur connection, hm. He listens to audiobooks for bed, but if they're good they just keep him up, lol.

 

Just a thought: most essential oils are best inhaled. Have you ever tried a pillow spray? Also, wanted to throw out that sometime folks will see one EO help with sleep for a month or two, and then it’s not so effective anymore for a while. We had best luck (with respect to EOs, I mean, because we tried a lot of things for sleep and EOs ended up not making the biggest impact) cycling through different pillow sprays every two months or so. Also, some EOs would work well for one child, but amp another child up.... So it did take quite a lot of experimenting for us to find good combinations that worked for each of my children. 

 But I’m not really one to give a ton of advice, because my worst sleepers started sleeping significantly better with just a nightly dose of magnesium glycinate. We had to teach my six year old to swallow capsules I made myself, but it worked so much better for us than melatonin. We had tried  so many other sleep helps, and simple magnesium made all the difference. LOL. It seems kind of silly now. On the other hand, not all forms of magnesium helped us, so maybe it was lucky we found this one early on. 

[PeterPan]

Well just to keep the saga going, hehe, we tried the melatonin on and off, just a dab here, a dab there, whittling tablets down to .25mg, and I still don't really like it. Like it's pragmatic, but he stims a lot and is more negative. So then, for some reason, we ended up giving him more 5HTP. We've been playing around with that to see if it would be good, and it actually sort of is! It's still new, maybe 5-6 days, but it's really seeming like a keeper. He was a little tired two nights ago and last night he was OVERTLY tired. That was fascinating, because 200mg is the magical dose where that can happen for me. Now maybe I could push it up a little higher, dunno, but that was when I first started getting tired at night for the first time in my life. (age 42 mind you)

So yeah, he spent hours last night ranting about how it was MY fault he was tired, that he doesn't get tired, that he wasn't going to sleep, that he should be able to stay up, blah blah. I'm like dude it's NORMAL to get tired!!!  LOL  I did *not* tell him the 5HTP leads to that, mercy. In the moment, his analysis was pretty irrational, so that wasn't cool. But then this morning, boom, he was up all spritely like. 

So I think we'll stay at this higher dose on the 5HTP and see what that gets us. 

[PeterPan]

He was actually yawning and tired tonight at 9:30. Crazy. It's going to take a while for his body to get in sync, but this is good. 

[Guest]

We have never used 5-HTP and I am not considering it but I am just linking this as an fyi, for you or anyone else that may find it useful.

The quote is from WebMD and it is found here:

https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-794/5-htp

Quote

Children: 5-HTP is POSSIBLY SAFE when taken by mouth appropriately. Doses of up to 5 mg/kg daily have been used safely for up to 3 years in infants and children up to 12 years-old. As with adults, there is also concern about the potential for eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS) in children, a serious condition involving extreme muscle tenderness (myalgia) and blood abnormalities (eosinophilia).

 

Based on their maximum dose that has been used safely, this would put your son whom you said is 65 lbs, at a maximum dose of approximately 150 mg.

[PeterPan]

We've already discussed it with our ped and he's good with it.

[geodob]

5-HTP would help him to make his own Melatonin.

The Pineal Gland, takes 5-HTP (Serotonin) and Acetylates it to make Acetylserotonin.  Which is then Methylated, to form Melatonin.

[PeterPan]

3 hours ago, geodob said:

5-HTP would help him to make his own Melatonin.

The Pineal Gland, takes 5-HTP (Serotonin) and Acetylates it to make Acetylserotonin.  Which is then Methylated, to form Melatonin.

Yup. And what's interesting is he's now at the same dose I'm taking (200mg time release, 2X). I weigh more than double him, so I hadn't planned on bumping it up so much. Proportionally 100mg would have made more sense, but when he had a growth spurt earlier this summer the aggression returned and pulled back when we bumped the dose. Now he's had another growth spurt and is at the same dose I am. I have no clue what that means, but at least it's working. He's calm, not aggressive, more able to do things. At 100 and 150 we still weren't getting him tired at night. Now he's actually feeling the fatigue, getting used to it. He didn't fight it so badly last night, so I think maybe he's adjusting to the sensations. It is really weird to get tired when you're not used to the feeling.

[Guest]

Quote

Children: 5-HTP is POSSIBLY SAFE when taken by mouth appropriately. Doses of up to 5 mg/kg daily have been used safely for up to 3 years in infants and children up to 12 years-old. As with adults, there is also concern about the potential for eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS) in children, a serious condition involving extreme muscle tenderness (myalgia) and blood abnormalities (eosinophilia).

 

Based on the above (also quoted in previous post) a child has to weigh a minimum of 88 lbs to take 200mg, and that's per day.

This is just for clarity, for others reading that might consider using it with their kids.

My intentions are to provide the information. We each decide for ourselves how we choose to use it.

Edited August 23, 2018 by Guest

[Guest]

dp

Edited August 22, 2018 by Guest

[exercise_guru]

Pan I saw this video and thought of you Melatonin-Rich Food . I am going to try to give my kiddos a bannana and some pistachios for a 7 pm snack before our 8:30 bedtime

From the link:

In addition to bananas and cranberries....."Pistachios are not just the most melatonin-rich nut, they are simply off-the-charts as the most melatonin-rich food ever recorded. To get a physiological dose of melatonin, all you have to eat is two. Two what? Just two pistachios. Check it out; here are the data. More than 200 micrograms of melatonin per gram, .2 milligrams per gram. And, you can get the normal daily spike your brain gives you by taking just .3 micrograms: so, just two nuts. So, taking a whole handful of pistachio nuts is like taking one of those high-dose melatonin supplements. So, the best food for jet lag appears to be appropriately timed pistachios."

[maize]

1 minute ago, exercise_guru said:

Pan I saw this video and thought of you Melatonin-Rich Food . I am going to try to give my kiddos a bannana and some pistachios for a 7 pm snack before our 8:30 bedtime

From the link:

In addition to bananas and cranberries....."Pistachios are not just the most melatonin-rich nut, they are simply off-the-charts as the most melatonin-rich food ever recorded. To get a physiological dose of melatonin, all you have to eat is two. Two what? Just two pistachios. Check it out; here are the data. More than 200 micrograms of melatonin per gram, .2 milligrams per gram. And, you can get the normal daily spike your brain gives you by taking just .3 micrograms: so, just two nuts. So, taking a whole handful of pistachio nuts is like taking one of those high-dose melatonin supplements. So, the best food for jet lag appears to be appropriately timed pistachios."

Well that is interesting! I love pistachios. I'm even growing pistachio trees. Does this mean we should avoid eating them at other times of day though?

[maize]

On 8/22/2018 at 3:31 PM, Moved On said:

 

Based on the above (also quoted in previous post) a child has to weigh a minimum of 88 lbs to take 200mg, and that's per day.

This is just for clarity, for others reading that might consider using it with their kids.

My intentions are to provide the information. We each decide for ourselves how we choose to use it.

I researched 5-HTP a few years ago and came away feeling distinctly uncomfortable with it as a supplement.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, maize said:

I researched 5-HTP a few years ago and came away feeling distinctly uncomfortable with it as a supplement.

Glad I'm not the only one!

[Guest]

3 hours ago, maize said:

I researched 5-HTP a few years ago and came away feeling distinctly uncomfortable with it as a supplement.

I posted the link for people to see for themselves what they need to see. I didn't comment further because I get really tired of always sounding like the bad guy. At the end of the day, we each decide for ourselves what we feel is good for our kids and what is not. I made it clear that I would never use it with my kids from the first post. Sometimes, people have to read between the lines ☺️.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Guest

[ThursdayNext]

On 7/30/2018 at 11:44 AM, PeterPan said:

How much are you using? That's amazing the improvements you got.

 

 sorry for the late reply. We're using about .75 mg. He is asleep about 45 min after we give it to him.

[exercise_guru]

I am not sure about a parent avoiding pastachios if they are a good sleeper.  My theory is the nuts and bananas help to support the circadian rhythm

I use the nuts and bananas as a bed time routine. 

First I announce that its time to start settling down and turn off electronics. I should be doing this earlier but there is only so much time with soccer and all. Then I have them eat this snack and relax reading a book. I turn dim the lights to let their bodies get used to the idea. Then I find all the animals who sleep on each persons bed and after around an hour of all that I start the bedtime routine ( stories, brushing teeth that kind of stuff. 

Both of my children used to be terrible sleepers. Then one night the cat spontaneously started to sleep on my sons bed. He didn't want to scare it so he held really still and fell asleep. Now its part of the routine and the cat and boy sleep soundly. 

My preteen daughter gets nightmares from melatonin ( well from almost anything) she is highly nervous and doesn't sleep well so the dog bed is in her room and she allows the other cat to sleep on her bed ( Why my cats like this I have no idea) .  She enjoys the nuts around an hour before bedtime. She is sleeping amazingly well. My kids are rigidly stuck on their routine but all seems to be going well. 

I added the pistachios for good measure but everyone is sleeping through the night amazingly well. For myself I really need the sleep I am on a drug called Tamoxifen for BCancer and it wires me up like crazy. When I combine it with Melaton pills it causes extreme hotflashes and I can't sleep. I have not found the pistachio banana technique to do this. 

 

I am not a huge fan of supplements or medications but we all do what we have to. What I have read about melatonin is that a very small dose 2 hours ahead of bed time helps balance the circadium rhythm. I will try to find the article but it was a very small dose given at just the right time. Also remove blue light and electronics so the body can settle down. Additionally I tried to get rid of all night lights ( still haven't totally got there) because of a BreastCcancer study that said they are not good for me (My goal is for everyone to sleep in a dark room) Also as mentioned above I give my kiddos 1 methyl B Vitamin a day that is from Thorne. I do that in the morning. I started that because I had terrible insomnia and then started getting weekly B Shots ( minus folic accid) I have slept bueatifully for the last 3 months so I continue those and eventually hope to switch to a regular vitamin. It was flipping a switch for me. I am still not sure why but sleep is a bueatiful thing. 

Edited September 23, 2018 by exercise_guru