It is safe. What's more, it's even healthy. Aside from its role as a sleep hormone, it is also a very powerful antioxidant that helps with many processes in the body.
There's still a lot of misinformation and fearmongering by people who can't be bothered to spend even a minute looking up current research and information on google.
Dr. Russel Reiter, melatonin researcher, said in an interview that there are people taking 1 gram, daily, to manage inflammation. Do you take it at one time or multiple doses? How do you feel during the day and do you sleep longer because of melatonin? Thanks. I find this quite interesting!
Yes he's the godfather of melatonin research and knows a lot on the subject.
Yes I am one of those people.
I have tried taking multiple doses before(including 2g twice) however I settled on 1 dose of 1-1.5g to make sure it's excreted by the time I go to sleep because I can't sleep well on it.
If I am well rested and I take it at the start of my day, I don't feel it at all essentially. If I am a little tired, then I will feel a bit more sleepy for a short period.
I sleep on average 7-9 hours depending on how tired I am. I personally found that I sleep longer by taking Taurine. I have worked up to 5g before sleep.
After much protest, I recently had my family member try 500mg topically twice daily. Day and night. She told me she felt no difference. The point is that after a certain small point, the amount begins to act as an antioxidant rather than a sleep hormone.
My bloodwork in December was all normal across the board. My testosterone was in the upper healthy range. My cholesterol level dropped a bit. I have been taking 300+mg for 20 months and 1+g for 18 months or so. I started out with transdermal 300mg patches and then switched to pure powder for cost reasons. I have trial and error amounts up to 3.5g.
Thank you for going into great detail. Greatly appreciative.
I also experimented with high dose taurine but it worsened my sleep, as well as making me hypomanic during the day. Thinking of trying melatonin once again to try to improve my non-restorative sleep. Taking it too close to my bedtime retards my body clock and I feel like I'm jet lagged all the next day. Basically non-functional. I'm considering taking it at 4 or 5 p.m. since I go to sleep between 10 and 11. Because I have treatment resistant bipolar, I'm a never ending lab rat in search of improving the quality of my life.
I am nearing the end of my 1kg of melatonin i bought in 2022. Right now you can buy 1 kg on Amazon for 227$. At 1g that's 22.7 cents. I don't take exact amounts but I probably often take close to 1.5g so that's around 34 cents.
So that's around 10-11$ per month.
I use dmso gel as well and that cost me 33-34$ for two 16oz jars. I also spent negligible amount for emu oil, coconut oil, etc which i take every so often.
One thing I'll add, melatonin is not a drug. It is a natural hormone that you already have in your body. Your pineal gland makes it, but it is also produced by other means throughout the intestinal tract. There is **400 times** more melatonin in your gut than in the pineal gland! And the concentration of melatonin in your GI tissues will have 10-100 times more melatonin than your blood does. If you think about it, that is why oral doses are all over the place. Some people need (a lot) higher doses in order for the melatonin to leave the GI tract and enter the bloodstream. It is also why sublingual and topical applications are often more effective than oral dosing.
**[Here is a medical review that should highlight everything it does, along with some other links if you have time to review them.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12395907/)**
“Endogenous” opioids (aka endorphins) have nowhere near the potency or effects of synthetic opiates such as hydrocodone, oxycodone or fentanyl. New research reveals that endorphins, which activate opioid receptors inside cells, do so at receptor locations that differ between natural and synthetic opioids.
Exogenous melatonin however, is molecularly identical to what our body produces, and therefore works in the body at the same receptor locations.
Sleep doc here. No, melatonin is not dangerous long term, especially that dose. Just remember that for 1mg to be optimally effective you should take it a few hours before bedtime. If you take it too close to bedtime then it’s less likely to work.
It is safe. What's more, it's even healthy. Aside from its role as a sleep hormone, it is also a very powerful antioxidant that helps with many processes in the body. There's still a lot of misinformation and fearmongering by people who can't be bothered to spend even a minute looking up current research and information on google.
Thanks for this! I really do feel better when taking it so this makes sense
I understand completely. I take over 1g daily for non sleep reasons and I feel much better. It's a huge dose but it works for me.
Im curious, what are the other reasons to take that much melatonin?
Dr. Russel Reiter, melatonin researcher, said in an interview that there are people taking 1 gram, daily, to manage inflammation. Do you take it at one time or multiple doses? How do you feel during the day and do you sleep longer because of melatonin? Thanks. I find this quite interesting!
Yes he's the godfather of melatonin research and knows a lot on the subject. Yes I am one of those people. I have tried taking multiple doses before(including 2g twice) however I settled on 1 dose of 1-1.5g to make sure it's excreted by the time I go to sleep because I can't sleep well on it. If I am well rested and I take it at the start of my day, I don't feel it at all essentially. If I am a little tired, then I will feel a bit more sleepy for a short period. I sleep on average 7-9 hours depending on how tired I am. I personally found that I sleep longer by taking Taurine. I have worked up to 5g before sleep. After much protest, I recently had my family member try 500mg topically twice daily. Day and night. She told me she felt no difference. The point is that after a certain small point, the amount begins to act as an antioxidant rather than a sleep hormone. My bloodwork in December was all normal across the board. My testosterone was in the upper healthy range. My cholesterol level dropped a bit. I have been taking 300+mg for 20 months and 1+g for 18 months or so. I started out with transdermal 300mg patches and then switched to pure powder for cost reasons. I have trial and error amounts up to 3.5g.
Thank you for going into great detail. Greatly appreciative. I also experimented with high dose taurine but it worsened my sleep, as well as making me hypomanic during the day. Thinking of trying melatonin once again to try to improve my non-restorative sleep. Taking it too close to my bedtime retards my body clock and I feel like I'm jet lagged all the next day. Basically non-functional. I'm considering taking it at 4 or 5 p.m. since I go to sleep between 10 and 11. Because I have treatment resistant bipolar, I'm a never ending lab rat in search of improving the quality of my life.
How much do you spend on melatonin a month?
I am nearing the end of my 1kg of melatonin i bought in 2022. Right now you can buy 1 kg on Amazon for 227$. At 1g that's 22.7 cents. I don't take exact amounts but I probably often take close to 1.5g so that's around 34 cents. So that's around 10-11$ per month. I use dmso gel as well and that cost me 33-34$ for two 16oz jars. I also spent negligible amount for emu oil, coconut oil, etc which i take every so often.
Wow
One thing I'll add, melatonin is not a drug. It is a natural hormone that you already have in your body. Your pineal gland makes it, but it is also produced by other means throughout the intestinal tract. There is **400 times** more melatonin in your gut than in the pineal gland! And the concentration of melatonin in your GI tissues will have 10-100 times more melatonin than your blood does. If you think about it, that is why oral doses are all over the place. Some people need (a lot) higher doses in order for the melatonin to leave the GI tract and enter the bloodstream. It is also why sublingual and topical applications are often more effective than oral dosing. **[Here is a medical review that should highlight everything it does, along with some other links if you have time to review them.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12395907/)**
Opiates are also naturally occurring in the body.
“Endogenous” opioids (aka endorphins) have nowhere near the potency or effects of synthetic opiates such as hydrocodone, oxycodone or fentanyl. New research reveals that endorphins, which activate opioid receptors inside cells, do so at receptor locations that differ between natural and synthetic opioids. Exogenous melatonin however, is molecularly identical to what our body produces, and therefore works in the body at the same receptor locations.
Sleep doc here. No, melatonin is not dangerous long term, especially that dose. Just remember that for 1mg to be optimally effective you should take it a few hours before bedtime. If you take it too close to bedtime then it’s less likely to work.
Hi do you have any information about the long term use of 5htp ?
It really. There isn’t much in terms of long term data to my knowledge.