Friday, June 26, 2015

Melatonin: The Savior of Sleep

Firstly, I am  not a medical doctor and I am not recommending medical treatment this is simply my own personal experience. For those of you who are not familiar with melatonin  it is a hormone that is naturally found in the body and it is responsible for regulating our body's sleep cycle. Synthetic melatonin is usually taken to help to regulate a person's sleep cycle when they have trouble staying asleep and/or feeling rested in the morning. 

For me the problem was I was not feeling well rested in the morning. I've always been someone who goes to bed early. On average I am asleep by 10:30 or 11:00. I on average only wake up once a night, but wake up feeling like I didn't get any sleep. This is most likely due to my fibromyalgia; it is known that those with fibromyalgia and restless leg syndrome which I also have usually don't go through the full sleep cycle. I also have back and neck muscle pain due to the fibro and I just carry my stress there in my body and it's always worse in the mornings once I wake up and I think it is the way I sleep and just never getting a well rested night. 

I was looking up natural more homeopathic ways to deal with fibromyalgia because I've tried multiple medications such as gabapentin, baclofen, cyclobenzaprine, nsaids, tylenol and the only thing i ever even felt helped somewhat was the nsaids, which I still do take maybe once or twice a month, but I'm someone who I personally don't like taking prescription medications and would prefer something more natural. Also, I just want to avoid the possible but rare side effects of those drugs. I was going to try 5 htp because I also struggle with depression and anxiety and I used to take antidepressants and anxiety medication, but it was a little more expensive than the melatonin so I thought I would try this first. 

I've tried melatonin once before about three years ago and honestly I didn't feel it helped then, but I thought for some reason that I would give it another try. I decided to instead of getting the pills that you swallow I would get the ones that melt under your tongue so it will get in my system faster. I bought the 5mg ones because in reality your body doesn't need a huge dose of it, with melting ones more will get in my system, and I am just a small person so I probably don't need a huge dose. I had been taking ambien 10mg as needed, but I hate the way it makes me feel in the morning.

Surprisingly, I felt a difference after the first night of taking it. I've taken it almost every other night for almost two weeks now and I still do get worn out during the day, but I can definitely tell a difference in my energy levels in the morning. I know you shouldn't take melatonin all the time and they say not to take it continuously for more than two weeks. So I think I will stop taking it for a few days and see how I feel. 

2 comments:

  1. I have used melatonin and valerian root. They both work ok at times. Right now I use Magnesium lotion that my daughter makes and it works great!

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    1. Ellen, magnesium lotion sounds neat! I will have to look up how to make it.

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