Melatonin: Buyer Beware

Ink · Post by **Ink** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:47 pm

Anybody here take this suppliment?

Melatonin is a hormone widely used as a 'natural' sleep aid. I, personally, love it. But lately my body has done some weird-weird things. Besides feel fantastic and energetic in the morning...

I really got concerned in January when I realized I had hypothalamic amenorrhea. I went about my days the same, though. I mean -- unless immaculate conception was involved I wasn't worried. I'm a prude, after all. I blamed college stress and bad food.

Three months go by...

Maybe stress? That 3.850 average wasn't insane to get though.
Maybe weight gain? No.
Maybe it's the pot I smoke (yes, I know it's illegal and everybody can dig up scary facts about it. I'll do it anyway, never had a big problem with it. No need to lecture me)...

Then I'm told something could be wrong. I freak out, got all flustered.

Maybe that was causing it... or maybe I can't have kids? Maybe I've got ovarian issues? Maybe there are other problems? Maybe my hormones have shut down and I'm dying, slowly? Maybe something even more dramatic? Maybe they should make a TV episode about it? Maybe I'll write an essay about how my dreams of immortality through children have been crushed? Maybe I could start a pro-women's rally for these kind of things? Maybe I should contact Oprah and have it featured sometime before she dives off-air?

I became beyond sadistic, cynical and grumbly about it, resigning to the unknown facts expecting the worse and went on with my life. I'm not one that dwells on much. When I really don't want to know I stop asking questions.

Then, tonight, I popped my 3mg of melatonin the doctor tells me is okay to take. Silly Western medicine. I google it and I read -- I will tell myself what's right, because I am a really ridiculously bad patient who believes nothing/very little of what any given professional tells me. And I'll do stupid things like not care or take their advice but constantly check it.

Then I came across the biggest 'oops' in over-reading I've ever made.

There's a line telling women, who are trying to concieve, that it's a bad idea to take melatonin because it acts as a psuedo-oral contraceptive. Well, that's not me so I ignored that. And yet, in that moment, it dawns on me... Could it be?

I dig a little deeper into some medical papers. Oh yes, add melatonin with progesterone and you get a new fantastic, rave worthy oral contraceptive they want to put into trials in two years. But even on it's own Melitonin, in larger doses, can act as a contraceptive.

Then I look up more and more and what little is there points to this -- and suddenly realize what's the biggest plausible factor my state of amenorrhea could come from.

I just thought I'd put this tid-bit up there for anybody else who takes suppliments.

I'm not going to stop taking Melatonin.
I love it still.
Perhaps all the more...

I'm perfectly content with taking it but I thought to throw out there how serious they are about this being a contraceptive to some women.

This is a fore-warning sort of thing -- don't over-read your medical labels or noted FAQ about substances.

If it involves women, and you are a woman, it invovles you -- irregardless of your state of being -- same goes for men.

I mean, I got the scare of my life that I might have something wrong with me (obviously not pregnancy though) and had to ask 'why?' For several months and at one point think I might not be able to bear children and fear a visit with a gynecologist (who I won't go see because I'm the worst patient ever on a regular basis, hate hospitals or any clinical visits and am a general evil prude -- and I hate Western medicine too).

Indeed, a Buyer Beware warranting some look.
Even if it's just a second look.

vrikasatma · Post by **vrikasatma** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:18 am

I've been taking melatonin for something like...oh, twelve years. Didn't do much of anything for my cycle, one way or the other. Continued to ovulate, the flow thinned out and shortened a little bit, I thought it was just perimenopause. Got one big cramp per period.

Now, I've already gone into what we found regarding the equipment...ovarian cysts, fibroids in the uterus itself, colon tumours starting to send feelers into the uterus, et alia.

Melatonin? Who knows? Anyway, the equipment is gone now so I'm out of the running either way. I did get oopsed once when I was taking melatonin (broken rubber), but wound up miscarrying (both of us went *Whew*). Melatonin? Maybe, maybe not. We'll never know.

All I know, now, is that melatonin isn't working for me. I have a hard time going to sleep at night. Chemo side effect? Possibly. The only thing that really works for me now is Ambien and that costs $4 for a pill slightly smaller than a grain of rice

I could ask my OB-GYN...but personally, I wouldn't bet on melatonin as a contraceptive. If you're active, keep using those rubbers until your own OB-GYN gives you the green light — and then, keep using them anyway. Especially would advise against believing it if you read it on the 'Net unless you see it in a bunch of credible places at the same time.

wolfbound · Post by **wolfbound** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 3:52 am

what ever you do stay away from the vi*gra.

vrikasatma · Post by **vrikasatma** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 4:10 am

You mean lotus?

Yes, the active principle in lotus is the basis of vi*gra. Then again, most impotence is psychological, so basically all vi*gra does is "loosen you up."

Ink · Post by **Ink** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 9:38 am

vrikasatma wrote: I could ask my OB-GYN...but personally, I wouldn't bet on melatonin as a contraceptive. If you're active, keep using those rubbers until your own OB-GYN gives you the green light — and then, keep using them anyway. Especially would advise against believing it if you read it on the 'Net unless you see it in a bunch of credible places at the same time.

How many mgs were you taking? Apparently some women respond quite different to it and I know I've been taking high-dosages of it.

Here are some sources of the info I found:
Melatonin: a contraceptive for the nineties.

And according to another site:
MELATONIN

by Geoffrey Cowley
Newsweek, August , 1995

"That's why females in most species are fertile only at certain times of year. Exploiting this principle, Cohen has combined a stiff (75 mg) dose of melatonin with progestin to create a new oral contraceptive. The drug, called B-Oval, has performed as well as conventional birth-control pills in European studies involving 1,000 women, and has shown no toxicity. Cohen plans to launch U.S. trials within two years, but his goal is not simply to market another contraceptive. If his hypothesis about melatonin, estrogen and breast tumors bears out, the new pill could help women prevent cancer as well as unwanted pregnancies."

Now, I know the news article is over 10 years old and B-Oval has never came out, according to my lack in finds. However, Melatonin is believed still to shut down the biological clock and stop ovulation.

There's a batch of medical information on this material. None of it is conclusive.

I am in no way, shape or form active with anything other than academics -- because I'm a prude.

I'll talk to my doctor but there's many credible but inconclusive finds bouncing around here.

I have a sneaking suspicion, since timelines work, that Melatonin is to blame.

vrikasatma · Post by **vrikasatma** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 4:24 pm

I took 1 tab a night, I think 150mg. Sometimes I took two for a total of 300mg.

Personally, though, if melatonin is really a contraceptive, that might be a good thing. Or maybe not. I get the feeling we should stock up ahead of preachers warning their flocks and pushing for the FDA to control it...

I just visualized melatonin as a controlled substance...DEA agents sweeping through the aisles at Costco and seizing the bottles...balding pharmacists at Wal-Mart giving girls the fuzzy eyebrow and asking them if their husbands know they're buying melatonin...

Hamster · Post by **Hamster** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 6:20 pm

I been taking Diphenhydramine lately. I haven't been getting much sleep, either.