So, once again… I can’t sleep and have turned to drugs for help :eek:
After taking 6mg (2 doses) of melatonin and washing that down with Southern Comfort… I notice this:
“Do not use in conjunction with alcoholic beverages, when driving a vehicle” etc…
What will happen when mixing these two things? What the heck is melatonin anyway? And lastly, why doesn’t it work like it used to? I don’t take it every day… maybe 3 times a week though… do I build up a tolerance for it?
Oh yeah… this stuff also contains dicalcium phosphate and cellulose if that matters.
Please somebody answer this! Am I going to croak or get liver disease or something from this?
You’ll be fine, though I’m not so sure that you’ll have a very easy time waking up. Valiums and a little alcohol will put you out like no other, though. Only problem is you can feel it pretty good the next day. I’ve never had a hangover from getting drunk before so I don’t know what it feels like, but I think I get one when I take valiums with alcohol. Thing is, it’s not a bad feeling like the stereotypical hangover, more like a lightheaded feeling.
Y’know, the alcohol could be the reason you need more of the melatonin as time goes by. Alcohol is a short term sedative and a long term irritant.
That is, there is a rather rapid sedative effect that comes and goes quickly. Then there is a low level and persistent irritating effect that lasts over several days. This means that if you regularly drink alcohol the irritant effect from the latest drink reinforces that remaining from yesterday’s drink and gradually the irritation builds up over time. Thus you need more melatonin to calm you down.
I would suggest that you knock of the Southern Comfort, gut out the sleeplessness for a couple of weeks, and see if that helps. I think I understand why you disregard the cautionary statement “DO NOT USE WITH ALCOHOL.” But isn’t that sort of reckless?
Well, this is the first time I’ve drank alcohol in several months. I usually don’t drink at all, but I figured I would since I had it 
I bought the stuff because I wanted the bottle to build a ship inside.
So not drinking it with the melatonin for a while to see what happens will be no problem, will it?
Well, ideally I would like to get over the insomnia, but I’ve been this way all my life. Normally I just deal with it, but I’m gonna lose my job if I keep staying so tired all the time. I made a serious mistake the other day and I’m pretty sure it was just because I was not as sharp as I need to be. My doctor said to take the melatonin. I don’t even know what it is… which bugs me, cuz I have a bio degree and I try to stay away from stuff like that anyway. I’m in a real pickle… because I gotta get some sleep, but on the other hand… I really like to stay away from foreign substances. Most of the time I just dump the liquor down the drain… it’s a bummer that alcohol has the best bottles… and Southern Comfort has a really wide-mouth bottle which makes it excellent choice for ship-in-bottle endeavors. Thanks for your help…
I have used melatonin for a couple years (well… did use it), and I noticed a general waining of the effects as well. However, I looked into it a little more, and I discovered that there are actually stronger dosses for after you have been using it for a while. I also discovered that melatonin is nothing more than a chemical generated by our bodies that induces sleep. Taking it in pill form is simply assisting the body in making this stuff, so when the body doesn’t have enough (i.e. insomnia), you take a pill to help it along.
Melatonin is a natural hormone produced by your pineal gland. The melatonin production in your body is closely linked to the light-dark cycle. That is your brain start producing melatonin when light goes down and stop when the sun rises. Melatonin cause you to feel sleepy. In fact, it’s job is to prepare you to go to sleep. So when you take melatonin, it’s actually a supplement to the one that is already produced in your brain.
Therefore, Insomnia can be treated with a suplement of melatonin. But, if your insomnia is caused by other factor ( ie. Not a problem with your melatonin production cycle ). Then, the hormone will probably be useless.
Melatonin has some known side effect ( Now, i’m not a doctor here and those does not happen for everyone… i have no medical credibility, if a doctor prescribe melatonin to someone those effect are taken into account ). It worsen fatigue and depression, constriction of the arteries to the heart and possible effects on fertility. Remember that you already have melatonin in you normally.
Now for the alcohol, melatonin is a depressor, so is alcohol. So it’s not a very good idea to mix them because you would feel much less productive on the next day!!
Natural sleep is much more helpfull. Here’s some trick that i think can help sleep better. First ( and this one seems obvious ), go to sleep when it’s dark and raise with the sun. Second, everybody has a different sleep cycle. Most people have a cycle of 4 hours. Ideally one must find how long is his cycle and sleep two time this amount ( which give’s a mean of 8 hours of sleep for most of us ). Waking up in the middle of a cycle make you feel tired. Also, try not to eat before going to sleep.
That’s pretty much what i know on the subject. BTW, there is medical ressources called Sleep center which specialize on the subject, those guy can tell you what’s going on with your melatonin level, whats the lenght of your sleep cycle and many other usefull thing about the third of our existence that we know so little about 
Hope it helps !!
Cool, thanks. I suppose I could have looked that up… but thanks. Always good to be an informed consumer
I did go to a sleep doc once when I was younger, but what happened was… then I became so nervous about it that I really couldn’t sleep… the problem became worse.
I have been taking Melatonin for about a year now. I Took it with Alcohol for about 6 months now. I get random effects. Some nights I can sleep other nights I can’t. When I can sleep I can’t get up. When I can sleep I still can’t get up. Ether way I get very exclusive dreams. The most I have ever taken is 5 mg per night. If I am sober then no problem. If I am drunk then there s a 50/50 chance I will have a good night sleep. I would just recommend Taking it when you are not drinking.
I had at least one attending (read: head doc in teaching hospital) that said melatonin was really only proven to help in jet lag type situations. I know that on my peds rotation and the psych rotation, we always told them to take melatonin a few hours before planned bedtime. If you’re having issues falling asleep, try looking into “sleep hygiene” online. Here’s a decent resource. Alcohol may help in the short term to get you to fall asleep, but it’s definitely not a preferred way and if this is a chronic sleep problem, try to avoid alcohol at night. If it’s really becoming a problem, and it may be since you said it’s interfering with work, talk to your primary care provider. A benzodiazepene like zolpidem (Ambien) may be of use, but these are prescription drugs and definitely should NOT be tried without your doctor knowing.
Oops, I made a mistake. Zolpidem is NOT a benzo.