[teamonkey]

It may be uncontrolled in the US but not everywhere. It’s not allowed to be sold without a prescription where I live, and even then it’s only prescribed for chronic sleep disorders. I always ask anyone travelling to the US to bring back a bottle.

[swozey]

> chronic sleep disorders

Wow. It's been a long time but I've definitely taken melatonin and if I felt any effects at all they definitely weren't strong if even noticable.

Here (USA) Ambien is prescribed often for chronic sleep issues and that drug absolutely terrifies me. I've had friends addicted to it who wound up in a lot of criminal trouble for trespassing and wandering around beaches naked and things like that because they'd sleep-walk hallucinate. I had one friend get arrested for sleeping in someones (random) attic on an ambien kick. A pilot, no less.

My mom gave me a bottle of it when I was in high school and it made me hallucinate in an unpleasant way. I do plenty of mycology stuff but the ambien was weird. I think I took it twice or three times and just stopped.

[kelnos]

Interesting; I didn't realize Ambien was addictive. It was prescribed to me years ago after laser eye surgery (but only a week or so of pills). It was great for the first two or three days (I generally do have trouble sleeping and staying asleep, and Ambien knocked me right out and kept me that way for a solid 8 hours), but then I guess I developed a tolerance and it stopped being effective.

I wonder if that's why people get addicted? Maybe the normal dose is fine, but many some start developing a tolerance, and then self-raise their dosage in order to get it to work again, but a higher dose triggers addiction?

[swozey]

I'm not sure about its actual addictive power but I do know that a sad amount of people like to get ambien drunk.

> According to a report by the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), in 2010, about 57% of ER visits and hospitalizations caused by taking too much Ambien also involved other drugs. Ambien combined with alcohol accounted for 14% of those visits, or 2,851 people total. Combining alcohol and Ambien increased the person’s likelihood of requiring transfer to an intensive care unit (ICU) due to overdose.6

That could be because insomnia and alcohol dependence often go hand in hand. Additionally, alcohol works on the same GABA receptors in the brain as Ambien, increasing the effects of both Ambien and alcohol. Reported rates of sleep problems among people with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) in

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/30/615421269...

https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcoholism-treatment/mi...

[amelius]

And what to think of this book, where the author literally persuades people to megadose on the hormone:

https://www.amazon.com/Melatonin-Transform-Melatonin-resilie...

It's mindboggling that this is freely available.

[swozey]

> Dr John Lieurance is a Chiropractic Neurologist and Naturopathic Physician

I had never heard of a Chiropractic Neurologist. Interesting.

Welp reading about him was a wild ride. To save people a click -

> After becoming severely ill with Lyme, EBV and Mold illness, Dr John Lieurance began to explore ways to improve health at the deepest cellular level. His journey brought him to discover Melatonin as the core anti-oxidant that supports all systems in the body. His book on Melatonin takes a deep dive into healing naturally and using high dose melatonin, along with various other practical healing methods to heal the body and live a longer and more vital life.

His life focus is on vitality, longevity and enhanced consciousness. His interest is in connecting what he calls, "The 3 legs of a stool": Vitality of the body, Mind Mastery & a Direct experience of God. Using science and ancient wisdom, he aims to connect these dots in his own journey to becoming the best version of himself in this life. Diving deeply into many healing methods, to discover the deepest and most profound means to activate cellular energy, such as with Melatonin, Methylene Blue, NAD+, as well as fasting with various nutrients to activate responses. Dr. John explores many new paths in the health care world, with his unique & fresh ideas using various delivery systems, such as suppositories and nasal sprays and various protocols he has created. He attended Parker College of Chiropractic & received his Naturopathic degree in 2001 from St. Luke's School of Medicine. He has practiced Functional Neurology, Naturopathic medicine and Regenerative Medicine, using stem cell therapy in Sarasota for 25 years. Founder of the Advanced Rejuvenation Center in Sarasota, Florida, and founder of Functional Cranial Release – which is an Endo-Nasal Cranial Treatment with the ability to unlock the spinal fluid to allow profound healing of the nervous system. See his next book "It's All in Your Head: Endo-Nasal Cranial Therapy". He has been involved in multiple clinical trials, including investigation into the use of stem cells for Parkinson's Disease, COPD, OA of the knee and hip from 2012-2014. He has a clinical focus on mold illness, Lyme disease and chronic viral infections.

[mbernstein]

You haven’t heard of it because it’s unfortunately pseudo science.

[jrflowers]

A chiropractor flirting with pseudoscience is disappointing. He should have stuck with evidence based things like treating fever with spinal alignments.

[maksimur]

That book screams things such as conspiracy, pseudoscience, crazy guy, cult leader and anything in between, to me.

[smellyshaft1]

Well, you read the random summary and not the actual book so you're the expert here.

Any eye catching news headlines you would like to share?

[baggy_trough]

Yes, the absolute mind boggling horror of free people being able to decide for themselves what to ingest.

[sobkas]

> Yes, the absolute mind boggling horror of free people being able to decide for themselves what to ingest.

Absolute horror that people ingest things based on a lie. It's on level of this powder doesn't contain asbestos. Just because he isn't a big corp doesn't mean he is free to lie and profit on his lies.

[baggy_trough]

To me that’s less of a horror and more of needing not to believe everything you read.

[sobkas]

And how I'm supposed to decide what to believe? Because I don't have infinite amount of time to become expert at everything.

[kelnos]

The problem is that capitalism drives people to push lies as fact, and manipulate people into believing those lies. "Well maybe people just shouldn't be so gullible" clearly isn't a solution, or the problem would be solved already.

I don't think that's an excuse to start banning books (and other media), but products like this -- especially anything that advocates a particular approach to health, nutrition, or medicine -- should be vetted by actual experts (more than one), and stores should be required to post disclaimers when the product doesn't pass muster.

Yes, there's the potential for abuse and shady dealings there, but I'd like to believe that the end result would still be better than what we have now.

Now, some people are just raised to believe in complete nonsense, so you're not going to save everyone by trying to educate them. But I think it'd help many people not get drawn in by (potentially dangerous) pseudoscience.

[smellyshaft1]

Uh, capitalism does that?

Capitalism is responsible for a lot of evils in the world but it is not the root cause of people lying.

>especially anything that advocates a particular approach to health, nutrition, or medicine -- should be vetted by actual experts (more than one), and stores should be required to post disclaimers when the product doesn't pass muster.

No thanks to the nanny warning. I've reading plenty of books on alternative medicine and without exception they all have a warning along these lines:

"The medical information contained within is provided as an information resource only, and is not to be used or relied on for any diagnostic or treatment purposes. This information does not create any patient-physician relationship, and should not be used as a substitute for professional diagnosis and treatment. Please consult your health care provider before making any health care decisions or for guidance about a specific medical condition."

An additional sign is not necessary IMO. We're grown adults.

[smaudet]

"No thanks to the nanny warning."

This isn't directed at you then - if you actually have experience and done some real research (not read some news articles), great. Make informed decisions.

"We're grown adults."

A non sequitor. Grown adults are often unknowledgeable, incorrect, strapped for time, etc.

I've frequently seen nonsense pushed as fact, and known that I don't actually know everything. I welcome better (human agency, crowd-source mix) vetting in general.

I'm not so arrogant that I think I can always "do my own research" and get it right.

[baggy_trough]

I think your proposed cure is far worse than the disease. It would have a profound chilling effect on free speech.

[smaudet]

Eh?

"and stores should be required to post disclaimers when the product doesn't pass muster."

What about this is restrictive of free speech? If anything, YOU want to restrict the speech of the store to not allow them to say things they sell might be nonsense.

I think for medical things, oversight and general blurbs are fine. Its also fine if the store in question wants to post a blurb where they disagree with the "vetted" version. But this tramples on nobodies free speech, only on your personal sensibilities.

[Xorakios]

Agreed.

[kevinh456]

Ambien makes me wake up screaming at the top of my lungs. Every time. I never remember but it scares the shit out of my wife. No Ambien for me. Lol

[swozey]

Are you waking up from a nightmare? Do you have any recollection?

[skybrian]

As with a lot of medicine the dosage matters a lot. I will take .5 mg of melatonin when going to bed earlier than usual and the effect is fairly subtle. But it's commonly sold in 10mg doses which seems very high.

[jrockway]

My understanding is that melatonin has an inverse correlation between dosage and effect. 10mg won't make you as sleepy as 1mg.

I take 1mg of melatonin every night, and it does immediately make me sleepy. I used to buy 10mg at the drugstore and it just makes me feel like shit for the next day.

[orev]

The optimal dose is 0.3mg, so I would cut the 1mg tablet in half to get close. You’re still doing better than most people who are essentially taking a horse-sized dose at 10mg.

The 10mg makes you feel bad because it’s still in your system the next day. At the recommended (lower) doses, your body fully clears it out by morning, so you feel alert and also have much lower risk of long term effects.

[skybrian]

Huh, I had somehow remembered it as 0.9. I expect it varies per person, though.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...

[metadat]

I hadn't heard of this before!

After some digging here are some interesting discoveries related to melatonin and doxylamine:

https://www.reddit.com/r/insomnia/comments/spoaec/anyone_hav...

https://www.reddit.com/r/insomnia/comments/spoaec/anyone_hav...

[worldsayshi]

>inverse correlation between dosage and effect

That sounds quite magical. Wouldn't it be more likely that the uptake characteristics were very different for the two variants? Not sure if possible but maybe the 10mg variant were still being digested the day after so it would make you sleepy then instead of during the night?

[covercash]

I have to go out of my way to find doses under 1mg, almost everything they sell in US retail stores is 5mg or 10mg. Inevitably I end up with something marketed for babies.

[vl]

Melatonin, as any hormone/supplement, helps if you have deficiency, and hurts if you have normal or high level already. If your natural melatonin production is good enough, you are not going to feel effects, or even will get negative effects (I.e. people reporting hallucinations)

[temp0826]

Fun fact, both ambien (zolpidem) and muscimol (in amanita muscaria mushrooms) act as a GABA-A agonists.

[jurynulifcation]

Ethanol is also a GABA-A agonist if I recall correctly

[RyJones]

I asked a pharmacy in Reykjavik if they sold it, or Tylenol PM, and the pharmacist reacted like I'd asked to buy a brick of cocaine.

[orev]

Never take Tylenol PM to sleep, unless you also have a reason to need a painkiller (acetaminophen). Acetaminophen is toxic to the liver and can cause liver failure if overdosed. A regular diphenhydramine (Benadryl) is the just the PM part without the extra risk (except that has its own risks).

[jansan]

It has a therapeutic index of 10, which is quite low (easy to overdose). I stopped taking Paracetamol almost completely after learning what it can to your body.

Also, there was a story about the developer of DirectX who alledgedly overdoesed on Paracetamol/Tylenol:

https://web.archive.org/web/20201223122742/https://www.wsj.c...

[zigboppityslick]

Perhaps never is a bit extreme here? You make a good point but if it's all you've got and you haven't been drinking it isn't going to hurt you. It's got a normal dose of acetaminophen last I checked.

This is all assuming it isn't being used for some kind of chronic sleep issue.

[nalllar]

cumulative exposure to dihenhydramine is linked to dementia so it also shouldn't be used regularly

[danielbln]

In Germany freely available OTC.

[Cthulhu_]

NL as well, a whole section of drug stores (that also sell things like shampoos, hair dyes, makeup, toys, ramen noodles, candy... they diversified) dedicated to melatonin, CBD oils and products, probably some others too.

I want to believe it's because they've been thoroughly tested to not be harmful, since they don't even have the leaflet that's mandatory with drugs / medication listing all the side effects and whatnot.

[jmspring]

Is the OTC dosage limited? I recall in a prior life, my partner would bring melatonin back from the states to Germany for her brother.

[14]

Here in Canada it is not controlled either and one can freely buy it at places like Walmart or anywhere with a pharmacy section.