Please talk to me about melatonin

[anonandlikeit]

ds2's paed has recommended we start him on melaton in to help wiht his sleep (or lack of it).
I would like to hear the good & the bad, the side effects, the rumours etc.
He is 6 with mild CP & ASD, learning difficulties etc. He is very passive & quiet during the day but a bloody nightmare at night.
All advice & info welcomed. Thanks

My ds is 13yrs and has been prescribed Melatonin since he was 6yrs old. He is dx ADHD and Aspergers. He has been a very poor sleeper from the word go.He takes it(his dose is 10mg, but your ds will probably be started on a smaller dose),approx 1hr before bed,(in tablet form).It helps him to settle and fall asleep quicker. He still wakens a few times in the night, but is usually,(though not always),able to fall back to sleep.Melatonin is naturally produced in our brain-a hormone,and my ds has never had any side effects-nor has anyone else that i know who has been prescribed it.Sleep is obvioussly very important for dc,so if this is what has been recommended for your ds, i would give it a try.You will also get the benefit-a greatly improved sleep yourself,(cos ds will sleep), and so you will have more energy the next day.Melatonin is often prescribed for dc dx ADHD cos they often have very disturbed sleep patterns. Personally, i think it should be considered more for dc on the ASD spectrum also, as many of these dc have very poor sleep patterns, and as a consequence, their parents are sleep deprived, making challenging behaviour even harder to manage. Good Luck.

melatonin---- my new best friend! dd4 is on 6mg(capsuals) a night and ds3 is on 9mg a night.....its a nightmare to get hold off as needs special prescription from regestered certified peadiatrition only, the rules changes at the begining of the year( capsuals, i think liquid and tablet forms have different rules for dispensing).it is worth the hassle though.you might have to jiggle the dose a bit until you and the peadi find the right dose for your son. best of luck and sweet dreams! xxx

DD1 is 3.3, and has been on Melatonin since 18/02/09. Until then, she would take a long time to settle in the evening, and we would be up and down the stairs every 5 minutes. In the night she would wake for between 1-3 hours. Nothing would settle her.

Now, she takes 2 mg (2 mls of syrup) and within 15-20 minutes, she asks for her bed. She happily goes to bed, and we have an evening to rest.

The night wakings often continue, and if she has been up more than ½ hour, we give another dose of melatonin. It sometimes helps, other times not. So we still have many disturbed nights, but crucially for DD, at least she has had about 8 hours of decent sleep by then, which is enough to get her through preschool. Also, having rested a little in the evening, we can cope better with the night wakings.

You do need to be organised, though. The syrup we have been prescribed is special order only, and takes 5 working days to come in. Once your DS is on it, you really won't want to run out.

Thanks for the info.
DH is dead against the idea, although its not him that gets up in the night.
I'm still undecided, just unsure about any side effects. The only thing listed on the info leaflet the paed sent is headaches, although it says this is also uncommon.

Forgot to say-my ds gets his prescription from his psychiatrist-we ring him, when we need more.We are in Scotland, and there were changes here last year-you used to only be able to get the prescription from a hospital pharmacy-now, you can take the prescrip. to any normal chemist to get made-up.This is for tabs,not sure re liquid, as dont know anyone on it.If your paed. prescribes it, then i presume, he will be the person you contact when you need a repeat.

anonandlikeit, re: the headaches, the companies are obliged to list any reported symptoms. This means that even if a headache is incidental, if it has been reported, it has to be listed.

DD hasn't seemed anything other than refreshed when she has awoken, and I think that as it is a naturally occuring substance, it is just giving a 'boost' to the sleepy signal, rather than affecting the brain in any way that overrides natural mechanisms.

I know that for DD, if she is determined in the night to be awake, no amount of Melatonin will convince her otherwise. Where it is useful is in helping her to realise she is tired in the evening at bedtime. I think her brain just gets overwhelmed without the melatonin, and the signal can't get through, so she needs something to shout "YOU'RE TIRED" through the background noise.

With regards to prescriptions, our Paed prescribed 2 weeks' worth of melatonin, and wrote to our GP requesting that he continues the prescription. This covers the GP, who shouldn't prescribe unlicenced drugs if he is not specialist in the area.

Likewise her Epilim, it is prescribed according to the latest Paed letter by the GP, but we adjust the dose in response to our clinic appointments, and ignore what the label says on the bottle.

my ds 6years only been on a few months , and we didnt really want it but got desprate! but god we are glad he takes it now , he asks to go to bed about 8pm he still wakes in night but most of time goes back and wakes up quiet fresh in morning, but we have found hes eating more still very limited diet but lots more of it.

Thank you again for the info, I'll get dh to read this as its very reassuring.
One more question if you don't mind please.. Does it take several doses to build up in the system or is it the sort of drug that you can chose when & when not to use IYKWIM.

i found took a few days to work properly and had every night since he started taking it!

Ds2 has melatonin and it made a huge difference to his behaviour. There is no build-up to it working. Ds2 has got to the point now where he uses it to stop him slipping back into his old (lack of) sleeping habits. Sometimes there are gaps of days or even weeks between doses but when he needs it again it still works well.

Thats good coppertop, ds2 will go a week or so with a reasonable sleep pattern & then a prolonged period of bloody awful sleep, if possible we would like to use it for the really crap time only.