Wonder if people with more hair in later years tend to be sleepier.
Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair
31–40 of 132 posts
Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair
#32Tangentially I'm interested to know whether taking melatonin for long periods of time (years) reduces its effectiveness. I've been taking it for nearly a year but I've heard stories about how you need to keep increasing the dose to get the same effect.
This isn't true. Even if your experience is contrary to what I'm about to say.
Melatonin isn't more effective by increasing the dose. Especially past 3mg. The body doesn't register anything past 3mg. But you also need to keep in mind that the placebo effect is strong.
Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Melatonin works mildly well for me for a few days, but quickly stops working again, which is unfortunate. I will admit I also have some anxiety issues I need to work on. For better or worse, a low dose of diphenhydramine hcl (12mg) has continued working for me for over a decade without needing to up the dose. My personal experience as far as habit forming goes: I only take it on work nights, and sleep just fine on we…
The problem with is diphenhydramine is the increased Alzheimer's risk: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-d...
Fascinating, thanks for that link. I had never heard of the "anticholinergic cognitive burden scale".
http://www.miltonkeynesccg.nhs.uk/resources/uploads/ACB_scal...
Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair
#34Tangentially I'm interested to know whether taking melatonin for long periods of time (years) reduces its effectiveness. I've been taking it for nearly a year but I've heard stories about how you need to keep increasing the dose to get the same effect.
Indeed melatonin supplementation causes tolerance development. The correct dose to avoid it is 0.3 mg [1]. Nevertheless I'm glad pharmacies sell pills with much higher dosage - you can just buy the 2-10mg pills, crush them and take the dose you need. I bet they would sell 0.3 mg pills for the same high price if they knew. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...
Don't give away such valuable secret. One 3mg tablet lasts me a week!
Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair
#35Tangentially I'm interested to know whether taking melatonin for long periods of time (years) reduces its effectiveness. I've been taking it for nearly a year but I've heard stories about how you need to keep increasing the dose to get the same effect.
Anecdotally, I am taking it for years and haven't noticed any reduced effectiveness. Effectiveness increased when I reduced the dose to 0.3 mg. and started taking it several hours before sleep.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th... is pretty much a required reading on melatonin, as well as https://www.gwern.net/Melatonin. Neither discuss tolerance at length unfortunately.
Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair
#36Tangentially I'm interested to know whether taking melatonin for long periods of time (years) reduces its effectiveness. I've been taking it for nearly a year but I've heard stories about how you need to keep increasing the dose to get the same effect.
Indeed melatonin supplementation causes tolerance development. The correct dose to avoid it is 0.3 mg [1]. Nevertheless I'm glad pharmacies sell pills with much higher dosage - you can just buy the 2-10mg pills, crush them and take the dose you need. I bet they would sell 0.3 mg pills for the same high price if they knew. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...
Brilliant idea! And here I was buying the only 0.5mg I could find and breaking that in half.
Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair
#37Tangentially I'm interested to know whether taking melatonin for long periods of time (years) reduces its effectiveness. I've been taking it for nearly a year but I've heard stories about how you need to keep increasing the dose to get the same effect.
I'm wondering if people who need to increase doses of melatonin also drink caffeine, especially in afternoon or later.
Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I take doxylamine succinate 5-10 mg about an hour before bed and find that it helps with sleep much more than melatonin, which only seemed to help with a very time-limited form of tiredness (it wore off and I'd wake up). Still, even the antihistamine (sold as a sleep aid) can't do all the work when something big is going down the next day. Like a meeting with a big client requiring a lot of travel. A big stressor mus…
Doxylamine succinate is a potent anticholinergic drug, as are (IIRC) all other OTC antihistamines that cause drowsiness. Long term use of such drugs have been linked to dementia later in life. I would at least read some of the literature and re-evaluate whether using drugs like this to sleep on a regular basis is worthwhile.
Something that I have not been able to get an answer to; could the long-term effects of regular antihistamine use be mitigated by supplementing with choline in the morning/daytime?
Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Melatonin works mildly well for me for a few days, but quickly stops working again, which is unfortunate. I will admit I also have some anxiety issues I need to work on. For better or worse, a low dose of diphenhydramine hcl (12mg) has continued working for me for over a decade without needing to up the dose. My personal experience as far as habit forming goes: I only take it on work nights, and sleep just fine on we…
The problem with is diphenhydramine is the increased Alzheimer's risk: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-d...
Well that's concerning. I brought up long-term use to my GP, and didn't seem too concerned, but asked me to switch to melatonin, which I tried for a while.
These studies are extremely difficult to make an informed decision on, thanks to nearly everything being "linked" to some disease. See: Red meat [1]
I need to wean off it though. Thankfully dementia doesn't run in my family.
Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair
#40Wonder if people with more hair in later years tend to be sleepier.
Or if they get better sleep, actually more alert in afternoon/evenings.