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Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair

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11–20 of 132 posts

Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair

#11
post #8

Tangentially 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 have chronic insomnia, I had it all my life. I used to use melatonin but yes over time it lost its effect and melatonin is not one of those drugs you can just take more to sleep. It has a very precise dosage and if you take more it doesn't make you more sleepy. If you have chronic insomnia, you need to solve the root cause. In my case it is anxiety, and currently I'm trying to solve my anxiety and my sleep quality…

What dosage were you taking? (Same goes to zdragnar.)

Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair

#12

I know a lot of people who take melatonin to fall asleep. Trying to understand if that's good or bad here?

Nothing is bad in melatonin except the tolerance development. If I wasn't afraid of developing tolerance to endogenous melatonin I would take huge doses of it every evening.

Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair

#13
post #8

Tangentially 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 have chronic insomnia, I had it all my life. I used to use melatonin but yes over time it lost its effect and melatonin is not one of those drugs you can just take more to sleep. It has a very precise dosage and if you take more it doesn't make you more sleepy. If you have chronic insomnia, you need to solve the root cause. In my case it is anxiety, and currently I'm trying to solve my anxiety and my sleep quality…

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 weekends, or if I'm on vacation. My main issue with sleeping is the specific times I need to do it. If I'm able to sleep when I'm sleepy, and wake up when I'm not, then I don't need any medication. Unfortunately, that doesn't fit in with a typical work schedule.

Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair

#14
post #8

Tangentially 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 have chronic insomnia, I had it all my life. I used to use melatonin but yes over time it lost its effect and melatonin is not one of those drugs you can just take more to sleep. It has a very precise dosage and if you take more it doesn't make you more sleepy. If you have chronic insomnia, you need to solve the root cause. In my case it is anxiety, and currently I'm trying to solve my anxiety and my sleep quality…

I too suffered from insomnia regularly for most of my life (for at least 25+ years that I can remember) and just have managed to figure it out this past year. The major things for me have been light therapy in the morning, carefully watching my diet (certain foods cause mild digestive problems but this seems to really mess with my sleep), meditation and trying to control inflammation (again, partly through being very careful with my diet, partly by taking supplements and taking ibuprofin on rare occasion). The difference has been absolutely phenomenal. Your entire life changes for the better once you can sleep properly on a consistent basis. Glad to hear you have found something that is working for you.

Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair

#15
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have chronic insomnia, I had it all my life. I used to use melatonin but yes over time it lost its effect and melatonin is not one of those drugs you can just take more to sleep. It has a very precise dosage and if you take more it doesn't make you more sleepy. If you have chronic insomnia, you need to solve the root cause. In my case it is anxiety, and currently I'm trying to solve my anxiety and my sleep quality…

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...

Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair

#16
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have chronic insomnia, I had it all my life. I used to use melatonin but yes over time it lost its effect and melatonin is not one of those drugs you can just take more to sleep. It has a very precise dosage and if you take more it doesn't make you more sleepy. If you have chronic insomnia, you need to solve the root cause. In my case it is anxiety, and currently I'm trying to solve my anxiety and my sleep quality…

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…

I have this exact same pattern, where the effectiveness lasts for 1-3 days then stops. This is regardless of whether the dosage is 10 mg or 1 mg (Ive never tried 0.3 mg because I never bothered to crush the pills and weigh). The reset period seems to be on the order of 4-8 weeks before its effective again.

Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair

#17

I know a lot of people who take melatonin to fall asleep. Trying to understand if that's good or bad here?

Nothing is bad in melatonin except the tolerance development. If I wasn't afraid of developing tolerance to endogenous melatonin I would take huge doses of it every evening.

So you're saying it's pretty much a free lunch?

Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair

#18
post #8

Tangentially 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 have chronic insomnia, I had it all my life. I used to use melatonin but yes over time it lost its effect and melatonin is not one of those drugs you can just take more to sleep. It has a very precise dosage and if you take more it doesn't make you more sleepy. If you have chronic insomnia, you need to solve the root cause. In my case it is anxiety, and currently I'm trying to solve my anxiety and my sleep quality…

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 must be addressed.

In that case though, I find that writing 1000 to 2000 words about everything that could possibly go wrong gets me to the point where I can sleep like a baby. Precisely because I'm attaking the source of the anxiety. Most nights though it's easier just to do some basic organization and scheduling and take 1/3 of a little pill.

In the morning I do often take 50-100mg Jet Alert to blunt the fade-in. It's way easier to feel comfortable taking caffeine when fully rested.

An experiment in progress always, but at 9h average sleep (excluding waking times as recorded on FitBit) I managed to go 10 months between illness, as someone with an autoimmune condition (sjogrens). My previous record was 4 months. On top of that, no more depression. My subjective day ratings have gone through the roof. I have to laugh when I'm working with 10 hours of sleep and literally cannot find a single thing to be sour about in my entire life condition (the journaling template I use takes me through this). Plenty of problems, just more resources to work with. Sleep is worth the chase.

Edit: While I'm talking about anxiety, I have been testing L-theanine recently and so far it seems to lower the anxiety floor a little bit. There's nothing like getting your stressors sorted directly, but sometimes things are more complex than that, and if supplements can help, great.

Re: Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair

#20
post #9

Tangentially 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.

It lost effectiveness after a few months for me. On top of that, it gives me very restless legs, to the point that it can actually be harder to fall asleep :/

I used to have that and read recently it can be related to an iron deficiency.
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