Side effects - A Side Effect of Melatonin & Time Release?

[nick760]

SWIM has had trouble sleeping for years, going back to his elementary school days. He wouldn't even feel tired until very late in the evening, and sometimes he'd lay there for hours and hours and not get to sleep until 1- 3am, when he had to wake up at 6am. This, of course, was very detrimental and left him very groggy and extremely tired during the day. He suffered from this throughout elementary, jr. high, and some of high school, until he discovered melatonin, which worked wonders. SWIM has tried various other substances to help induce sleep: kava-kava, valerian root, diphenhydramine, doxylamine, 5-HTP, etc; however, melatonin seems to be the best and most effective solution for long-term use.

However, SWIM more than often experiences this problem: on nights using melatonin, he wakes up 4-5 hours after falling asleep! For example, one night he took some and fell asleep around 10pm, waking up at 3:30am. Getting back to sleep after these wakeups is nearly impossible. In some cases, this has been beneficial when SWIM wants to sleep less (in order to finish assignments); most of the time it is a nuissance.

SWIM has found some 6 hour time released melatonin online and is hopeful/wondering if this would fix his problems. The melatonin he has been taking does not state that it is time released, so he suspects that the time release may be a possible solution.

Any help/similar experiences would be appreciated!
Thanks

[Lou1024]

This is why Melatonin is so effective for Jet lag. Standard Melatonin more than likely will cause you to get up early. But, melatonin is only active for a short time, around 30 minutes or so. Time release melatonin will simply keep you tired for longer if you have difficulty falling asleep. This is useful if you spend several hours in bed trying to get to sleep. Find the lowest dose melatonin time release, only minimal amounts is required as it is, over that is just overkill, and swiy should see a few more hours of rest. Be aware though, if swiy does have to wake up in around 7 hours and swiy takes time release, swiy will be more groggy than normal. At least that's the effect it has on swim.