Any side effects of mixing Melatonin with other medications?
Friday, February 5th, 2010 at
6:55 pm
I have been having sleeping problems for a few weeks. I have been using melatonin but it has not seemed to be working yet, although I have even increased the dosage. About an hour ago I took three 300mcg pills of melatonin, yet I am still not feeling any effects from it. I was thinking about taking some Benedryl to see if that would help make me drowsy. Would there be anything harmful about doing this?
Tagged with: benedryl • google • melatonin • pills • sleeping problems
Filed under: Insomnia
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Melatonin is normally produced by the pineal gland in the brain and naturally induces sleep .Benadryl is an antihistamine that causes drowsiness as its side effect. Benadryl and melatonin together seem to work just fine for some people like for those who have shift work sleep disorder. Most were being able to sleep a few minutes after taking both and is able to maintain sleep for 6 to 8 hours.
HOWEVER: By using both together be careful to limit coffee and alcohol while on this regimen to help it work better. You also have to know how to taper the doses when you feel that your sleep/wake cycle has returned to normal.
On the other hand, note that your brain and body becomes immune to the effects of Benadryl and melatonin when it is constantly exposed to high doses of these drugs. Both causes sedation- bear that in your mind. That means higher doses of both causes sedation, drowsiness and slowed breathing and the worst of all: it may result to coma while you are asleep.
One more important point is that taking melatonin and benadryl may seem harmless when taken separately but these two would potentiate its other’s effects once they are taken together and drug interactions may arise.
So what to do now, you may try using both together but never in high doses. If melatonin doesn’t work then try taking benadryl alone next time and see how it goes.
Take care!
Melatonin worked great for me for a while then it started to make me hyper and I slept less and less. For temporary sleep problems Benedryl is great.
Make sure you are in a very dark space when you need to sleep. Try white noise, like a fan or an ocean sound CD. Take a hot bath before bed, Java Java tea has helped some folks. Go to a good Health food store and pick their brains, I learned alto that way.
Don’t wait if this keeps up to see your Doctor, sleep deprivation can cause lots of problems. Good luck and sweet dreams.