A few weeks ago I had a bad case of diarrhea. I too had a visit from the diarrhea monster after taking 10mg of gummy melatonin. Medical science is clearly unaware of this issue, and has not even seen all of the dots, let alone connecting them. Some of them might get the benefits of melatonin supplementation at very low dosage - =< 0.3 mg. It seems that the %age is low enough to have escaped detection in scientific trials. It seems likely that a very small %age of people that are at the high end of peak concentration response to dosage, probably due to genetic variants, and/or that have elevated levels of serotonin, elevated levels of B vitamin supplementation, high levels of endogenous melatonin, and are female may have a particular sensitivity to supplemental melatonin that leads to diarrhea. High levels of serotonin can lead to “serotonin syndrome” which can be fatal, and has numerous symptoms including diarrhea. ē7 Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) with doses from 0.5 mg to 12 mg and followed for up to 29 weeks had levels of adverse events less than 2%, none of which were diarrhea, and none of which were clinically serious. Ě 5 mg dose for 30 days raises the mean baseline level by 2.5x. Peak concentration of melatonin after supplementation is proportional to dosage and subject to very wide inter-individual variations: 0.1 mg dose peak median is 5x baseline, - range of 2x-7x ğor sleep a dose of 0.3 mg/day is better than 0.1 mg or 3.0 mg. There are large inter-individual variations in bioavailability of exogenous melatonin (1% to 37%) – median level 3x as high in females as in males. Ğndogenous melatonin production in subjects w/o supplementation varies from 2 – 84 pg/ml, - 40:1! Ĝonversion of serotonin to melatonin is subject to very wide variation due to genetic SNPs. It helps control bowel movements and digestive function. Serotonin is found in the stomach and intestines. Many multivitamins and B-Complex supplements contain levels of these 2 vitamins that are up to 2x the recommended daily allowance for folate and 60x for Vit B6. ğolate and Vit B6 promote serotonin production. (My wife’s average level over several years is 3x my level and in the upper 3SD range of the LabCorp ref range). Other sources give narrower ranges (50-200, 100-280, <330) w/o the gender distinction. LabCorp gives a Lab Ref Range (LRR) of 21 – 321 ng/ml for males and 0 – 420 ng/ml for females. Trying to understand why some people ( 0.1% of the population?) might experience diarrhea as an “adverse event” (AE) from melatonin supplementation, I read about 80 abstracts and 27 entire published papers dating from 1998 through 2021. My wife had 4 explosive liquid events between 7:30 and 11:30 AM on Tues and Wed, one event Thurs at 7:30 AM, followed by a soft but formed stool at 1:00 PM, and a small liquid event at 7:30 AM today, with no follow-up so far (2:30 PM). We stopped the melatonin on Monday 3/22/21. But I will wait, and hope that it was just the melatonin causing this and nothing more serious, and that eventually it will stop. So I wait patiently now, I read that some people took two or three weeks or longer to return to normal, I hope I don’t take that long. I skipped Imodium today to see if I was back to normal yet, but within 15 minutes of eating my first meal of the day, which was only a bowl of Cheerios, coconut milk, and a banana, the cramping and gas started again and I was soon running to the toilet three times until I took two more Imodium. So I stopped the melatonin (on 21st of March) and am now waiting and hoping this is the answer and this diarrhoea will stop soon. This all sounds like exactly what I’m going through. On a whim, I decided to search “does melatonin cause diarrhoea”, and landed here. This is not at all like my usual IBS pattern, and I started thinking about what I did differently during this time. But as soon as the medication wears off, the diarrhoea comes right back, along with gas, cramping pain and weakness. The only time I don’t have diarrhoea is when I take enough Imodium to stop it. I continued to have diarrhoea, even after just eating a bowl of rice. So I did my usual routine during a flare take Imodium to stop it and switch to a bland diet for a week or two until it settles down. The melatonin really did seem to be helping the quality and duration of my sleep.īut then, on the 5th of March, completely out of the blue I experienced several episodes of explosive, watery diarrhoea.Īs an IBS sufferer, I assumed I was having a flare. I took 2mg before bed and 2mg when I would wake up in the middle of the night, as waking in the night and not being able to get back to sleep had become a problem for me. I started melatonin at the end of February. I feel very hopeful having found this site.
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