Slight point. It wasn't approved in the U.S. but it was used here in trials.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0...Kline%20%26%20French.

The drug was not approved in the United States in the 1960s, but as many as 20,000 Americans were given thalidomide in the 1950s and 1960s as part of two clinical trials operated by the American drug makers Richardson-Merrell and Smith, Kline & French.

On a personal not, I found in the Army that if one is tired enough, they can go to sleep anywhere, anytime. I found that to be true from my Army time as did millions of other Army guys.

I proved it in Army AIT once by falling asleep while standing at attention in the back of the room and sailed through the crash doors at the back exit. I woke up just as I sailed out the doors and just before hitting the stairs going down.

quote:

My doctor said ….” Yeah, doctors said that thalidomide was safe and an effective way of dealing with the annoyance of morning sickness

^^^^^^^^^^^^
Since it is irrelevant to your argument you should delete it.

quote:

To reiterate my point, most people are more than willing to believe a doctor—any doctor—cannot be wrong when giving advice that we like, but not so much when it’s something we don’t.

I get the point. People want to hear what is most positive for them. One Doc says, your hear mummer is serious and let's watch it awhile and another says let's get some test and maybe some sort of treatment could be required. Who you siding with?

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Since it is irrelevant to your argument you should delete it.

What was irrelevant was your comment about where the drug was prescribed, not my comment about the doctors who were not aware that it could have terrible side effects in some patients. I cited that experience as an example of my point—which you evidently missed completely.

You are more than welcome to delete your comment if you believe that irrelevance is a reason to do so. (That would get rid of probably a quarter of all posts on the forum, though. )

Thanks for the information about the drug trials in the U.S. Evidently thalidomide is still prescribed for certain maladies, but (hopefully) not to pregnant women. For a short time I was prescribed a medication with dire warnings on the label about not letting pregnant women even so much as touch the stuff. That demonstrates another limitation of drug trials and therefore what doctors can know about them: If, for example, it’s intended to be prescribed solely for diseases that occur only in men, will someone think, “What would happen if a pregnant woman took this drug by mistake?” and try to test for that?

My wife and her twin sister are thalidomide babies.

Reviewing this thread I see no one has mentioned magnesium.
As an aside melatonin never did squat for me.

I had been taking 100mg every night for some years and recently found that at my age the normal dosage is more like 4 times that. Doc said okay and I started by going to 200mg at night.


Found myself either sleeping through the night or only having to get up once where in the past we were experiencing up every 2.5 to 3 hours. That and the inability to get to sleep.

Did some online searching and that's when I found a number of sites contending a relationship with insomnia like this one:
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/magnesium

How Magnesium Impacts Sleep
Additional magnesium in your diet has the potential to help you sleep better. While researchers recognize that magnesium plays an important role in sleep regulation, they do not fully understand the effect of magnesium on sleep behaviors.

“What’s clear from the research is that a lack of magnesium negatively impacts sleep.”
What’s clear from the research is that a lack of magnesium negatively impacts sleep. A serious shortage of magnesium in the body is rare. However, some of the signs of insufficient magnesium in your diet are muscle weakness and tiredness. Low levels of magnesium are associated with poor sleep quality and insomnia5. Anxiety and depression also correlate with low magnesium levels6, and both anxiety and depression can contribute to insomnia7.

Magnesium and Insomnia
Insomnia is a common sleep disorder where you have difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or both. People with insomnia experience a lack of energy and don’t feel refreshed in the morning. They may also struggle with excessive daytime sleepiness, irritability, anxiety, or depression.

Research shows that magnesium may help improve insomnia symptoms. In a study of elderly patients with insomnia, taking 500 mg of magnesium daily for eight weeks improved many subjective and objective measures of insomnia. The patients:

--Fell asleep faster and slept longer
--Increased their sleep efficiency, meaning they spent more time sleeping while they were in bed
--Woke up later and reduced early morning awakening
--Experienced increased concentrations of melatonin, a sleep hormone, and serum renin which plays a role in regulating blood pressure
--Experienced decreased concentrations of serum cortisol, the “stress hormone”

Other studies have produced similar results. Patients given a combination supplement of magnesium, melatonin, and vitamin B for three months also experienced significant benefits in the management of their insomnia. The combination reduced insomnia symptoms and side effects, leading to a better quality of life.



We'll see if I experience further "relief" when I move to 400mg every night in a few days. This in addition to the 50mg in my senior mens multivitamin.

Anyone else take magnesium supplements? (Mine are Magnesium Glycinate)

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
No agenda with that writer. No sir

What a load of bullshit

I have to agree. Your level of melatonin decreases as you age. I get 7 to 8 hours of sound sleep before I wake up. Research also shows that it extends your life expectancy.

I take Dr. Sinatra's magnesium which contains four types of magnesium:

https://www.healthydirections....oad-spectrum-complex

https://www.healthydirections....ntial-for-your-heart

I'm taking Magnesium Glycinate after lunch each day and found I no longer get tired later in the afternoon. Since covid I've added zinc gluconate and vitamin c.

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:
I have never understood why people will rush to use drugs to cure all their problems.

If you aren't getting enough sleep, soon enough you'll essentially collapse and pay off your sleep debt. Problem solved.

I wish it was that easy. I go to bed at 10:30pm and wake between 3-4am and can't get back to sleep. I'm exhausted all day and I never pay off my sleep debt. I don't think you fully understand the problem.

quote:

“How are the children, Frau Goebbels?”
“Sleeping peacefully, thank you.”*

Ouch.

I’ve used Melatonin a few times, I only slept for about 4 hours and then I couldn’t go back to sleep. Now I only use it when I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep normally.

On the other hand Ambien, puts me out in about 20 minutes and I sleep for 8 hours, almost to the minute. It’s great for getting on the time zone when you fly somewhere many hours away, about the only time I’ve ever used it.

You are suppose to take it an hour before bed time. I take Quiet Sleep which has 3 MG:

https://www.lifeextension.com/...tem01444/quiet-sleep

The Wall Street Journal
==================================

E.R. Visits Rise for Children Accidentally Eating Melatonin

BY JULIE WERNAU

More parents with young children are taking melatonin to sleep. And some of them are going to the emergency room after their children take melatonin accidentally.

The number of children who visited emergency rooms for unsupervised melatonin consumption increased 420% from 2009-20, federal data showed. Melatonin was implicated in some 7% of recent E.R. visits for children 5 and younger who had taken medication without supervision.

The good news: Very few of those children were hospitalized. Typically, mild drowsiness, headaches or dizziness are the worst side effects after children consume melatonin, according to America’s Poison Centers.

Adults have long used melatonin, a hormone the brain produces in response to darkness, to regulate their sleep. It is sold widely as a dietary supplement.

Sleep disruptions during the pandemic led more people to try sleep aids. The increase led researchers to question how some of these products are labeled and marketed and whether people can safely take them long-term.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that at least half of E.R. visits for melatonin ingestion involved flavored products such as gummies or chewable tablets that might appeal to young children. Melatonin products aren’t required to have child-resistant packaging.

“It’s something that tastes good and they think it’s candy,” said Dr. Jenna Wheeler, who specializes in pediatric critical care at the Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children. While most children Wheeler sees experience mild symptoms, she said that in a few cases children have suffered seizures, comas or death from melatonin ingestion. Parents should safeguard supplements as they would prescription medications, she said.

About three-quarters of incidents involved melatonin in bottles, suggesting that infants and children opened them or that the bottles weren’t properly closed.

About a quarter of some 2,040 adults surveyed by Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center in 2022 used prescription or over-the-counter sleep aids. As a natural supplement, melatonin is regulated less strictly by the Food and Drug Administration than prescription or over-the-counter drugs.

LINK

quote:

he number of children who visited emergency rooms for unsupervised melatonin consumption increased 420% from 2009-20, federal data showed. Melatonin was implicated in some 7% of recent E.R. visits for children 5 and younger who had taken medication without supervision.

Percentages without numbers paint a vague picture. If it was 10,000 in 2009 and 420% more in 2020 that'd be a lot, but if it were 10 in 2009 and 420% more in 2020 that'd be a big nothing burger.

The media does the percentage only thing quite often when the before and after numbers are both small. It's a form of sensationalism. For example, recently they did it with monkey pox hoping it'd be the next thing to get the sheep to cower in their homes watching the news like the early days of COVID.

Melatonin is more than a drug. It's a hormone. Certainly it's not the same as testosterone, but nevertheless, I'm sure everyone would take care to do your due diligence before taking any other hormone. You should do the same with melatonin.

You might take a few tylenol without a second thought. I would say it's not a good idea to be as casual with taking melatonin. I did not have a good experience with it. I also had vertigo.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
Reviewing this thread I see no one has mentioned magnesium.
As an aside melatonin never did squat for me.

I had been taking 100mg every night for some years and recently found that at my age the normal dosage is more like 4 times that. Doc said okay and I started by going to 200mg at night.


Found myself either sleeping through the night or only having to get up once where in the past we were experiencing up every 2.5 to 3 hours. That and the inability to get to sleep.

Did some online searching and that's when I found a number of sites contending a relationship with insomnia like this one:
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/magnesium

[i]How Magnesium Impacts Sleep
Additional magnesium in your diet has the potential to help you sleep better. While researchers recognize that magnesium plays an important role in sleep regulation, they do not fully understand the effect of magnesium on sleep behaviors.

Shit bro, I tried 100mg every nite and I start aching like I did 10 rounds with Mike Tyson and I get droopy like a zombie.
I cut back to every third or fourth nite with mag glyc and it’s doable.
You’re an animal at that dosage.

Advil PM does a great job also for those high stress days when I wanna use my daddy voice at everyone.
Benadryl baby.

quote:

Originally posted by spunk639:
I sleep like a rock on it, world could explode around me and I’m out for 6 good hours at least.

I tried it for quite a while and it simply didn't work for me. I recently switched to Kava Kava root extract, and while it does seem to help, it leaves me in a daze for many hours after I should have awaken.

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:
If you aren't getting enough sleep, soon enough you'll essentially collapse and pay off your sleep debt. Problem solved.

Problem NOT solved! While your statement is partially true... "you'll eventually collapse and pay off your sleep debt", the "Problem solved" is totally untrue! I oftentimes go 2 and 3 days of no sleep before I finally "collapse", and I can assure you that the vast majority of that time is spent in a zombie-like state where I cannot function due to lack of sleep! Driving a car under those conditions feels like driving drunk, and is equally as dangerous as I've found out the hard way. Does that sound like my "problem is solved"? No, I live most of my life as a very dysfunctional person these days and rarely leave home any more because of it.

So regarding sleep medications, both Rx and OTC, nothing truly helps for me, and I've been battling insomnia for over 5 years now. I even lost my last job over it because I couldn't safely drive a car every day I was scheduled!

I’m fortunate to have no sleep problems, and can only imagine what it’s like to have chronic insomnia.

But I am curious about practices/habits. A couple of decades ago when I started a job that required me to work from 1800 to 0600, the first thing I did was cover my bedroom window with aluminum foil (something I learned in Alaska and its “midnight” sun). Even though I worked like that only a few years, the foil is still there. It’s also cold in the basement room and although I can sleep without it, I usually have a fan on to help with the temperature, but more important for the white noise.

According to what I’ve read about melatonin, it’s produced in response to being in the dark. Dark and cold or at least cool are both recommended for good sleep, and I wonder about the former. One friend had to have the TV on in his bedroom to go to sleep, which of course is not dark, not to mention not being quiet, and how many other people’s bedrooms are truly dark? And do people worry about the blue light thing at night that supposedly keeps us awake? (I use the “nighttime” feature of my computer monitor, and the lamps I use for reading have warmer color temperatures.)

I have tried different OTC products to help me get to sleep but one really worked well for my. Sometimes 2 Tylenol PM would help but then It was very hard to get up in the morning.

I started taking Magnesium Glycinate from Now for magnesium supplementation but it also helps me get to sleep very nicely when I take 200MG shortly before bedtime. The Now brand lists the "elemental" value of their Magnesium glycinate while most don't.

Magnesium is also very important for male testosterone production as is zinc and vitamin D.

https://www.amazon.com/Supplem...&smid=A1DK39DI4LMU4C