Melatonin appears to suppress growth of BC stem cells

Hi folks, check in here at Bestbird's thread she has several positive links about Melatonin.

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/8/topics/831507?page=2#post_4789872

These may be posted here already but thought I'd drop them off on the fly.

Also wanted to add that there are various food choices for melatonin, but one I read about a lot is tart cherry juice. I've been making spritzers with sparkling water and a bit of stevia that are pretty good. Good anti-inflammatory properties, as well.

Here's an article about food sources: http://nutritionfacts.org/2014/04/03/foods-with-na...

(Apparently flax-seed has a good amount, too, and that's something that is being studied for anti-BC effects)

I take .5mg, I'm a lightweight! I tried 1mg at first and I noticed I would wake up groggy. I think it's best to take just enough to help you sleep so your body can make it's own melatonin.

Kayb please post studies or dose chart. I love chart's but whatever. I hate to even say my dose level to knock me out in the worst of times was 4 mg Ativan and 10 mg of Melatonin. I worked up to the dose over not sure what time.

The Ativan was ordered 2mg twice a day. I started taking the 4mg at night with the 10mg of Melatonin. I thought it would kill me, but I was so desperate for sleep. Anywhooses, That dose got me some sleep......next visit to PCP, I told her what I was doing. She okayed it. Then as time went on it changed . I weaned off stuff.

Back into a weird insomnia thing. But working on it with the doc.

Kayb, that is interesting that melatonin is regulated in other countries! I wonder why? But vitamin D3 is a hormone also, so I don't think they are right that melatonin is the only over-the-counter hormone available in the U.S.

Hi Falls and Kay, two of my favorite folks in one place. As far as the OTC stuff, I think I've seen some stuff on the shelves at my healthfood store for thyroid and adrenal support. I didn't look at them other than just noting they were there b/c I wouldn't trust them without EBR behind them.

I think I was taking melatonin between 2010 and maybe as late as end of 2014. There were periods of nightly use and periods prn. I started at 3 mg on the Melatonin. Then added the 2mg Ativan. Then progressed up. That was in the AI days. Since you both have been to the discussion on "Attitude", it must have been my attitude that caused my sleep problem hahahaha-------NOT. It took a long time to return to quasi normal after my QOL decision to terminate AI's.

I have made the decision to get the Kalios(149$) study done(2D6 thread). It's more comprehensive than Genelex and way less money. I'm hoping the metabolism paths for Melatonin are covered. 1A2 is highly involved. I took a look last week or so and other paths have been identified since my look at metabolism several years ago. I'm suspicious b/c I have had six paths checked, 3:6 are abnormal. That's allot IMO from a sample of 6. But the two paths 3A4 & 3A5 account for metabolism of 50% of all drugs. So, it was a big find for me. AND explained oh so many life long things.

If I find that the paths for melatonin are abnormal that will explain allot. If normal, then I have to develop another theory (see below)

I should just get my tush going an order the kit. I've had the Ancestry.com kit on my desktop for maybe 3 weeks. How dumb is that? Part of the rationale for getting the Ancestry.com done (besides curiosity) is my abnormal 3's aren't suppose to be in my ethnicity. So, basically, it's like a cross reference. Actually, a double cross reference as I'm thinking about this as I write. Validates the Genelex results, and validates whether there is a connection between ethnicity and lab results.

See way back, when I got involved with the study of CYP's as it relates to what Genelex was producing, they had statistics of abnormality for enzyme paths. What I hypothesized at the time as more folks were tested world wide, those stats would change. Initially, Genelex stats said my 3's were 5% and 7% of the population respectively. Solfeo described in one of her posts as 20% abnormality for 3A4 (paraphrase on the 20%, but it was in that range compared to the 5%). Fits the hypothesis, but didn't bother to verify as it's not useful to me. I'm documented as abnormal, ergo, doesn't matter what world stats are.

But back to Melatonin. My disruption pattern now has been related to my 8-14+ hours a day of reading during the last many months. It was like a Gibbs head slap, realizing I was doing it to myself with the computer light disruption. Now taking full day computer breaks and limiting computer(mostly) before bedtime. Light disruption in the normal sleep circadian rhythm disrupts Melatonin production as you likely know.

I know you each get, it's hard not to be reading. I would have to describe reading for me as a life long addiction. But deteriorating eyesight(cataracts) makes reading books a pain. There was an old movie about a robot that escaped. A comedy. One of the robot's line's was "More input, need more input". That's the three of us.

Hahahaha Shetland. Thanks, I always have fun when I see the movie Audio is as bad, I can't hear either. Refuse to get hearing aides b/c I have several things wrong with the ears and I'm cheap. But it's okay I work around it. The computers good.

I normally take a 3mg with doxylamine (Unisom) and occasionally .25mg. Xanax, or a “fiver” and skip the Unisom (which makes me likelier to get up and pee during the night). Last night I tried a 10 mg. and skipped both the Unisom & Xanax, and slept like a baby--with more entertaining dreams too. I too have a cataract (before last Wed. it was “cataracts”), and found reading print on paper very difficult even with a 2.50 diopter correction. Now that I have clarity in my R eye, I’ve had to go down to 1.50!

Chi COOOOLAROO YAY successful surgery WHOOPdedoda. I just saw the eye doc and he refuses to do the worst cataract yet. Did you have cataract development before BC tx? My first cataract was indentified at 45(?) thereabouts. He said it was congenital. But I have a cousins kiddo that truly had a congentital cataract. It was a major brouhaha. Very serious. So, who knows.

I had forgotten the dreaming on melatonin. Wouldn't it be great to transfer those dreams to script.

Hi Sas! I've actually been working on a summary of melatonin. I think it would be a good idea to have all the studies in one spot. I'll try and pare it down, so everyone's eyes don't glaze over! I have a pretty hefty file already. I'll post it in the next day or two. Thanks for asking, that'll focus my attention (sometimes I feel like I have ADD, lol! Unfortunately, I don't think melatonin helps with that....)