Saturday, July 30, 2011

Insomnia...Destroyed

Just woke up from night two of the great Melatonin experiment.

I think it is working! There was only one piece of evidence that I may have had some weirdness in the night. A text sent to myself at 5:15am that said, simply: "Salmon Al Dente" Not sure what that was all about...but it sure beats waking up crying.

I purchased a bottle of Melatonin at Fred's on Thursday. It did not occur to me until I got ready for bed that I had no idea how much to take. Of course the bottle said, "take 1 tablet", but I have never been one to follow package directions. Whoever determined that probably slept good the night before. The dosage for each tablet was 300mcg. I had no idea what an mcg was, or if that was even a real unit of measurement. Some supplements are measured in IU (international units...or something like that) which seems bogus to me. I need milligrams to be sure it is real. So, I googled "therapeutic dosage melatonin" and learned that I would basically need to swallow the entire bottle of Fred's Melatonin in order to achieve the benefits. 300mcg is roughly equal to .3mg. The therapeutic dose is 5 mg. I took 5 and went to bed. Once I got settled, my mind began to run the familiar race. I wondered if I had read it right, then began to worry that I had taken too many. I was a liberal arts major, after all...math was never my strong suit. Maybe if I had done better in math, I wouldn't have to listen to people bitch and moan all day. What if I die? Has anyone ever died from Melatonin toxicity? Then...I fell asleep. Obviously...1.5mg has some benefit. But at that rate, I would be done with the whole bottle in a few days.

Friday I went to Walgreen's, to get some "real" stuff. I purchased a bottle of 3mg (the mg means it works...for real) melatonin and was pleased to learn that it was a BOGO deal! I had enough to last me the rest of the summer and into the winter, which was great as sleeping is not an issue then. Last night, I put on my pj's, took Harriet out, gave the familiar brown bottles of pills the 'Nancy Reagan' treatment, then ingested two of my new and improved Melatonin pills.

Even though Friday was fairly stressful (I had to participate in throwing some dirty stuffed animals away, and my boyfriend and I talked about death), my mind was relaxed and I drifted off to sleep without the usual panic of "OMG WHAT DID I FORGET TO DO TODAY?!?!" Aside from the weird text message, my night was uneventful. I do feel a teensy bit groggy this morning, but it is nothing a nice hot pot of Fresh Market Summer Breeze coffee won't solve. I am working on that now, as I type.

So, it is still early yet, but I am going to go on and call this experiment a success.

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