Mysteriously Missing Melatonin

Well I just discovered something pretty interesting while watching a conference talk from Christian A Stewart-Ferrer. He’s a psychologist that seems to specialize in autism-spectrum disorders, and he spent roughly three hours outlining tendencies and dispositions of people with Asperger Syndrome.

At one point, he said something almost out-of-hand about melatonin production and quickly moved on. I’ve known about my Asperger’s for over a decade now, but I never really did much research afterwards, and it turns out that was probably a mistake. Apparently there are numerous studies and meta-analyses that suggest deficiency in melatonin production that can at least be somewhat alleviated with supplementary melatonin.

Why does this matter? Because I’ve never been able to sleep easily for as long as I can remember. Full day of playing outside as a kid? Can’t sleep. Kindergarten nap times? Forget it. I’m still convinced the other kids were just laying down and being quiet while not really sleeping. Winter, Summer, Spring, or Fall, no distribution of light made any difference.

I strongly recall either sleepovers or nights at a babysitter and listening to everyone’s breathing change as they fell asleep, while I simply lay there with my eyes closed waiting for my turn. One specific night I remember being told my mom would be picking me up soon if I just lay down and closed my eyes for a while. So I closed my eyes and waited, increasingly bored out of my mind. At the time I didn’t understand that the babysitter expected me to fall asleep, and most children probably would have.

About the only time I was capable of nodding off was before my heart surgery when my oxygen stats slipped so low that I blacked out. Little did I know that I merely needed melatonin. Decades of this, all because research in the area was—and still is, to an extent—in its infancy.

In my defense, I did try to use Melatonin once or twice in my 30s, but the studies suggest amounts of 500ug to 1mg rather than the vastly excessive 3-10mg normally available, and that best absorption is sublingual. Maybe if I knew I’ve been under-producing melatonin for essentially my entire life, I may have tried harder to make it work.

I’m glad at least that I stumbled upon the right solution one way or the other. I’ve been taking 1mg of melatonin about 1 hour before bed and I do seem to fall asleep easier than I recall in my past. I still have to find a way to fix the damage done by the Lexapro, but one thing at a time.

Until Tomorrow,