The Melatonin and the Stomach Cramps

If you are an avid reader of my blog (and let’s be serious now, who isn’t?) you will recall that I had a wee issue with stomach cramps and errrr associated afflictions that saw me sprinting for the bathroom.  If you missed it, here’s basically what went down.

• Started taking melatonin on Sat 27 June.
• By Monday 29 June I’m training for the 100m dash, feeling off my food and am in general crampy cramp pain pretty consistently.
• On Wed 1 July I visited the clinic for unrelated stuff and mentioned it to one of the nurses. She told me to call their preferred compounding chemist to discuss (who I did use – more fool me).
• The chemist suggested it could be fillers used in the capsules I was taking. I thought this was a bit laughable as I’m taking zillions of other capsules too and there has never been one day’s problem with the whole shebang but in desperation I decided to follow their directions and eliminate the melatonin for 2 days and see if they were right.
• They were right. 
• Fortunately, advice giving chemist says they can do the melatonin in a wafer form – it is like a dissolvable strip that you put on your tongue. Think Listerine.
• So I trudge back to the original chemist to get my script repeats. They tell me they only use vege caps and seem befuddled by the whole thing. I just shrug and say wellllll, I don’t know what it is either but it’s happening. Thanks but no thanks.
• I get the wafers. I take day 1. Nothing but could still be 2 soon. Day 2. All good. Day 3. Better. And so on and so forth. We are no on day 5 and no sign of the cramps so phew.

This is essentially how I am taking the melatonin now

The take home from this? If you are getting stomach cramps from your melatonin it doesn’t mean you can’t take it, it might just mean you can’t take it in the form you have it. Try the liquid or the wafer if your supplier does such a thing. I feel compelled to mention this as when I googled “melatonin stomach cramps” I came up with a list of forum entries where people are staying “oh I tried that and I couldn’t take it because it gave me stomach cramps”.

Melatonin dosage

For those curious, I’m taking 3mg of melatonin. My clinic was very specific about the dose as it relates to clinic trials they have done with a specific focus on improving egg quality.

I have just checked the Rebecca Fett bible (It Starts with the Egg – do yourself a favour and get it!) on the matter to compare and it also says the dose used in the clinical trials is 3mg before bed.

There is one point where my clinic and the RF bible differ and that is on the length of time to take the melatonin. Rebecca suggests only from the day you start stims, presumably as melatonin can interrupt ovulation of a natural cycle. My clinic, on the other hand, has me start dosing 3 weeks prior to stims. In both instances you stop on the day of egg collection. By then the eggs are removed and there is nothing more for the melatonin to do.

So there you have it. If you have cramps try another form of melatonin. It could be a simple delivery issue as opposed to the medication itself.