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melatonin causing prion disease???

My doctor who wont give me any melatonin, is on holidays.... so I thought I'd use that situation to my advantage and go and see the temporary doc. for while he's away and try the get fill in doc to give me prescription for some melatonin.

So I took the empty box of my last lot of melatonin (specialist had given me a prescription last time) and simply told the replacement doc I'd run out (of cause avoiding telling him of my doctors previous refusal). **sighs all the tactics one needs to do to get ones needs met.. its pathetic**

Anyway.. the fill in who seemed like a very intellegent doctor started going on that he didnt feel comfortable giving me melatonin as it can cause prion diseases (so he was seeing it as a very dangerous drug due to this). He told me it comes from the pituatory glands of pigs and started to look for this info online, to obviously try to presuade me that i didnt really want that. He ended up not being able to find anything then and there and then gave in and gave me a script as appointment time was over.

He also went on about how melatonin is banned in England due to the prion disease it can cause.

Does anyone know if this all true about melatonin or not???? Did the doctor have things wrong???


I will do some searching for more info on this soon, thou Im still going to take melatonin even if that is the case as it does help me quite a lot when I take it. I'd rather take the change of catching a rare disease, then be suffering from not being able to get to sleep till daylight most nights.

anyway.. hurray @ i FINALLY managed to get more melatonin

Comments

Hi, Tania

I have never, ever heard this before. Melatonin is sold OTC in the USA.
I was under the impression, also, that Pork (pigs) are prion free.
Many adrenal glandular supplements are made from either bovine or pork.
Also, Armour Thyroid, which many people take instead of Synthyroid, is made from desiccated porcine thyroid glands.
Don't know why you got the run around getting your melatonin. Is there any way you can buy Melatonin from the US and have it imported to Austrailia? I don't know how customs work.
 
Hello,

I've not heard of the prion link either. Perhaps he was getting confused with something else - I mean he is a doctor after all ;-)

Anyway, I believe the reason it's not available over the counter in the UK (it's clearly not banned because it's available by prescription unless things have changed recently) is that it's a hormone. In the USA you can buy massive bottles of it for next to nothing in places like Costco (300 for less than 10 US dollars). Similarly the hormone DHEA is widely available over there.

I remember reading about vitamin D and the fact that it's not a vitamin in the normal sense, being closer to a hormone, and how if it had been discovered recently it would almost certainly be prescription only.

One last thing, if you have problems getting more from your GP, iherb.com ships worldwide and I think they have a list of things that they won't ship to certain countries so at least you have a reasonable chance of knowing before you order. They aren't as cheap as Costco (who are insanely cheap) but unless you know somebody in the US to shop for you and forward a package they are IME a great alternative.
 
Hi Tania, Melatonin is available as both an extract and in synthetic form. There is no such risk for the synthetic form.

I bought some in the synthetic form online from the USA, but you can only order, I think it was 3 bottles at a time to Australia. I find 3mg is too much, it gives me bad headaches.
There are online stores in Australia that sell it. You do not need a prescription.
 
Melatonin is freely available in the UK - which surprised me as I was sure it was restricted - but found it while looking for something else , ordered it and it turned up - try amazon.co.uk
 
Thanks all. From what you all said it certainly does sound as if that doctor probably got all his facts wrong.

Snow Leopard;bt4362 said:
Hi Tania, Melatonin is available as both an extract and in synthetic form. There is no such risk for the synthetic form.

I bought some in the synthetic form online from the USA, but you can only order, I think it was 3 bottles at a time to Australia. I find 3mg is too much, it gives me bad headaches.
There are online stores in Australia that sell it. You do not need a prescription.

Umm very interesting.. why would online stores allow us to have what is prescription meds without a script? Wouldnt that actually be illegal? Isnt bringing prescription meds into our country without a script illegal too?????

I'll look around then and see if I can get some online. I know that chemists over here often sell the homoeopathic variety of melatonin ... you dont need scripts for homoeopathic meds.
 
CFS-FIBRO-LYME;bt4366 said:
This article states most melatonin in US is synthetic:

http://www.futurescience.com/melatoni.html

This link is interesting because it claims the correct dosage for sleep is 0.1 to 0.3 mg and that the 3 and 5 mg tablets commonly sold are too much and may actually wake you up more. Hmm....

http://healthspanlife.wordpress.com...grave-risks-of-designer-wannabe-substitution/

Interesting it says that dose as I havent heard of such small doses being prescribed. The melatonin pills I get of it are 2mg ones.. but I only take 1mg (half a pill). Ive found increasing the dosage even up to 3mg dont give any extra help, if its going to work for me, it will work just fine at 1mg.
 

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