Hi
@Bansaw - msg and its many relatives keeps me awake until after 3:00 p.m. I've found I have to eliminate all obvious sources of msg like soy sauce, and also things like "natural flavors", citric acid, there's a ton of them. See this for a rather complete list:
http://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html
Even if something says "no msg added", odds are it has one of the ingredients on that list. Almost all processed foods have them. I do okay if I eat something with msg, etc. at lunch, but if I eat it at dinner, I'm in big trouble, no sleep till after 3:00 or 3:30.
But I've still wrestled with insomnia apart from the issue of msg. I have tried a ton of things with varying success - here's some of them
Valerian root - didn't do much (but it might help you)
5-htp - helped quite a bit many years ago, and still take 150 mg. before bed
niacin - very helpful taken before bed and middle of the night - but I don't take it during the day as it makes me tired then. My sister (who does not have ME/CFSt) likes this a lot for sleep too
l-theanine - I take 300 mg. before bed and more in the middle of the night.
magnesium - I just learned recently that low magnesium is associated with middle of the night insomnia, my worst time and I've recently increased my magnesium intake to 400 mg. before bed and 400 more middle of the night. I've also cut back on my calcium. Hair analysis showed that my calcium/magnesium ratio was very heavily skewed in favor of calcium. And I have - finally - started sleeping better.
melatonin - 3 mg. sublingual before bed, 1.5 mg. more middle of the night
inositol - 1000 mg before bed, 1000 more middle of the night
glycine - 3000 mg before bed, 2000 more middle of the night. When I first took glycine, it caused a huge detox reaction - I learned I had to go very slowly with it (maybe 500 mg to start), but it paid off. It does help with sleep plus it helped get my detox pathways working properly
Seriphos for high cortisol - an Adrenal Stress Index Test showed I had high cortisol middle of the night many years ago and nothing would touch that insomnia until I got my nighttime cortisol levels lowered. Seriphos was very effective for this. I found it worked best when taken in the morning (taken at night it caused even more insomnia) and I found a good dose through experimentation. Back then I needed a quite high dose - 800 mg. but I am not recommending that dose - always start low and go slow.
taurine - this helped me a couple of times with insomnia, but after that it made it worse.
B6 - helps some people with insomnia, but makes it worse for me. However I have a high need for B6, which helps the body produce taurine, so I take P-5-P with breakfast and lunch. Check labels - many sleep combos have B6 and/or taurine added.
Taurine is supposed to help with msg sensitivity and I have recently increased my B6, which might increase my taurine, so sometime when I'm feeling lucky (or able to go without sleep for some reason), I'm going to do an experiment and see if my msg sensitivity has decreased at all.
A friend of mine swears by 500 mg. tryptophan and 50 mg. B6 before bed but I can't take the B6 at night.
We're all different - good luck!
Should be 1.5 mg ... thanks for catching!