Replied by Ted (Bangkok, Thailand) on 08/07/2011

The solution was mixed in 1/2 teaspoon of sodium carbonate and 1/4 teaspoon of potassium carbonate in 1 glass of water taken before sleep. That was a desperate solution. There is other avenues which will work safely too but the effects of it is somewhat less but is Sodium citrate (1/2 teaspoon) and potassium citrate (1/4 teaspoon) as the starting dose given before sleep. Now all alkaline products should NOT be given before meals, especially in the morning hours. But it works nicely in the evening.

The selenium you mentioned should be given in form of selenium yeast, and that's in morning and 200 mcg given 2 times a day. B3 niacinamide is given before sleep a minimum of 500 mg often works too. The niacinamide will help anxiety and depression, and in fact if a person takes any B complex supplements he will in fact not have enough B3 either. In a tissue of ordinary person, B3 takes up most of the supplement of the B complex, so its demands by the body requires a lot. The second one that was surprising in tissues of humans is selenium was unusually low, and required 400 mcg minimum divided dose of 200 mg x 2 is safe, it must be selenium yeast, all other selenium causes faster heart beat. Now if they do have faster heart beat I would check for homocysteine, which will likely be above 9, I believe it needs to be 6 to 7 to be acceptable or else these people will have anxiety attacks. The remedy I used is TMG (trimethylglycine), 500 x 3 should be sufficient to reduce homocysteine.

Let's review the list of supplements:
vitamin D-3, well this doesn't contribute to insomnia
vitamin E, suppose its 200 i.u. It gives you energy, but doesn't contribute to insomnia.
Calcium/magnesium this contributes to insomina, especially the calcium and if they got aspartate, that makes it so much worse.
chromium picolinate, this gives anxiety attacks, nervousness and sleeplessness. Contributes to insomnia.
slippery elm, helps sleeping
COQ10, this has more to do with energy.
selenium, this may help sleep, but selenium yeast.
omega-3, I have reservations about this, I much prefer hemp oil as it has a balance if essential fatty acid, I believe current dosages in market as 500 mg to 1500 mg a day is too much and causes weight gain. I prefer weekly dose, but may help sleep.
sam-E. This varies for different people and it's expensive.

The ones I will look into are these:

St. John's Wort for sleep and one drop to two drop of Lugol's iodine in evening. There is a history of Veterinarian use of iodine given to animals (such as dogs) to help there sleep. It's simple and cheap. The side effects of too much iodine, so I would keep it to 1/2 drop to 2 drop. 1/2 drop is easy, one drop in a glass of water, and pour off 1/2 glass of it.

There is OTHER causes of sleepless that I uncovered, your immune systems, the remedy for that is lysine. But is not given in the usual dose. It's taken 1000 mg of lysine hourly for 3 hours. That usually works too.

For depression I will get B3 niacinamie, 500 mg and amino acid supplements, it will have effect after you take within 1 hour. There are other people who won't take amino supplements, so Moringa 1 teaspoon of powder will work too.

Ted

Replied by Alicia (Vancouver, Canada) on 08/19/2011

But I would encourage you to try the Melatonin consistently. Add some massage before bedtime, or reflexology, candlelight etc. Good luck.

Replied by Jc (Boston, Ma) on 08/25/2011

A study from MIT was done on Melatonin that found less is better. They concluded the optimum amount of melatonin was betwen. 5 and 1 mg.

I have read elsewhere that Melatonin does not cross the blood brain barrier very well and thus it does not work on many people.

This is why it seems to work better on older people.

The same it true of GABA.

This is why people take the precursors like Tryptophan and 5htp.

I have tried both GABA and Melatonin and neither worked. I could conclude this is a good thing because it suggests my BBB is working.

I have had some modest help with Tryptophan in the 1500 to 2000 mg dose range.

It is refreshing to see some of the ideas Ted has presented. More food for thought and approaches to test.

Replied by Aaron M (Chesterland, Oh) on 09/01/2011

Replied by Anon (Jerusalem, Israel) on 05/02/2012

I take trazadone for sleep, venlafaxine for depression and gabapentin for moods and the meds do not work-but I cannot sleep at all without them I take 125mg, 25 and 300 mg of the above repectively, and also deep sleep, a supplement with valarian, poppy, etc, but I still sleep horribly.

I often feel my head drooping but still cant sleep.

I am kept awake by a combination of stress, racing thoughts, worry, pain and digestive trouble-it feels like there is all this putrid stuff just sitting in my lower abdomen-i often have huge bowel movements, a ton of dumping many times a day and it really stinks. I burp and fart am bloated and have a crampy belly all the time. My breath smells bad.

I'm about 5'8" and way 126lb-should weigh 135-145

after I eat I feel exhuasted.

I have terrible pain esp in my neck and shoulders-under my skin it feels granulated the pain feels like lots of hot fiery needles- I have similar pain around my hip and all over my body under my skin its kind of gravelly and sort of lumpy.

I am tired even when I do sleep, I also am extremely itchy about the scalp and have neropathy in my left foot and lower leg and also I my right one.

I wonder which remedies you think I shoud start with for the insomnia, and which are not a problem to take woth the drugs-i eventually want to get off them, but not right now.

Is there anything safe that will just knock me out Please help!!!

Replied by Christine (Bremen, Ga. Usa) on 05/04/2012

Have you tried a good naturopath doc and or a chiroprator The best to you!

Replied by Ali (Illinois) on 08/25/2013

Replied by Gert (Al) on 08/26/2013

Replied by Bob (Brunswick, Ohio) on 04/25/2018