Melatonin & St. John's Wort

[pratima]

Give me a few days on this.

[AnneM]

pratima .. take as long as you need ... I am grateful for any information ...

In fact armed with the info from you and Catatonic I have made a decision to HALVE the amount of SJW that Sam is taking and only give him one tablet every two days ... I know that isn't the same as giving it 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off ... but the thing which I am not sure about there is that it apparently takes about 28 days to get INTO the system and START TO WORK ... so if you stop it after 14 days FOR 14 days I can't help questioning whether it is being given the chance to work at all!! ... Not sure about that ... but would certainly value other's input!!

Meantime I am going to give this a try and maybe even start to decrease it further if this works ... Must admit I am a little scared of doing this decrease since this has worked sooooo well for him for soooooooo long !!

[SKay]

To add to the confusion, I remember hearing that it shouldn't be taken for more than 6 months.

I have been taking SJW for a couple of months now, and I haven't been getting bad headaches like I did before (associated with PMS). I wonder if it's that or if it's because of the increase in magnesium and calcium that I started a few months prior.

[catatonic]

According to information provided by the Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute, via their library of herbal information for health care professionals, it takes 4 days for SJW to reach "steady state" concentration in your body. That means that after 4 days of taking SJW, it will be in your system in a consistent concentration and ought to have reached full effectiveness.

Use of SJW has been followed in a clinical setting for periods ranging from 4 weeks up to one year. What these studies have found is a very low incidence of side effects, and the side effects are mild ones such as stomach ache.

The biggest concern with SJW has to do with taking it in combination with prescription medication -- ANY prescription medication. Initially, experts believed in was only meds that affected the serotonin system that required caution -- meds like anti-depressants.

Increasingly, research seems to point to SJW increasing certain liver functions in such a way that ALL medications tend to be cleared through the system more rapidly than they would otherwise. It will make them less effective and shorter lasting. This includes birth control pills, the breast cancer drug tamoxifen, HIV medications, chemotherapy drugs, blood thinners, high cholesterol meds, asthma drugs, digoxin, etc. (It appears SJW elevates, in particular, the hepatic enzyme most closely associated with removing toxins like pharmaceuticals from the liver.)

I personally wouldn't worry about SJW building up, or about needing to take a holiday from it on a frequent basis. However, I would worry about it decreasing the effectiveness of any prescription medications I was taking.

[AnneM]

Thankyou sportsmom and Cat again ... !! This means such a lot to me ...

Cat .. the comment you make in particular about it only taking FOUR days to reach optimum levels is SOOO interesting ... the reason is that I was TOTALLY CERTAIN and SURE that I saw results in Sam after just around four days ... but at that time I honestly believed it needed around 28 days so convinced myself I was imagining it ! .. but now I read this and I it doesn't seem like I was imagining it after all!!

and the effect on prescription meds is very interesting ... the only two prescription meds Sam has taken since being on SJW have been concerta and
a course of antibiotics earlier in the year for a throat and sinus infection ... and interestingly he needed TWO courses of antibiotics to "clear it" .. and I am now wondering whether this might have been for the very reason you are describing!!

[catatonic]

I know that St. John's Wort has been shown to interact with tetracycline antibiotics as well as with sulfanomide antibiotics, so it wouldn't surprise me if it caused the antibiotic to clear through the liver too quickly to do its job. Maybe stop taking it next time antibiotics are required?

[AnneM]

YESS !! ... Thankyou so much Cat because this REALLY just"fits" what I have witnessed myself with SJW !! ... and quite honestly never understood before ... In fact I have to be honest and say it never even occurred to me why the antibiotics didn't do their job as QUICKLY as they had in the past !! ... This information puts a whole new light on it !!

[SKay]

Yes, thanks for the info, cat! I hope it doesn't interfere with nutritional supplements.

The most drastic change I have noticed since starting on the supplement is a decrease in appetite. Maybe I'll lose some more weight!!!

[pratima]

I dug up a few of my books that were accessible. Both mentioned photosensitivity as a precaution. That may have been the reason for the 2 week on/off recommendation, I'll have to look further into it. Recent information, I've seen, says that the photosensitivity is rare, so the information I gathered a few years ago may have been a little outdated. Also, I found these recent links,

www.doctormurray.com/articles/worteditorial.htm
www.umm.edu/altmed/ConsHerbs/StJohnsWortch.html
whyfiles.org/150alt_med2/5.html

All of them say that in normal doses, SJW, is safe, as long as you aren't relying on any prescriptions to keep you alive; and it interferes with oral contraceptives. The last link in whyfiles.org explains what SJW does to the liver. In some ways it's good, in others, it's a caution. The detoxification process can be good, but it's a super-detoxifier which makes it interact with alot of prescription drugs.

I'm going to the library today, I'll see if I can find anything there about the 2 week method.

My suggestion is that as with any alternative/natural/or conventional treatment. Do your homework. If you are thinking about or currently taking anything keep up with the latest research. Information changes constantly. Use your own good judgement, and see how it works for you. Every Body is different & reacts to things differently. No one knows your body better than you. So ultimately, your experience should be your guide.

Pratima

[AnneM]

Pratima a HUGE thankyou for looking all of this up !! ... This is such useful information ... THANKYOU!!