Can Melatonin Reduce Migraine Headaches?

If you are a person that suffers from migraine headaches, you know how important if is to get fast relief when a migraine starts. A migraine can cause visual changes, nausea and vomiting and severe sensitivity to sounds and to light. It can put a stop to your whole day. Most people that get a migraine find that they need to go to a dark, quiet, room to lie down and sleep it off. Recently, there have been a few studies on the effects of the herbal supplement melatonin and it's effect on migraines.

Melatonin is a chemical found naturally in your brain that helps to regulate your body's sleep cycle. Melatonin has been used for years, for a large number of disorders. The following are just a few examples to give you an idea of the flexibility of melatonin:

Alzheimer's. It has been proven that melatonin will help with sleep disorders in a person with Alzheimer's disease.

Antioxidant. A lot of promising studies have been done on animals that show melatonin is a good free radical scavenger. The free radicals are what does damage to our bodies.

High blood pressure. There have been a few studies that show that melatonin can be effective in reducing blood pressure.

Inflammatory bowel syndrome. Melatonin has show promise in relieving the symptoms associated with this disorder.

There have been studies recently that seem to point to a connection between melatonin levels and migraines. The studies have been few, but they have found that migraine sufferers who take melatonin on a regular basis are developing fewer migraines. Whether is due to the effect that melatonin has on the levels of serotonin in your brain is not clear. It has been thought that serotonin levels will effect your frequency of migraines also.

Studies have shown that taking 3 mg of melatonin before bedtime each evening reduced the incidence of migraines in over 50% of the migraine sufferers studied. The study participants reported that the severity of the migraines were decreased also while taking melatonin.

Melatonin is a relatively safe drug and can be purchased over the cover at many health food stores and in your pharmacy. The few side effects that have been reported from taking melatonin are headaches, nausea and excessive drowsiness. Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding should not take melatonin because the effect of melatonin on babies and unborn children is not known. It is also recommended that people with autoimmune diseases should not take melatonin.

If you are a migraine sufferer, try your own experiment with melatonin. Take 3 mg of melatonin about 30 to 60 minutes before bedtime every evening. Document the date that you start and continue taking if for 2 to 3 months. Document any migraines that you might have in this time period and note the severity of the pain and the duration. If you don't have any migraines, make note of that also. If you have noticed a vast improvement in your migraines, then it is safe to say that you have discovered the connection between melatonin and migraines.