Why would/could melatonin temporarily stop PANS symptoms

[dut]

Hello.

 

Quick background - DS 6 has had PANS since very young. His usual symptoms are hyperactivity, impulsiveness, not listening, defiant etc. We use melatonin regularly during flares and at other times and I've always felt that his symptoms diminish once his melatonin's in him but assumed it was due to him getting sleepy.

 

Well this flare around he's been hyper etc but also has developed a sniffing tic.. maybe going on 2 weeks or so. The last couple of days his tics have increased and today he's been hopping and hand clapping in time to his sniffing. Within 20 minutes of my giving him some melatonin tonight (1mg) all the hops and hand claps stopped and the sniffing has ramped back down to minimal.

 

We've been using ibuprofen at full dose as that seems to really help his self control and keeps a lid on his symptoms but this was such a sudden decrease and appears temporally associated with the melatonin.

 

Could this be possible?

 

We'll see if we can reproduce it tomorrow night...

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks.

[3bmom]

I know just a little about Melatonin. The post I made today about an interview with an MIT researcher and GMO's explains Melatonin more. It is available free for 6 more hours.

 

We use Melatonin to make Seratonin our happy hormone. It brings down anxiety and allows for emotional stability. It also is a precursor to Tryptophan which makes us relax for restful sleep. Think Turkey and how everyone gets sleepy after Thanksgiving! Restful sleep helps with detoxifying.

 

GMO's in our food disrupt the gut thereby disrupting Seratonin and Melatonin. Some on this forum have had good luck with 5HTP.

[pr40]

my understanding is that serotonin makes melatonin. low serotonin, low melatonin. melatonin does seem to help in other ways than sleep, not sure how exactly.

you could assume that ds has difficulties with serotonin and see if 5-htp helps as well. there were several recent posts about it.

[rowingmom]

Is it the melatonin or the sleep resulting from melatonin use that are causing the improvements?

[smartyjones]

dut -- interesting!

 

calling MOMwithOCDson. calling MOMwithOCDson. she seems to know a lot about melatonin, right?

[nicklemama]

Our bodies metabolize tryptophan from the foods we eat. Tryptophan is synthesized into serotonin and serotonin is synthesize into melatonin. If your body is not able to metabolize tryptophan from the foods you eat you will have low serotonin and hence low melatonin. My son was found to have very low levels of tryptophan. No wonder he had behaviors and was unable to fall asleep.

[qannie47]

While I have not found 5HTP to have any great affect on my Pandas child, I HAVE HAD GREAT RESULTS WITH HIS TWIN. His twin is borderline adhd with sensory issues. The result is focus issues, impulse issues, disorganized thought, emotional regulation issues, rage issues....After about a week, (started about month ago), I saw great improvement with all the above listed issues. His work/behavior at school has improved dramatically. So yes, I think that anything that supports serotonin levels is a good thing.

 

Years ago, I tried melatonin for personal sleep issues. It worked great for about 10 days and then I had this crazy "rebound effect". Messed me up big time for about 2 weeks until I worked it out of my system. I would research rebound for melatonin. Perhaps it was just my brain that could not handle it.

[dut]

rowingmom - it would seem to be the melatonin itself as within minutes (15 or so) of taking it his tics ramped down by 70%+.

 

I've often seen a lessening in behaviors with ds when given melatonin for bed but just thought he got too sleepy to play up but as this time it was tics it was more evident that it was something else. Maybe it was just coincidence, we'll see what happens tonight.

 

I haven't ever noticed melatonin have a similar effect for dd who has a more classic tics/OCD presentation than ds. I'll be watching both more closely after melatonin from now on..

[MomWithOCDSon]

Melatonin is also neuro-protective and a glutamate modulator. It's been seen to be helpful in controlling epilepsy and other seizure disorders thought to be tied to excess brain glutamate and/or malfunctioning glutamate receptors. You can Google "melatonin and glutamate" and find a number of related research papers, etc. Here're links to a few:

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-4159.2006.04228.x/full

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0046732/

[rowingmom]

Thank you dut and MomWithOCDSon.

 

We only used melatonin at bedtime so didn't see a real resolution of daytime ticcing with it. There were a few times when a daytime trial of melatonin would have been informative.

[LNN]

This presentation talks about melatonin in his presentation - I know it's hard to carve out 45min but I think it could answer your question and make the wheels turn on what the melatonin clue is telling you about your DS http://www.blogtalkradio.com/drjessarmine/2013/11/19/mood-disorders-neurotransmitters-inflammation-methylation?utm_source=Reminder%2BAlert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=REMINDER_EMAIL_

[dut]

thanks for the links. I'll go read