Has anyone experienced diarrhea with Melatonin use?

I started melatonin (10 mg) after a nurse friend told me how much it had helped her. I started taking it about a week after my bout of diverticulitis cleared up. I almost immediately developed diarrhea and loose stools along with serious cramping. I was also waking up with a headache every day. I thought I had not recovered from the diverticulitis, but am now wondering if it is the melatonin. I have severe cramping on the left side, but doesn't feel the same as before. Hoping it is gas. Have been off the melatonin for about 5 days. Diarrhea seems better, just cramping now. Does anyone have suggestions on how to get rid of the gas? At least I hope it's gas! Have tried Pepcid, but doesn't seem to help.

Mishkanoodle said...
I started melatonin (10 mg) after a nurse friend told me how much it had helped her. I started taking it about a week after my bout of diverticulitis cleared up. I almost immediately developed diarrhea and loose stools along with serious cramping. I was also waking up with a headache every day. I thought I had not recovered from the diverticulitis, but am now wondering if it is the melatonin. I have severe cramping on the left side, but doesn't feel the same as before. Hoping it is gas. Have been off the melatonin for about 5 days. Diarrhea seems better, just cramping now. Does anyone have suggestions on how to get rid of the gas? At least I hope it's gas! Have tried Pepcid, but doesn't seem to help.

I swig activated charcoal slurry a lot. I buy a large container of the activated charcoal powder and mix it with water and put it in a bottle. I think I have one in my bathroom and one in my livingroom. Good stuff.

Followup:Maximus49: Started taking 5 mg Melatonin on 5/3/218. Melatonin worked great for sleeping but after 3-4 weeks developed loose & water stools. This developed to full-blown diarrhea after a month. Went to doctor on 7/16/2018, who asked for stool sample of watery diarrhea- not solid at all. Ever try to do that? nearly impossible. Looked up melatonin symptoms on HealingWell.con on 7/17/18. Stopped taking melatonin 7/17/18. Many rubber gloves later, got a sample which was tested negative. 7/28/18, Diarrhea
stopped. Normal bowel movements for first time since about 5/28/18 (60 days) and first normal BM's since stopping Melatonin on 7/16/18(12 days to return to normal).

Melatonin REALLY should have a large warning label about diarrhea.

First of all... this system is weird. Anyway, regarding the MELATONIN & DIARRHEA issues.. they are 100% accurate and true. Some people may not experience the watery- explosive diarrhea right away or at all, but it definitely kicks in and kicks your butt! No bueno. Like.. emergency blow-outs with mad-dashes to the bathroom! Not cute. I legit thought am I dying, do I have IBS, do I have colon-cancer, food poisoning, the Flu symptoms or what?!?! I was just about to go see the doctor to get the bad news (well, at least that's what I thought) then I prayed and thought... I can't be deathly ill, I am healthy and eat right. I thought.. gosh I am having such nasty-smelly Diarrhea, I am probably losing all my vitamins and nutrients. Ugh.... Then I thought... hmm... vitamins ? I don't take a whole lot, and I realized I started these issues when I bought the3 mg- Blueberry flavor gummy melatonion supplements from Walmart. Then I decided to do some research and find out further details of my issues. It is embarrassing to ask others or bring it up, so I kind of just waited these symptoms out to see, if indeed it was the melontonin. Sure enough, the deeper I read-up on these symptoms (which aren't reported or written under SIDE EFFECTS/ Symptoms for Melatonin), THEN, I FOUND THIS LOVELY WEBSITE. I read every single sad story and experience. I can relate to most of them! I even thought... gosh.. How am I going to travel and be out and about, if I have to run to the bathroom with watery-bowel movements so often w/ hard-core diarrhea?! Like that's not gas or just feeling bloated.... it was on the verge (the verge of starting a blow-out!) GOSH... so gross & embarrassing (and noisy!) lol. I always had strong whole- healthy poops and the last 3 weeks since melatonin... completely changed for the worst. So, super glad I read these comments and put two & two together. I believe God gave me the wisdom to realize what to stop taking. LOL. So weird.. never had any weird health issues like this and glad it's only temporary and something I can change and improve. STOP TAKING MELATONIN, DRINK WATER, EAT HEALTHY AND WORK-OUT DAILY! They really need to include bloating, gas, bowel irritability and diarrhea symptoms may occur. Thank you for taking the time to read, understand and make your own personal changes. *must note, melatonin does put you to sleep peacefully, but risky with your bowel movements, etc. SAY NO TO MELATONIN. :-/ -S- 9-27-2018

Post Edited (CO Girl20) : 9/27/2018 6:48:02 AM (GMT-6)

Hello fellow melatonin users, this is my first ever posting on any subject but I had to weigh in on the nightmare this supplement has caused. Like most I've had massive diarrhea after probably 3mos taking melatonin every night. We don't need so much melatonin and I think it's our body telling us. Since stopping I'm experiencing withdrawal like symptoms and not able sleep. Oye. This too shall pass

Hello all, normally optimistic writing to say I'm back to optimistic since the melatonin is out of my body. (Both my doc and naturopath don't think melatonin would cause diarrhea) Sleeping like a baby drinking Nighty Night tea. There is hope...

Update Tbredtj: I stopped taking the 10 mg of melatonin the evening of my previous post on 11/20. The next morning my cramping was less and the diarrhea slowed down to a couple of bowel movements in the morning. Day two and three my symptoms got better and this morning I had a normal bowel movement.
I think the fact that I was only on the melatonin for 18 days aided in my quick recovery. Based on some of the posts, I consider myself fortunate that I caught this quickly since it seems that many people had a protracted recovery, sometimes taking weeks to get back to normal. Just for the record, the brand name was NATROL Advanced Sleep/10mg. There was NO WARNING on the label!

I had been using melatonin (3mg) at night for about three months. The week before Thanksgiving I started having stomach cramps. I am Lactose intolerant, and the feeling I was experiencing was exactly the same. I didn't suffer explosive diarrhea, but I did have the loose stools. I eventually went to our family practice, had the stool exams, and was told to try using a lactase. Thank God I found this site! I too thought I was going to die. My condition was continuing to worsen, bouts of diarrhea, cramping, to the point I started fasting because it had to be the food right? Wrong. I have been off the melatonin 2 days now (1/11/2019) and I can already feel the difference. No more melatonin for me.

I am wondering how all those who posted on this topic when it appeared are doing now. Do you find that you are completely free of the symptoms that we were all so familiar with now that you have stopped taking the melatonin?

For me I stopped taking if when I discovered this thread. Had been taking it for about 3 months which coincided with all those awful symptoms. I have now been off it for close to a month but find that I am still very gassy, that my poops are still not normal, tho they are not as bad as they were.

I am glad of the improvement but just want to be totally NORMAL again!

I'm glad I found this forum. As I write this, my tummy is grumbling. I started talking about 3 mg melatonin some time ago. I have trouble sleeping and used several medications to sleep; anything from tricyclics, xanax, ativan, and trazodone. I began using 10 mg melatonin with the trazodone and my symptoms really began; same exact symptoms about which everyone wrote. I figured it was the trazodone as I googled it and read some stuff about serotonin syndrome. I continued the melatonin for a while and the symptoms lessened a little, but got worse. I stopped the 10 mg melatonin when a coworker suggested it wasn't healthy. I ended up having relatively normal BMs again, but little sleep. Then I started REM PM from man sports. It's what I'm still using. I sleep great.... but, like I wrote, my stomach is grumbling. I have been to the bathroom several times today. No watery stools, just loose. REM PM does have melatonin. I'll be discontinuing it tonight to see what happens.

I was having diarrhea for about week before contacting my doctor. Since it was only twice a day, I wasn't terribly concerned but this was the first time it ever lasted this long. I have not had any major health issues other than high blood pressure, BPH which I currently take medication for and I started taking 10 mg of Melatonin about two months ago on the doctors recommendation. After consulting with the doctor he recommended taking KEFIR Probiotics for the next six days to see if it cleared up. Needless to say it didn't. He also wrote me a prescription for Lomotil which stopped the diarrhea for a short while. I eventually weaned myself off the Lomotil from 8 a day to 4. I'm taking 2 a day now. All the drugs other than the Melatonin I have been taking for over a year. I really didn't want to sacrifice my sleep but the diarrhea thing was far worse. For the last three days I have gone from 10mg to 3mg of Melatonin and things are much better. Far from where I was normally a month ago but improving. The doctor didn't say how many mgs of Melatonin I should take I just grabbed it off the shelf not realizing that 10 mg was a very high dosage.

is the people of this forum alive? haha

I quit since one week ago and my poops are better than before but looks acid and itchy

YUP!!!! Fifteen years ago I took melatonin and had terrible diarrhea. At that time I connected the two as I had stopped taking it and the diarrhea went away. about a year later I ended up meeting someone who was working for a company that sold it, I told him I took it for awhile and had terrible stomach cramps and diarrhea. He told me that there were no such reports of any other people having those symptoms. He said it was probably coincidental to my melatonin use and was most likely something else. I asked him if there were any fillers in the pill such as lactose . He said no.
I recently tried it again. Now, I wake up at night with cramps and have terrible, urgent diarrhea. At first it was just a terrible stomach ache.I thought it was due to take out food at first.But even when I don't get take out food, I still have the problems. The diarrhea lasts until about noon the next day, and after that, my guts still feel uncomfortable. It sounds and feels like someone is pouring a bucket of acidic water through my guts that runs into the toilet bowel when I go to the rest room. My legs and joints are achy. I definitely have a lot of inflammation somewhere in my digestive system, most likely my colon or large intestine. My guts always feels painful.
I'm throwing the bottle away after I post this. This stuff is AWFUL!!! I'm SURE it is the melatonin. Oh, there is another side effect. Perhaps it is due to the gastrointestinal symptoms , but I feel extreme fatigue throughout the next day, in waves, and also seem to have depression.