My experience with Melatonin and Tryptophan

My symptoms were (for at least 6 months, every single day) constant heartburn, esophageal spasms, constant cricopharyngeal spasm, general LPR symptoms, dyspepsia, burping/upper gas pains, dysphagia, coughing up mucus. PPIs seemed to make matters worse.

I was having major weight loss, and at some points thought I was going to die of this.

I seen a lot of published studies showing people getting improvements using Melatonin and also Tryptophan.

Also there exist many published scientific explanations on the biological mechanisms on how they would both improve digestive health, tighten the esophageal sphincter (through modulation of nitric oxide) and also improving the ability of the esophagus to heal acid damage, by various molecular mechanisms.

I began on 6mg of Melatonin at bed and 440mg of Tryptophan on an empty stomach 3x a day.

DAY 1: No notable effects
DAY 2: Nothing I could notice.
DAY 3: Noticed improvement in my voice
DAY 4: Last day of esophageal spasms(still heartburn after meals)
DAY 5: No cricopharyngeal spasm (improvements in swallowing). Less nausea, less burping, less gas, less heartburn.
DAY 6-10: Further improvements each day.

DAY 10+: Complete resolution of all symptoms.

I'm at day 14 and I still feel 100%, I'm rather shocked, No gas, no heartburn, no pain, no spasms, 100% fine swallowing, voice is loud and clear, sinuses clear, throat is clear. Even had a cup of coffee this morning, no issue, and eating big meals again.

Figured I should at least share this.
My only side effect is being drowsy in the morning.

Interesting! Melatonin makes my stomach very, very upset (weird), unfortunately, but Tryptophan I could try!

Update: Still doing great, dropped the head of my bed down flat 2 days ago, as I had it raised 8 inches to help against night reflux.
Happy to have it flat as I think it was the cause of my morning neck and back stiffness.
If it all keeps going good (knock on wood) I will eventually try tapering down the Melatonin to figure the minimum amount.

electracat, I'm using the NOW brand, they are GMP certified so can trust what they claim is actually in the bottle, unfortunately that's not always the case with uncertified brands, or so I've heard.

I'm taking two 220mg capsules 3x a day, at least 20 minutes before meals for best absorption.

The melatonin I'm taking 6mg an hour before bed. No problem taking the two together.

I've heard of people supplementing with 15 grams of l tryptophan a day, so a total of 1.32g/day is not a high dose.

electracat, I just randomly came across a study, bit of a read:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16948779?dopt=Abstract

"The prevalence of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is increasing. GERD is a chronic disease and its treatment is problematic. It may present with various symptoms including heartburn, regurgitation, dysphagia, coughing, hoarseness or chest pain. The aim of this study was to investigate if a dietary supplementation containing: melatonin, l-tryptophan, vitamin B6, folic acid, vitamin B12, methionine and betaine would help patients with GERD, and to compare the preparation with 20 mg omeprazole. Melatonin has known inhibitory activities on gastric acid secretion and nitric oxide biosynthesis. Nitric oxide has an important role in the transient lower esophageal sphincter relaxation (TLESR), which is a major mechanism of reflux in patients with GERD. Others biocompounds of the formula display anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects. A single blind randomized study was performed in which 176 patients underwent treatment using the supplement cited above (group A) and 175 received treatment of 20 mg omeprazole (group B). Symptoms were recorded in a diary and changes in severity of symptoms noted. All patients of the group A (100%) reported a complete regression of symptoms after 40 days of treatment. On the other hand, 115 subjects (65.7%) of the omeprazole reported regression of symptoms in the same period. There was statiscally significant difference between the groups (P < 0.05). This formulation promotes regression of GERD symptoms with no significant side effects."

Hi David,how is your healing getting on.
I thought of starting 3mg of melatonin,wonder if its better to start off with lower dose or at 6mg

Did you follow up with endoscopy test?

Very interesting read. I am temped to try but not sure where to start. I take a 10mg melatonin for bed already :P

Thanks for the information Mike C. I hate risks (thats why I dont even take ppis)

Tempted to try tryptophan but a part of me wonders if melatonin is the only pill helping with gerd? In the study they take everything away other than melatonin (and when they decrease melatonin dose symptoms come back it says.