Melatonin

[RubyTuesday]

I ordered some of this from www.clubnatural.com today... Just wondering what people's experiences with ordering it from overseas have been, ie. has it been confiscated by customs? Any other info/comments about it appreciated also!

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http://www.angelfire.com/apes/liberty

[blog]

You should have bothered to get a script for it, scanned it, and sent the image with your order so they can print it and send with the melatonin. It is prescription, and it's likely customs will inspect it.

Officially they should confiscate it, don't know if they actually do in practise, I had a prescription, so had no problems with customs.

[This message has been edited by blog (edited 15 September 2002).]

[RubyTuesday]

 

I had no trouble getting 5-HTP through customs... Is the law different with regard to Melatonin?

[Torsten]

melatonin is prescriptive, 5HTP isn't.

You can still get your script and when customs sends you a seizure notice, you simply fax them a copy.

[RubyTuesday]

 

So will they send me a bill as well??? Also I can't really go to the doctor and say 'I've ordered Melatonin can I have a script?'

 

[Torsten]

Originally posted by RubyTuesday:

So will they send me a bill as well???

no, it's customs, not quarantine.

Also I can't really go to the doctor and say 'I've ordered Melatonin can I have a script?'

that's exactly what you should do. tell the doc the usual reason, that you were overseas a few years ago and this stuff helped heaps and then you got better. Now that you don't feel well again you want to go back to what works and have stumbled across the customs problem. A doc who will prescribe melatonin under normal circumstances will also prescribe it for you to customs clear it. Actually, he is even more likely to do so in the latter scneario as you had already made the decision for that treatment.

When talking to a doc you always need to give him the impression that you haev taken this stuff before under doctors orders. This is risky with australian docs as they might ring up whicever doc you claim to have gotten it from. if however you claim to have been treated overseas, then the doc is unlikely to refuse, cos if he gives you something else and you react badly to it you can sue him.

if you current doc knows that you haven't been overseas, or knows too much about you (and has refused a script for melatonin) then simply go to another doc in the next town and try there. keep trying until you get it

[coin]

keep trying until you get it

that is if you feel totally comfortable with self diagnosis & self treatment (i'm assuming this is for therapeutic purposes)

if s/he needs all this kind of manipulation, then perhaps there'd be a sensible reason for objection, or perhaps you need to find another practitioner anyway

[Torsten]

fact is that at least 50% of all GPs will not prescribe anythign that is not in the MIMS (eg melatonin & 5HTP). This percentage increases drastically in redneck country areas.

But yes, the point that if your doc doesn't have any good arguments against it and merely hangs onto his own incompetence, then maybe it is time to find another GP.

[RubyTuesday]

Thanks a lot for your help guys... But here in Bendigo it's really hard to get a GP, let alone shop between them and there is no bulk billing I do have quite a nice GP but I don't think she'd go for it and I don't want to pay another $37 ($13 with rebate) cos I saw her not long ago. Plus I hate going to doctors. So I have emailed Club Natural and told them I need to cancel the order They wouldn't have shipped it yet because I ordered it on Saturday morning, so hopefully they can refund my money or let me get something else. *sigh* I spose I should've checked the legalities first but I was under the impression that it was the same deal as 5-HTP.

[blog]

Originally posted by Torsten:

fact is that at least 50% of all GPs will not prescribe anythign that is not in the MIMS (eg melatonin & 5HTP).

That is so true, 2 doctors wouldn't give me a prescription because it wasn't in the mims handbook, so they had no prescribing information. The 3rd doctor, also would not prescribe without prescribing information. However he told me to come back in a couple days, and he'd find out the information required. He did that, and wrote the prescription. But this was years ago, and these dr's hadn't even heard of melatonin. Things must surely have changed today.

[RubyTuesday]

Why is Australia stricter than America with Melatonin? I thought USA was the worst for these things?

[Guest reville]

Uncovered a really good GP once, after my initial visit to another ( allegedly wholistic and openminded GP ) was thwarted cos she kept trying to palm me off with St Johns Wort, even tho I told her I'd tried it and wasn't overly impressed by it. The first GP wouldn't give me a script for tryptophan either, even tho I knew more about it than her.

Stuck a pin in the yellow pages and found this old fashioned family style GP, sat down in the chair with some trepidation. He told me that he couldn't find either l-tryptophan or melatonin in the MIMS, but he was terribly interested and if I'd like to fax him some information and research doc URLs he'd be happy to see them, and if he approved of my self diagnosis he'd write me a script. So I did. Got a script, and a repeat this year. Goes to show you never can tell

[psycho0]

i've mentioned it before but my doc was able to get me a bottle of 300 tabs melatonin, 1mg melatonin + 2mg vitamin b6

so keep trying

[blog]

Here's an anti-melatonin article for you Ruby to try and cheer you up

http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/gmis9809.htm

You need realplayer/realone to hear Dr Karl speaking but the transcript is there anyway if you don't have it installed

[Auxin]

"Why is Australia stricter than America with Melatonin? I thought USA was the worst for these things?"

Simple, because the US always tells people that it is the 'land of the free' it is reluctant to be the first 'friendly' country to ban something, so the US puts pressure on countries like yours to ban things so it wont look foolish or unjust when they ban something.

An example is salvia divinorum, the US wants your country and a few others to ban it first so it wont seem unusual when they ban it (still legal in the US you know, but not for long.)

[coin]

dr karl mentions some natural ways of increasing melatonin levels..

australian doctor, greg tooley did some research maybe 5 years ago or something, where he was measuring melatonin levels as a biological marker of the activity of various yogic practises..

the practise which was found to cause the greatest increase, was trataka.

this is candle gazing..the candle is placed at arm's length, eye-level..(stretch the arm straight out in front, doing a "thumbs up"..flame should be where the thumb is)

then concentrate on the blue part of the flame with a steady gaze, no/minimal blinking, until the eyes start to tear...this practise is supposed to strengthen & cleanse the eyes..

then close the eyes and continue the gaze/concentration on the internal image of the flame.

the greatest melatonin increase is seen after practising trataka for two nights consecutively, retiring afterwards.

it's thought that this effect is somehow mediated by the suprachiasmatic nerve (and it's relation with the pineal)

[RubyTuesday]

Thanks

[Guest electro]

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[This message has been edited by electro (edited 13 October 2002).]

[Torsten]

Melatonin is prescriptive in australia. You cannot get it in healthfood stores.

The product in healthfood stores is homoeopathic and contains jack shit.... which is why it doesn't work as well (or at all).