Melatonin is a supplement that helps people to sleep. Australian pharmacies sell melatonin in only 1 or 2 mg tablets, which is not strong enough for many neurodivergent people. Your GP can give you a script for higher doses from a compounding chemist at a premium cost, or you can order your higher doses online. Recently iHerb, one of the more trusted sources at a reasonable price, has suspended selling Melatonin to Australia.
Sleep is vitally important. Many neurodivergent people struggle with sleep. Your first modifications to get better sleep should be guided by the use of Sleep Hygiene Strategies, which we covered extensively in our Beating Insomnia page. This helps us address any non-biological interference with a good night’s sleep. Many people are unaware of Pre-Sleep Anxiety, which is the most common cause of biological driven bad sleep (we cover that in a lower paragraph or click the link for all the details), and melatonin is one of the better treatments for it.
TL:DR
- iHerb has recently suspended sales of melatonin to Australia amidst concerns of increased reported overdoses to the poisons centre.
- Melatonin is a helpful sleep agent that is considered to be very safe when compared to other medications. It is a medication though, and some parents are their children well enough – some children have helped themselves to a packet of gummy drop melatonin supplements, mistaking it for sweets. There are concerns with parents also giving the medication to children under 12 months of age, which is not recommended.
- The GP medication website RACGP put up a warning about melatonin that is, in my opinion, quite skewed about the actual risk involved. I couldn’t find any reported cases of death or serious harm from an overdose of melatonin anywhere, let alone Australia. Generally, melatonin is considered to be very safe.
- Melatonin can be a good sleep agent to use for many people (not all) who find that bedtime routine changes such as sleep hygiene are insufficient. Read through our two guids: Beating Insomnia and Beating Pre-Sleep Anxiety. GPs are generalists, not specialists, so reading through our guide will give you good information to discuss with your doctor if Melatonin is right for you.
- In my opinion, educating people is a better solution that making it harder to get, especially as other online pharmacies are continuing to supply the neurotransmitter supplement.
- In my opinion, so long as people liaise with their doctor about what a good dose is for them, and ensure their medication is properly secured, then there should be no problem with it.
Discussion below:
Melatonin is a neurotransmitter that activates Melatonin Receptors, which prime your brain for sleep (so long as your blood adrenaline ratio is low enough). Unlike benzodiazepine or antipsychotic medication, melatonin is non-sedating, which means it doesn’t force sleep, only encourages it. Melatonin is one of the few neurotransmitters that can cross the blood brain barrier, so you literally are consuming the neurotransmitter chemical melatonin as a raw ingredient in the oral medication. Typically, most medications taken to increase the balance of neurotransmitters prompt your brain to synthesis more from base ingredients.
Supplementing melatonin often bypasses the problem with pre-sleep anxiety, where due to complex reasons, in the process of synthesising melatonin your body increases the blood adrenaline, cancelling the effect of melatonin sleep. The heightened blood adrenaline is interpreted by the person as anxiety, aggression, restlessness or an urge to be physically active, mentally active or reminiscent (pondering solutions, ruminating on problems). Taking the melatonin supplement can help people get to sleep (initial release), and to stay asleep (if taking a slow release version).
Not all sleep conditions respond well to melatonin, and melatonin supplementation is not tolerated by all people – so you should talk to your doctor to see if it can help you. Read through Beating Insomnia and Beating Pre-Sleep Anxiety to help you familiarise yourself with methods of helping sleep that are behavioural and medical. There is growing concern at the number of children eating melatonin gummy medications, flavoured and textured to seem like lollies. Any new parent is going to welcome a relatively safe method to help their children go to sleep faster and stay asleep longer, and in some extreme cases, melatonin gummy drops may be warranted – talk to your doctor about if this appropriate for your child. Children younger than 12 months do not process melatonin in the same way as older children and adults, and youth younger than 3 months don’t process it well at all – so your child under 1 year of age probably shouldn’t have any melatonin supplements.
According to RACGP, a website to help GP’s understand and treat medical conditions, a recent update warns that 322 calls have been made to WA Poisons Information Centre in 2025, compared to 175 in 2018. The concern here is the sharp uptick of calls in only 7 years. It is natural to see such an uptick as melatonin medication as become more accessible through pharmacies and online. What RACGP doesn’t do is talk about the risk of harm or death, it only warns that melatonin is a neurotransmitter and that there is risk. “‘We haven’t had [deaths] happen here yet, but I think that’s only due to luck,’ said Dr Jones.” (source). That is an odd comment from Dr Jones – melatonin is considered to be a very safe medication (1, 2), with no clear cases of death due to melatonin supplementation on record that I could find, anywhere. Regardless of zero recorded deaths from melatonin supplementation, melatonin is a medicine, so care should be taken to follow a medical professionals guidelines, especially around infants, and stored in a safe place such that children can’t help themselves.
We often colloquially use the term “overdose” to mean “a killing quantity”, however the term literally means “taking more than is prescribed for your dose”. Common symptoms experienced with taking more than you should are:
- drowsiness
- dizziness
- fatigue
- headache
- confusion
- nightmare
- hypotension
- tachycardia
- hypothermia
While some of these symptoms can lead to death, they are relatively rare symptoms and I repeat that I couldn’t find any confirmed deaths from melatonin.
In conclusion, it is concerning that some children have helped themselves to medication, mistaking it for sweets, that some parents are giving melatonin to their children without proper medical supervision, and are unaware of the difference in metabolism of children under 12 months. The suspension of iHerb delivering melatonin supplements to Australia seems over the top. Fortunately, there are other suppliers who deliver to Australia. If you are going to use one of these, remember to talk to your GP first and ensure that the dose your are ordering is right for you.
https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/warning-after-melatonin-sales-suspended