Prescription Sleeping Pills- More Dangerous than you know

There is no shortage of new medications on the market designed to help you get to sleep faster and stay asleep longer. Unfortunately, through clever marketing campaigns, we have been lead to believe that these pills are benign, and safe for long term use. The drugs I am referring to are the ones you see advertised on television and in every magazine you pick up; Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata and others.

In 2006, nearly 50 million prescriptions for sleeping pills were filled. That's up 30% from 2005.

After all, your physician certainly wouldn't prescribe them if they were harmful or addictive, would he? Of course he would. That's his business. Doctor's are given huge incentives in the way of gifts, vacations, and monetary compensation for prescribing the latest medications. The drug company reps that visit doctors entice them any way they can to get the doctor to prescribe as many new drugs as they can, in order to fatten their own paychecks. Drug company reps are paid enormous amounts of money to convince your doctor that this pill or that pill is not only safe, but the latest and greatest thing to "cure" you of your ills. They also are paid to downplay the side effects and additive qualities of these drugs, thus allowing your doctor to prescribe in excess with a distorted view of how these drugs really work. There are some fascinating books I have read on how the drug companies work, and how the drug company reps coerce and bribe doctors. See my Amazon book choices.
(Site Gwen Olson- confessions of an RX drug pusher)

What your physician won't tell you is that sleeping medications arenotmeant to be taken for more than a week at a time, (as stated in the very commercials on television from the manufacturers!) yet they keep writing out those monthly refills for you, oblivious to the harm they are causing.

Americans are spending nearly five billion dollars a year on these drugs. The National Institute of Health funded studies that showed that the newer sleeping pills like Ambien, Lunesta, and Sonata only reduced the average time it took to get to sleep by thirteen minutes. Actual time spent sleeping was approximately thirty minutes longer than without medication. They are barely better than useless.

I tried them once. I took Lunesta. After the first pill did absolutely nothing, I took another, expecting to nod off quickly like they told me I would. "Stay in bed when you take this pill", I was told, " It works fast!" It didn't work at all! Two sleeping pills had zero effect on me. Zilch.

The other problem with sleeping pills is that they cause tolerance after a few months (or less) of use, severe rebound insomnia, withdrawal symptoms, as well as "hangover" type sensations that last into the next day. If your job requires attention to detail and alertness, then use of sleeping pills can make this difficult to accomplish.

Sleeping pills also reduce brain cell activity during the day, and affect short-term memory. That's bad news for most of us, don't you think?

Ambien ranks as one of the top ten drugs found in the blood of impaired drivers, according to one study. Now if taking a drug that is rarely effective isn't bad enough, what about the very common and bizarre side effects? I know you have all heard stories of people who have reported sleep walking and sleep eating while on these drugs, particularly Ambien. Maybe you think these reports are exaggerated. I have news for you. If anything, they are grossly under reported.

I spend a great deal of time on message boards relating to health, and medications. I read the messages by people who use these drugs. There are thousands and thousands of people on all these boards reporting the same effects. Check out Ask a Patient This is a website for rating medications. Just type in Ambien, or Lunesta or any other sleeping medication and you can read reports from the actual users of these meds.

A majority of people report adverse effects, ranging from sleep walking, sleep eating, sleep DRIVING, calling people in the middle of the night and having no recollection of the event, and more. I don't know about you, but I don't want to wake up in the morning and find a plate of buttered cigarette butts next to me, like one Ambien user did. (I don't smoke, but you get the idea.) If you do take sleeping pills and find yourself gaining weight, it may be that you are sleep eating. One woman reported gaining 100 lbs this way!

I also don't want to sleep drive and kill someone. Do you? You have no way of knowing what these drugs will do to you.

These drugs cause anterograde amnesia, meaning that you will have no recall of what you have done under the influence of them. Can you imagine taking an Ambien and leaving your house. Maybe you leave your front door wide open, risking your family and home's well-being. What a horrifying thought to have your mind hijacked like that! Would you take the risk? I didn't.

My doctor gave me a sample of Ambien. After researching it carefully and realizing how very possible it was to walk out of my house or accidentally set it on fire while sleep cooking, I was terrified and threw them away. No way in this world would I take Ambien.

Anterograde amnesia

Hallucinations

Delusions

Altered thought patterns

Ataxia, or poor motor coordination

Difficulty with balance

Manic or depressive moods

Increased appetite

Decreased libido

Amnesia

Impaired judgment or reasoning

Increased impulsivity

Rebound insomnia

The drug companies don't like to tell doctors about the risk of addiction from sleeping pills. That would not be in the drug companies' best interest. Money first, after all. Big Pharma is a money making machine.

Seven to ten days, that is how long it is recommended to take these drugs. Granted you won't be craving them like a heroin addict craves his drug, but you may be psychologically addicted, believing that you can't sleep without them. This is partly because these sleeping pills cause rebound insomnia. This means, when you stop taking them, your insomnia is usually worse than before you started taking them. The last thing anyone suffering from insomnia needs, is more insomnia!

So, people keep taking their sleeping pills, and having to keep upping the dosage as tolerance develops. I have been reading about folks who started with one pill per night to sleep, per doctors orders, and after a few months find themselves taking three or four, and as time goes on, more and more.

In the brain you have neurotransmitters that all perform different functions. GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, which functions like a braking system, with epinephrine and dopamine being the accelerator. When GABA function is increased, relaxation occurs, allowing for a better sleep. Sleeping pills affect the GABA receptors in the brain.

However, after continued use, the GABA receptors are sensitized to the drugs and once they are stopped, you may feel an increase in anxiety, and sleeplessness. To stop this unpleasant feeling, you take another sleeping pill. And so on and so on to addiction.

If you have been taking sleeping pills for any length of time regularly, and suddenly stop, you will most likely experience withdrawal symptoms, or as doctors like to call it, "discontinuation syndrome." That's just a fancy and deceptive was of avoiding admitting these pills are addictive. If you call something a "syndrome" it makes it sound like no one is to blame, right?

Stopping any brain-altering drug suddenly is dangerous. NEVER go cold turkey off your medication. Severe and life threatening side effects can occur, depending on your medication and dosage.

Never stop taking your sleeping pills suddenly. If you have already done so, you can expect to feel from some degree of agitation, anxiety, moodiness, and intense insomnia. Your symptoms may be very intense, with unbearable anxiety, or milder, depending on your dosage and length of time using sleeping pills.

Some of these sleep medications have very short half lives, which means they leave the body rather quickly. This ONLY means the drug is mostly out of the body, but has nothing to do with the chemical and physical changes it has made to your brain. The changes to the brain are what cause the withdrawal symptoms, as your brain struggles to regain its chemical balance.

Drugs like Ambien, which have a short half-life, can induce withdrawal symptoms in between doses. ( Just a note* Antidepressant drugs like Effexor and Paxil have seriously short half lives, which result in withdrawal symptoms hitting after just one missed dose. That is why they are so horribly difficult to withdraw from.) Back to Ambien; during the day you may feel withdrawal symptoms, which are relieved by your nightly dose. You aren't sick, you are in withdrawal.

Oh by the way, don't be surprised if when asking your doctor about sleeping pill dependency and withdrawal he tells you there is no such thing and that you must be imagining it. And then he will write you a new prescription, probably for an antidepressant or a tranquilizer. Please don't fall into that trap.

If you are very lucky, you may find a doctor to help you.

This is not meant to be medical advise and I am not a doctor. Consider this the opinion and experience of one person's extensive knowledge on this subject matter through a variety of resources, both personal and anecdotal.

In order to avoid intense withdrawal symptoms, as with any drug that affects the brain, (antidepressants, antipsychotic, benzodiazepines, etc) you need to lower your dosage very slowly over a course of months, not weeks like some doctors will tell you.

The slower the better, to reduce symptoms. But, do not withdraw by skipping days. All this does it throw your brain in and out of withdrawal. Steady and consistent is the key to a safe sleeping pill withdrawal.

I cannot advise you further than that. It would always be advised to check with your physician, as I am not a doctor, just a victim of the medical community who now knows better.

Some popular over the counter sleep aids are Unisom, Sominex, and Tylenol PM.
Most over the counter sleep aids are made from diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Benedryl, or Doxylamine. Diphenhydramine is an antihistamine, which can cause drowsiness, and hence is used as a sleep aid.

While probably safe for occasional and short-term use, they can cause some side effects as well. Remember, over the counter does not mean safe.

Here are, for example, a list of side effects for Sominex:

Constipation, diarrhea, dizziness, drowsiness, dry mouth, dry nose or throat, excitability, headache, agitation, loss of appetite, nausea, anxiety, insomnia, upset stomach, vomiting and weakness.Severe allergic reactions (rash; hives; difficulty breathing; tightness in the chest; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue); dark urine or pale stools; difficulty urinating or inability to urinate; fast or irregular heartbeat; hallucinations; seizures; severe dizziness, lightheadedness, or headache; stomach pain, trouble sleeping , unusual fatigue; vision changes; yellowing of the skin or eyes.

You really need to weigh the pros and cons of these types of medications. Personally I see no reason to resort to drugs before trying natural alternatives, which you can find in my article on insomnia.

*This author experienced nearly two solid years of insomnia concurrent with acute and prolonged antidepressant withdrawal. Now that I have mostly recovered from a too quick wean off antidepressants, resulting in two years of hell, I was thrown into an early menopause. So, now I sleep poorly due to horrible hot flashes all night long. Sheesh.*

PLEASE SEE my other lens on Insomnia for alternatives to sleeping pills