Warning: Sleeping pills may work at inconvenient times
Troubles sleeping? No problem. There’s a prescription for that so you can sleep through the night, but you may also doze off while driving your car or while eating dinner or even while cooking.
That wouldn’t make me rest any easier.
But if your doctor prescribes you a sleep aid, you could face some of those experiences and never know it, until you woke up. Add to that a possible risk of anaphylaxis, which is a potentially fatal allergic reaction, or angioedema, where your face swells up.
The FDA has recommended warnings be placed on 13 prescription sleep aids, now that these adverse reactions have been reported. But a few of the drug companies are bulking like children, dragging their feet about it. (That’s comforting!)
In addition, the FDA is recommending that these drug companies set up trials to see how often these risks occur because we only know about the incidents that were reported. How many haven’t been reported because, uh—the people were asleep and don’t remember? But again, these companies have not expressed an interest in starting any studies.
Remember—the drug companies are in charge of policing themselves and tracking the safety of their products once they’re out on the market. And this is how they behave when told they actually have to do it! One company spokesperson went so far as to say that her company had not seen any significant changes in the safety profile of their sleep aid product.
Tell that to the person who wakes up behind the wheel of their car at 60. It’s time the drug companies stepped up and take some responsibility and pull the drugs from the pharmacy shelves.
Don’t worry that you’ll never get to sleep without a prescription sleep aid. I have patients who suffered from insomnia, but didn’t want to take anything to knock them out. I’m with them on that, so I’ve always recommended to my patients a simple herbal remedy—valerian—because it works.
One product I like is called Nature’s Way Standardized Valerian Extract, and all you need is about 1 to 3 capsules about half an hour before bedtime. Be patient—it’ll take about two weeks to start working. When you want to stop taking it, taper off over a two-week period so you won’t go through any withdrawal symptoms such as a rapid heartbeat.
