Prescription Drugs
If you’ve been using prescription sleep drugs and you’re still unsatisfied with the quality of your sleep, Speed Sleep is for you – not only it can end your dependency on sleep aids like tranquilizers or sedatives, it can help you fall into deep, relaxing sleep quickly and easily. Moreover, with Speed Sleep you awake refreshed and restored; there is none of that residual grogginess that results from using sleep aids.
Physicians Overprescribe Sleep Medications
Most doctors overprescribe medication to promote sleep – a practice which may mask the real cause of the patient’s sleeplessness, says a Cornell Medical College physician.
George S. Alexopoulos, M.D, said in the current issue of New Choices, if doctors properly prescribed medications to promote sleep, most would be able to count on one hand the number of their patients taking these pills at any one time.
Sleeping pills can cause a host of side effects including confusion, heart problems and decreased sexual appetite. They can also mask medical symptoms responsible for insomnia in the first place.
Experts warn that if doctors use drugs at all they should prescribe them only after determining the cause of the insomnia and should reserve them only for those losing sleep because of a temporary problem, such as stress following the death of someone close.
--from article on Doctors Guide to the Internet
The next time you consider popping a pill when you have trouble nodding off, you might need to try counting sheep instead. A senior psychiatrist at the Scripps Clinic Sleep Center in San Diego has found that taking sleeping pills regularly can increase the risk of skin cancer.
--from PR Newswire, August 18
Ambien’s loss of patent protection could dramatically reshape spending on insomnia treatments during 2007 given the drug’s U.S. sales exceeded $2 billion last year. Medications to treat sleep disorders are one of the fastest growing categories of drug spending, rising 31.5 percent in 2005 alone according to the company, Medco Health Solutions Inc.
During 2005, spending growth on sedatives and hypnotic drugs rose 31.5 percent, primarily driven by sales of Ambien and first year sales of Lunesta. According to a recent Medco analysis the number of adults aged 20 to 44 using sleeping medications increased by 128 percent from 2000 to 2005.
--from PR Newswire / March 5, 2007
Studies quantify use of sleep aids in children: insomnia is cited as a major problem in young patients, of whom many, including preschoolers are medicated.
The use of sleep medications in children is considerable in clinical practice in inpatient and outpatient settings, data from two new studies show.
A survey of 1,271 practicing child psychiatrists indicates that 25% of school-age and 30% of adolescent outpatients with primary insomnia are being treated with sleep medication.
The second study involving 9,440 pediatric inpatients at three children’s hospitals indicates that 562 of all hospitalized patients and 993 of the 4,513 children, in the inpatient psychiatric unit were prescribed sleep medications.
---from Family Practice News, by Patrice Wendling