OTC Sleeping Pills: They are safer than prescription sleeping pills? Everyone knows that if she is too free, it must be safe. Or is it really? After all, prescription sleeping pills are much more tightly regulated by doctors and the FDA. Not to mention much more expensive.
Let's just start with what everyone already knows about-the-counter sleeping pills. Just so everyone on the same page.
Firstly, the main ingredient in the fight against AIDS-sleep-over is an antihistamine. Antihistamines are generally taken for allergies, but you feel very sleepy.
And yes, then they make you sleep more quickly, there is little evidence that they improve the quality of your sleep at all, much less help treat insomnia.
Meaning, if you really had good quality sleep, you will not be productive in your wake hours? This brings me to the second fact that everyone already knows-counter sleeping pills.
Nonprescription sleeping pills tend to cause a hangover in the morning "or what was explained that the next morning residual sedation due to the fact that antihistamines have a long half-life. It just means they are very long in the body and therefore continue to cause drowsiness.
So people often try to live with this limitation simply stay away from driving or handling heavy machinery. However, did you know that you must also put up with constipation and a heart that beats throughout the day? Did you know that you could be in a state of confusion, delirium and urinary retention? These are the anticholinergic side effects of antihistamines. It certainly would not support this important meeting the next morning.
Thirdly, the common counter sleep medications are Sleep-Eze, Sominex, Nytol, and Unison are mostly either antihistamines doxylamine or diphenhydramine.
However, other common OTC sleeping pills like Advil and Tylenol PM PM are actually combinations of acetaminophen and ibuprofen pain medication with an antihistamine, diphenhydramine.
And so, the Medical Letter, which reviews drugs, recommends against the use of antihistamines for sleep. Some doctors say users of Tylenol PM may be taking acetaminophen they do not need. overdoses of acetaminophen can cause liver failure.
As for ibuprofen, common side effects involve mainly the gastrointestinal tract. It can cause ulcerations, abdominal pain, cramps, nausea, gastritis, and even serious gastrointestinal bleeding. Sometimes, stomach ulcers and bleeding can occur without abdominal pain and black tarry stools, weakness, dizziness, and may be permanent on the only signs of internal bleeding.
And finally, back to the premise that if it is on the counter, it must be safe. It really is the most costly and damaging mistake that everyone believed the OTC sleep aids are safer than prescription sleeping pills.
The reason is as follows. Nonprescription sleeping pills are not regulated and therefore subject to abuse. If the counter sleeping pills have been used as they were originally intended to say to treat allergies or to relieve mild pain which usually disappear within days of their sedating side effects have been limited.
And because the use of prescription sleeping pills do not require medical attention and monitoring, potential drug interactions have not been reported to underlying and serious side effects have been detected.
In addition, you can develop a tolerance for the fight against AIDS-more-sleep after use for a few days. You can quickly find what you need to jump in several pills each time to accomplish the same effect.
Last but not least, insomnia may develop in transcient called chronic insomnia, though.
Posted on March 4, 2010.