One of my dear patients asked me today: “If I take this sleeping pill you’re givin’ me will I wake back up?”
“Duh, yeah.”
In retrospect, with the Michael Jackson debacle all over the news I think it’s not an unreasonable question.
Sleeping pills today are carefully designed not to arrest breathing – or we’d be outta business pretty quick right. In the good ole days we used barbiturates which had a nasty tendency to cause permanent sleep apnea ie. never wake up.
That being said, still gotta use commonsense with the newbies. Don’t combine them with other sedatives – that’s how we keep losing stars – and don’t use them when you’re drunk!
My home sleep-aide favorite, besides reading medical journals before bed, is Imovane / Zopiclone. It’s non addictive, works quick, and I wake up the next AM. Sweet.
