WHAT DRUGS COMPANIES DON’T WANT
YOU TO THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU ARE
DESPERATE TO GET SOME SLEEP!
A Magazine Article
By Dr. Ron Soderquist

Are you desperate to get some sleep? What are the three issues drug companies don’t want you to think about?
Before we address those issues, here is what we hear from patients who call our clinic:

“I am exhausted. It takes me hours to fall asleep and then I wake up and can’t get back to sleep. I can’t shut down my racing mind. I am so groggy the next day I’m afraid I’ll mess up at work. I am miserable to live with. I am desperate! Then I see those ads for Ambien and Lunesta and I get e-mail coupon offers to bring to my doctor. The couple in the ad sleeps 8 hours and wake up feeling wonderful. I don’t like being dependent on drugs but what other choice do I have? I can’t go on like this. Besides they assure me it’s safe and there’s a one week free trial.”

It’s not surprising doctors wrote some 49 million prescriptions for sleep drugs last year. The trend has been for doctors to prescribe more and more drugs for sleeplessness every year.
The first issue drug companies don’t want you to think about is their massive spending on advertising. They have programmed Americans to believe the only way to solve sleeplessness is through taking drugs. Over a two year period (2005-2006) Sanofi-Aventis spent $350 million to advertise Ambien and AmbienCR. Sepracor spent more than $500 million to market Lunesta, and Takeda (which makes Rozerem) spent $100 million. Is it any wonder so many people and doctors are convinced drugs are the only solution for insomnia? University of Minnesota’s Dr. Mahowald objects: “I personally think the extent of advertising [on sleep drugs] has just been unconscionable.”
The second issue drug companies don’t want you think about when you are desperate to sleep is the danger inherent to taking sleep medications. While drug companies do disclose the known risks, this message is secondary to their sales pitch. One might say the risks stay in small print. Besides, when you are exhausted and desperate for sleep, it isn’t easy to read the small print, nor are you interested in potential side effects when you are desperate for sleep. And who has time to research warnings by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA)?

A recent (March 15, 2007) New York Times article describes how its reporters and others prodded the FDA to look into complaints by users of Ambien, the most widely prescribed sleeping drug.
“Complaints included sleepwalking, hallucinations, violent outbursts, nocturnal binge eating and-most troubling of all, alcohol-driving while asleep. Night eaters said they woke up to find Tostitos and Snickers wrappers in their beds, missing food, kitchen counters overflowing with flour from baking sprees and even lighted stoves. Sleep-drivers reported frightening episodes in which they recalled being in bed, but woke up to find they had been arrested roadside in their underwear or nightclothes. A forensic toxicologist in Wisconsin, Laura J. Liddicoat, gave a presentation at a national meeting on six instances of Ambien-impaired driving.”
Adds Michael Negrete, chief executive of the Pharmacy Foundation of California, “There’s a false sense of security. They think, ‘I see it on TV all the time. All my friends are taking it.’ People need to understand that no matter how many times they see a drug on TV, these are dangerous medications.”

With the wrong combination of pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter drugs, herbal preparations, or alcohol, anyone can concoct a Macbeth’s cauldron of “double, double, toil and trouble”. Even a potion for death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which reported unintentional poisoning deaths increased from 12,166 in 1999 to 20,950 in 2004. In what should be a wake up call to doctors and patients alike, 95% were drug overdoses.
One of our own patients, Mindy Rose, didn’t need to read about side effects, she lived them! After successfully learning to sleep without drugs, Mindy gave permission to share her story with its YIKES factor:

“I am so thankful to be free of Ambien! No more embarrassing moments of talking to my sons late at night when I was incoherent, and they would say
to me "Mom, you need to find something else to help you sleep!" Or
ordering a piece of exercise equipment (not once, not twice, but three
times on an infomercial in the wee hours of the morning... and have no
recollection of doing so (but when your e-mail, password, and credit card
and security code matches...and then something triggers the memory it did
indeed happen... YIKES! I even had my husband lock our bedroom door, and
I would still get up after I had taken the Ambien, and wander the house!
It is a scary feeling to know that a medication can so greatly alter your
mental capacities. I am so thankful that my brain no longer
needs a sleeping agent of any kind to get to sleep! My husband and sons are also very happy that I no longer take Ambien!”

Another patient revealed: “When I came downstairs in the morning I was shocked to discover I had rearranged the living room furniture some time during the night.” Yet another reported her surprise at receiving a vacuum cleaner which she had ordered off the internet in the middle of the night while asleep, after taking Ambien.

How real are the dangers?

While drug companies assure us sleep-driving is rare, scores of cases have been reported. According to Dr. Greg Thompson, Associate Professor at USC’s School of Pharmacy, sleep driving is not even the worst danger: “The newer generation of prescription sleep drugs interacts horribly with alcohol or Xanax. The way accidental deaths occur is usually with a combination of pills and alcohol. And the interaction is more than additive. If you drink a martini and then have another martini, you’ve had two martinis, but if you take a sleeping pill and then have a martini, you may have taken the equivalent of four martinis.” (Los Angeles Times (Feb. 4, 2008))

What is the third issue drug companies don’t want you to know about? The typical cause of sleeplessness is the “racing mind.” In other words, your thoughts and worries flood your brain, and you feel powerless to stop them. Drug companies don’t want you to know there is a drug free way to control your racing mind.
You may ask, “If doctors know there is a drug free way to calm the racing mind why are they still writing 49 million sleep drug prescriptions a year?” Sharon Begley, Wall Street Journal Science Editor, in her fascinating book, “Train Your Mind-Change Your Brain,” makes this point:

“Until very recently, medical scientists believed the brain was hard wired and unchangeable. Therefore the only way to calm the agitated brain circuits was to use drugs! You couldn’t get at the brain circuits any other way. Therefore those agitated worrisome thoughts keeping you awake couldn’t be controlled except through drugs.”

Fortunately, according to Begley, new research contradicts the old beliefs and instead holds that “The brain is malleable, the brain circuitry is plastic.” For example, Jeffry Schwartz, M.D. in his book, “The Mind & the Brain” describes convincing research which can be summarized by one brief statement: “Skills instead of pill”, a motto we have adopted at our own treatment center.
Your doctor will be happy to know about drug free solutions for insomnia. Instead of bringing coupons for a week’s supply of sleeping pills, bring information to your doctor about drug free solutions. Most doctors enjoy learning better ways to help their patients. There are several effective drug free treatments for insomnia available that have been thoroughly researched. This is not what has been derisively referred to as “talk therapy.” “Brain Training” better describes the process, which can be quickly taught, and when learned, is empowering to the patient. For example, encourage your doctor to check www.sleepnopills.com to find answers to drug free treatment for sleep dysfunction.

Now you know the three issues drug companies don’t want you to think about: the excessive marketing budgets which persuade you to use drugs to sleep; the dangers of these drugs, and information about drug free methods to calm the mind and relax the body for a good nights sleep..
(Dr. Ron is Co-Director along with Lynn Di Sarro, MFT, of two Westlake Village counseling practices, Family Counseling Center of the Oaks and Westlake Hypnosis.

Dr. Ron Soderquist

You are invited to respond to his articles at drron@westlakehypnosis.com and to call (805) 496-3449 for a consultation. Also, check www.sleepnopills.com for “Skills Instead of Pills”.)

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