Sleep Meds - Interesting Experience

I'm not new to Sleep issues as I've chronic insomnia for over 60 years - yes since childhood. It must run in the family as my maternal cousin has the same issue. My sleep doc had me try a few sleep meds which gave me a med hangover that didn't clear until mid day. Finally we got to Sonata as they have a 5mg (the only major brand that did at the time) and it worked. I went to sleep in less than an hour and work up refreshed and alert.

A couple years later I was struggling with stuff I couldn't get out of my head and even the Sonata didn't help. I was back to laying awake for 3-4 hours begging my body to let me sleep. So I cheated on my pills and found 2 of them really helped. I got my rx changed to 2 5mg as needed and i was fine for quite a spell.

A couple years into that I fell off a ladder landing on my head on the garage floor. A neighbor found me and called 911 and I had a concussion. After some recovery I discovered I had very little sense of balance, my already fading short term memory took a giant step shorter, I was back to groggy, needing a quart of coffee to wake up, and I started getting lost driving in town.

So I take all my symptoms to my doc who gets me an MRI (okay) and sets me up with a neurologist (in 3 weeks). Right after that visit my Rx plan insisted on giving me the generic of Sonata in a 10mg cap. So I tried it and my wife began telling me of my sleepwalking and mumbled conversation with her. This went on every night and I blames the generic so went back to some Sonata I had left over. Taking 2 5mg didn't stop it so I cut back to 5mg again. Overnight my head was clear in the AM, my balance is back, my memory has improved, and I don't need all the coffee and wake-up routine.

I had no idea the extra 5mg could cause all that. I'm passing this along because I know I'm not the only one who has the groggy symptoms. This turned out to be one time that more wasn't better.

Interesting story and a good conclusion. I work in pharmaceutical R&D and have seen similar effects with discovery compounds that are in the product development pipeline. We look really hard at both therapeutic effectiveness as well as the toxicity data. The recommended dosage range, called the therapeutic window, is arrived at only after very careful study during clinical trials. The maximum dosage is set at the point where benefit to the patient begins to be outweighed by safety concerns. Some drugs have a narrower therapeutic window than do others, and that is one of the reasons those drugs are sold by prescription only.