Most of the prescription sleeping pills on the market are tranquilizers. When you first start to use them, they’ll help you get to sleep and stay asleep, but they have a serious downside: They decrease deep sleep and frequently cause daytime drowsiness, concentration problems, and negative mood.
Newer, shorter-acting benzodiazepines have fewer side effects, but many people who take them often awaken in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep – a problem that particularly afflicts people in chronic pain.
Neurodevelopmental and clinical symptoms are commonly found in babies exposed to benzodiazepines in utero. Benzodiazepine exposed babies have a low birth weight but catch up to normal babies at an early age but smaller head circumferences found in benzo babies persists. Other adverse effects of benzodiazepines taken during pregnancy are deviating neurodevelopmental and clinical symptoms including craniofacial anomalies, delayed development of pincer grasp, deviations in muscle tone and pattern of movements.
Older classes of antidepressants – tricyclics and tetracyclics – are also commonly used to treat insomnia, especially in people with chronic pain. Although they weren’t developed to treat sleep disturbances, they cause significant sedation in most people.
Fairly common side effects for tricyclics and tetracyclics include dry mouth, blurred vision, drowsiness, dizziness, tremors, sexual problems, skin rash, and weight gain or loss.
In the past decade, over-the-counter sleeping aids have become increasingly popular. Most contain an antihistamine as the active ingredient. There’s no evidence, however, that these drugs are any more effective than placebos for treating chronic insomnia, and they often have side effects similar to the antidepressants. They can also heighten anxiety and disrupt REM sleep.
This page was first published on May, 15th, 2008 and was last updated on June, 22nd, 2008