What Your Doctor May Not Be Telling You About Lunesta
A good night’s sleep is important to anyone, but many people have significant difficulty sleeping. If you’re one of the thousands of people who regularly can’t stay asleep or can’t sleep at all, you’d probably give just about anything to get a good night’s sleep.
There are many things we can all do to improve our sleep. There are physical conditions that may interfere with your body's ability to sleep which could be corrected. Many drugs, both over the counter and by prescription only, may be able to improve your quality of sleep, and through that, your quality of life. Lunesta has been presented as one such aid. However, its numerous side effects and inconsistent results lead us to ask the question: are the benefits really worth it?
What is Lunesta? Does it work?
Lunesta is a “sleeping pill” approved by the FDA for long-term treatment of insomnia in 2004.
Whether or not Lunesta works is still a question. Research studies sponsored by Lunesta's maker, Sepracor, found that Lunesta was effective in helping patients get to sleep faster and get more sleep. However, researchers at the Dartmouth Institute reported no big difference between Lunesta and sugar pills. The Dartmouth study reported that patients taking Lunesta only fell asleep about fifteen minutes faster and only got about 45 minutes more sleep than patients who took sugar pills, which lacked Lunesta’s side effects.1
Some patients have said that Lunesta helped them sleep, others that it didn’t work for them.2
What should I ask my doctor about before deciding to take Lunesta?
Lunesta has some very serious side effects, which can include sleep-walking, sleep-eating, even sleep-driving, aggressive behavior, thoughts of suicide, memory loss, anxiety, depression and other serious symptoms.3
Most people have heard of sleep-walking but sleep-driving? People taking Lunesta and other similar drugs have woken to find themselves miles from home or even arrested in their pajamas with no memory of how they got there. Others find that they binged on sweets, even wrote and sent email and made purchases online in their sleep.4
When film director Tony Scott jumped off a bridge over the Los Angeles harbor, he had, by prescription, taken both Lunesta and Remeron, an antidepressant known to have suicidal ideation as a possible side effect.5
Side effects listed by the manufacturer don’t include another condition reported by patients, many of them women: hair loss.6
“I have had severe hair loss since taking Lunesta. I’ve been taking 3 mg for about three months now and my hair is so thin now…. Yes! I have definitely had hair loss the past couple of months I’ve been taking Lunesta …. My husband has been on Lunesta 3 mg for two months – his hair loss has been startling….”7
No testing has been done on children for Lunesta nor whether Lunesta is excreted in breast milk, so there is no safety information for children or pregnant women taking Lunesta. Lunesta is not approved for children.
What if I’m already taking Lunesta?
You should never stop taking a prescription medication without discussing it with your doctor. Many medications have “withdrawal” symptoms or may cause discomfort or even severe problems if you suddenly stop taking them. Always discuss any medication with your doctor, who should be able to tell you what is safe for you and help you work out the best way to proceed.
Withdrawal symptoms from Lunesta can include anxiety and a return of insomnia.8 Talk to your doctor if you experience any odd symptoms while taking Lunestra or withdrawing from Lunesta.
Learn everything that you can about Lunesta before you start taking it.
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1 Stephen Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz, Dartmouth Medicine, “Lunesta Drug Facts Box,” http://dartmed.dartmouth.edu/spring08/pdf/disc_drugs_we/lunesta_box.pdf
2 talkaboutsleep.com Forum message boards, retrieved 11 July 2012, http://www.talkaboutsleep.com/message-boards/viewtopic.php?t=12307
3 FDA Drug Safety, http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/DrugSafety/UCM134691.pdf
4 New York Times, Stephanie Saul, “FDA Warns of Sleeping Pills Strange Effects” (15 March 2007), http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/business/15drug.ready.html
5 Examiner.com, “Was Director Tony Scott’s Death an Accidental Suicide?”( October 23, 2012)http://www.examiner.com/article/was-director-tony-scott-s-death-an-accidental-suicide
6 eHealthme.com, “Could Lunesta Cause Alopecia?” (2012) http://www.ehealthme.com/ds/lunesta/alopecia
7 MedicalNewsToday.com Comment Forums, “Informing Sepracor About Lunesta Problems,” retrieved 11 July 2012
8 Daniel F. Kripke, M.D., http://www.darksideofsleepingpills.com/ch2.html