Beware of a Dangerous Side Effect From Prescription Sleeping Pills

Many people take sleeping pills to help them to fall asleep at night-with most of them suffering from some degree of insomnia. What is likely to be the last thing on their minds as they lay down is the possibility of them waking up behind the wheel of their car. The FDA has warned of the dangerous side effect of taking sleeping pills known as sleep driving. This is obviously more complicated than sleep walking because it entails actually getting behind the wheel of a car and driving in your sleep. And perhaps the scariest thing about sleep driving is you will have no memory of doing so. It may sound impossible but it is a fact.

The Food and Drug Administration wouldn't disclose exactly how many cases of sleep driving had been linked to sleep aiding drugs for insomnia. However, neurology chief Dr. Russell Katz said that the agency uncovered over a dozen reports and believes that there are possibly many more that have gone unreported.

We all know the dangers of falling asleep behind the wheel. We've seen or heard stories of accidents where the drivers have fallen asleep behind the wheel and have had devastating and sometimes fatal car crashes. But these people started out driving awake and fully aware that they were behind the wheel of a vehicle. With sleep driving, the last thing the person probably remembers is taking a pill and going to bed. Imagine the shock they'd feel to wake up driving in their car or parked on some unfamiliar street sitting behind the wheel of their vehicle.

Katz says the problem of sleep driving is rare, given the millions of prescriptions for insomnia drugs. Although he is unaware of any deaths occurring from sleep driving, the act itself is extremely dangerous and can have detrimental consequences. The FDA ordered a series of strict new warnings for the makers of 13 sleep drugs. The makers of these 13 sleep drugs have to add warning labels that tell about two rare but serious side effects. The first of these side effects is sleep driving along with other sleep related behaviors that aren't as dangerous such as making phone calls, cooking and eating foods, and having sex while sleep. Now some people may laugh at the last warning of having sex while sleep and say-"Hmm...so and so fell asleep while we were having sex last night so that's nothing new." But in all seriousness, being unaware that you're having sex with someone is very risky behavior. You can contract diseases, get raped, become pregnant or just have the sheer fact hanging over your head that someone had sex with you and you don't even remember it.

The second side effect that has to be placed on these sleep drugs is the possibility of having life threatening allergic reactions as well as severe facial swelling. Both of these side effects can occur either the first time you take the pill or at any time during the course you're taking these pills.

Doctors are soon going to be receiving letters which will notify them of the new warnings. In addition, later this year all prescription sleeping pills will come with brochures called "Medication Guides" that will tell of the potential risks in language that's easy for the patient to understand.

You may or may not remember when sleep driving first made headlines last May when Representative Patrick Kennedy crashed his car into a barrier outside the U.S. Capitol after taking the sleep drug Ambien and a second drug, Phenergan which is an anti-nausea pill that also acts as a sedative. Kennedy said he has no memory of the event and plead guilty to driving under the influence of prescription drugs and was sentences to court ordered drug treatment and a years probation.

Ambien isn't the only insomnia drug that can cause sleep driving. The 13 sleep drugs that will carry new warnings will be Ambien, Butisol sodium, Carbital, Dalmane, Doral, Halcion, Lunesta, Placidyl, Prosom, Restoral, Rozerem, Seconal, and Sonata. Any sleep drugs in the class known as "sleep hypnotics" can cause sleep driving according to the FDA's Katz.

If you take any sleep drugs, in order to lower your risk of sleep driving, never take a prescription insomnia drug with alcohol or any other sedating drugs. It's also important not to take the higher than recommended dose of the pills.