111–120 of 187 posts
Zolpidem is famous for this, although it’s raised more questions than answers. This particular phenomenon has been known since the early 2000s; NYT has a good write up about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/can-ambien-wake-...
My sister suffered severe TBI from a car accident for 15 years before she eventually passed last year. It was pretty shocking to witness the lack of knowledge in regards to how the human brain works, and more specifically lacking in how to heal/treat an injured brain. Immediately following the accident, we saw other patients in the same condition as her and tracked their progress for comparison sake. The common theme…
Got basically told off with denial and laughs.
Experts often get stuck on this point where their ego supercedes any notion of new science, exploration and potentially disruptive information.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've taken it for over 10 years and am better than ever. Hasn't suffered any harmful side-effects either. Of course, side-effects differ from person to person. But it's worth a try. Z-drugs and benzos are way worse. Moreover, if you're severely addicted to Z-drugs like OP, the benefits probably do outweigh the side-effects. Not every person is the same, and the cost benefit analysis differs accordingly.
Same. I’ve been on Zolipdem for about 5 years now ya amazing not to take 2 or 3 hours to fall asleep. I’ve never had any meaningful side effects. No sleep walking, binge eating, or anything. I am certainly, in the clinical sense, addicted - eg if I miss a dose I certainly notice, and there is some degree of tolerance, but I’m still better off than before I went on it.
I believe the correct term is "dependent".
There is a lot of misinformation and stigma out there, so I think it's really important to distinguish between addiction (e.g. insatiable cravings), medical dependence (e.g. someone taking anti-psychotics because they will otherwise have psychotic episodes, or someone taking antidepressants because they otherwise have manic depressive episodes), and physiological dependence, where your body's receptors have up/down-regulated to adjust to a "new normal", and withdrawal symptoms may occur if treatment is stopped.
Excerpt: A man, 29-year old, with a history of alcohol abuse suffered from hypoxic-ischemic brain injury after choking on a piece of meat. After an initial, though slow neurological recovery, spontaneous movement and speech disappeared. The patient developed such a severe impairment of arousal that he required intensive auditory and tactile stimulation to maintain a wakeful state. No structural lesions were found usi…
Several years ago I experienced a (thankfully temporary) severe reduction in brain function, for several weeks. I was shocked by the truly abysmal diagnostic capability of modern neuromedicine for anything less than large-scale physical trauma. In my case, they couldn't pin down a cause at all, except to say that the symptoms were consistent with a viral infection of the CNS. What virus? Who knows, we can only test f…
We just have a few pieces of a puzzle and no idea what the overall image actually is. Neuroplasticity and adaptivity make this even harder because often you can't just take a part away like in a car and pinpoint issues due to the absence or disturbance of these parts.
If you knockout an area and a patient loses smell, will you say that you found the "center" of smell? We are still poking at the brain and figuring out its responses.
here is just a list of shit to be prepared for when you take them for more than a few short weeks:
please be VERY careful. ive been on then for years and it is a nasty and very long detox process.
Things like these makes me realize how little we know about the functioning of brain. Manipulating brain digitally would be perhaps one of the biggest technological revolution after industrial revolution.
We know very little about how the body as a whole functions, especially from a systems perspective. Sure doctors can set bones and give you drugs that are in many cases the physiological equivalent of a sledgehammer, but try asking them what the mechanism of action is of those drugs, or you have Crohn’s or rheumatoid arthritis or insomnia or pinched nerve pain in your back. They have no effing idea.
New cell types or pathways to become cell types are observed more often than you would think and it feels like we are still at the very foundation of understanding . It's scary how much we don't know while publically acting as if we figured out 99.98% of biology.
Explaining allergies and their origin is a good example here. It's just people throwing guesses around.
Ah, the video at the bottom of the paper is really emotional! I hope they can figure out how to prolong the effects. Still, an hour of lucidity and verbal communication and a stroll every few weeks and a visit with the family is infinitely better than nothing at all.
I'm glad you pointed that out. It was great to see video of him.
It's absolutely incredible! You can read as much in the paper of course, but seeing it with your own eyes is somehow very different.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a gross misunderstanding of what Seroquel is used for. It's one of those medications that several different side effects depending on the dosage. Yes, it can be used as an anti-psychotic. However, in most of the cases I've heard, it's used as a sleep aid. This was the case for me, too. I was on it for 10 years and ultimately went off because I grew out of my chronic insomnia. Aside from a muted personality an…
Seroquel is quetiapine. People are calling it an anti=psychotic because it is an anti-psychotic. That's its main use, and that's what it's licensed for. https://bnf.nice.org.uk/drug/quetiapine.html https://www.nami.org/About-Mental-Illness/Treatments/Mental-... > Quetiapine is a medication that works in the brain to treat schizophrenia. It is also known as a second generation antipsychotic (SGA) or atypical antipsych…
There is a nice brief summary of this in Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology.
To be clear, I am very much against prescribing anti-psychotics as sleeping aids. But I don't think there is a strong case for calling quetiapine anti-psychotic in low doses.
Excerpt: A man, 29-year old, with a history of alcohol abuse suffered from hypoxic-ischemic brain injury after choking on a piece of meat. After an initial, though slow neurological recovery, spontaneous movement and speech disappeared. The patient developed such a severe impairment of arousal that he required intensive auditory and tactile stimulation to maintain a wakeful state. No structural lesions were found usi…
Several years ago I experienced a (thankfully temporary) severe reduction in brain function, for several weeks. I was shocked by the truly abysmal diagnostic capability of modern neuromedicine for anything less than large-scale physical trauma. In my case, they couldn't pin down a cause at all, except to say that the symptoms were consistent with a viral infection of the CNS. What virus? Who knows, we can only test f…