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Severe brain injury and paralysis temporarily reversed with a sleeping pill

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Re: Severe brain injury and paralysis temporarily reversed with a sleeping pill

#31
post #11

Zolpidem, I use this pill to sleep and works fantastic for me. My MD told me that regular use could lead to dementia and the risk for addiction is considerable. I've tried antidepressants to sleep but always wake up with a headache, the feeling of it it's not great either. But with this one, never had an issue.

Dementia as a side effect? Aren’t you scared of that?

People making choices of that sort are almost always much more afraid of something else, that "something else" being what happens if they don't treat for X. If they had better options, they would be all over them.

Re: Severe brain injury and paralysis temporarily reversed with a sleeping pill

#32
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could phrase this much more kindly.

I believe it would be on you to interpret it more charitably. I'm unsure how you've found a way to take offense with words that aren't readily associated with malice.

I'll bite, assuming good intent. (Though one's intended interpretation doesn't invalidate another's unexpected interpretation...) so here we go:

"Slither" can reasonably be associated with snakes, for which allusions are aplenty. The choice of word demonstrates a deliberate creativity that invited 6 the reader to consider whether there's deliberate underlying intent in the creative choice.

The "to life" comment takes an opinioated stance on the essence of what it means to be a living being, a controversial and deeply divisive topic for centuries.

Did you intend to inspire these interpretations? I doubt it. But is it reasonable to conclude you might have? Absolutely

No blame warranted, either way. Communication is flakey. ::shrug::

Re: Severe brain injury and paralysis temporarily reversed with a sleeping pill

#33
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.

Re: Severe brain injury and paralysis temporarily reversed with a sleeping pill

#34

What happens when the sleeping pill wears off? Does the patient revert to his previous state until administered another dose, or does a single dose permanently change the patient?

> After consultation with his family, a single dose of zolpidem (10 mg) was administered by the nursing home physician. This dose is frequently used for patients with persistent hyporesponsive disorders (Bomalaski et al., 2017). Within 20 min, the patient started communicating spontaneously, asking the nurse how his wheelchair was to be operated, and requesting fast food. He managed to walk while being supported by t…

It's great that he's able to "come back" for a little while, but it must be so sad for his loved ones to see him revert to the diminished state.

Re: Severe brain injury and paralysis temporarily reversed with a sleeping pill

#35

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 for a handful of them.

Re: Severe brain injury and paralysis temporarily reversed with a sleeping pill

#36
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it would be on you to interpret it more charitably. I'm unsure how you've found a way to take offense with words that aren't readily associated with malice.

I'll bite, assuming good intent. (Though one's intended interpretation doesn't invalidate another's unexpected interpretation...) so here we go: "Slither" can reasonably be associated with snakes, for which allusions are aplenty. The choice of word demonstrates a deliberate creativity that invited 6 the reader to consider whether there's deliberate underlying intent in the creative choice. The "to life" comment takes…

Communication is far less flakey when the default is a charitable interpretation.

As for your other points, I highly doubt such a simple comment intended to touch on the complexities of what it means to be alive - any interpretation otherwise seems to be reaching hard to find a complex technical fault compared to the alternative of interpreting with hospitality and arriving at the conclusion that it was a simple colloquialism intended to describe the situation.

Also, judging by your comment you seem to believe I'm the one who made the comment that was interpreted as unkind.

Re: Severe brain injury and paralysis temporarily reversed with a sleeping pill

#37

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-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zolpidem#Research

treatment effective in the short term, but only in a small proportion of cases (estimated at around 5%)

Re: Severe brain injury and paralysis temporarily reversed with a sleeping pill

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dementia as a side effect? Aren’t you scared of that?

I take medication that results in Parkinsonism Syndrome to some extent. It sucks, and it's very frustrating when it manifests. That said, without the medication I'd be miserable and might not even be alive. One of these is better than the other, so it's the choice I make.

L-Dopa by chance?

Re: Severe brain injury and paralysis temporarily reversed with a sleeping pill

#39

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…

When neurologists just postulate virus to explain the problems like you had, they are just BSing. Oliver Sacks described many cases of neurosyphilis in his books. These doctors are just extrapolating based on that.
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