The FDA released information regarding sleep medications and the effects. The FDA announced that all prescription sleep aids may cause sleep driving. These side effects became well known after Rep. Patrick Kennedy had an automobile accident after taking Ambien.
Some Ambien and sleep aid users find themselves getting up in the middle of the night, going for a drive, but not remembering that they have done so. It’s definitely a more severe form of sleepwalking.
The FDA is not saying how many cases have been reported of sleep driving that are linked to insomnia drugs, but a neurology chief claims that there have been more than a dozen that he knows of.
The FDA has ordered new warnings to be applied to the labels of the 13 sleep drugs about two rare, but serious, side effects. They are:
1. Sleep-driving, along with other less dangerous “complex sleep-related behaviors” like making phone calls, fixing and eating food, and having sex while still asleep.
2. Life-threatening allergic reactions, as well as severe facial swelling, both of which can occur either the first time the pills are taken or anytime thereafter.
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