Treatment of insomnia. Sleeping Pills

Every living organism is subject to the influence of circadian rhythms. Especially these circadian dependencies are manifested when going from wakefulness to sleep and back. Virtually all physiological processes are subject to this periodicity. In a waking state, a person actively interacts with the surrounding world. Sleep does not stop this interaction, but introduces a number of differences into it.

The peculiarity of normal physiological sleep lies in the fact that it proceeds strictly at certain stages. A healthy person, falling asleep, passes through stage A, or "relaxed wakefulness." After that comes the stage B, the latent period of sleep, characterized by falling asleep and the most superficial sleep. In stage C, the sleeping person no longer has a reaction to weak stimuli. Stage D is characterized by a moderately deep sleep. Deep sleep corresponds to stage E. Before awakening, a special stage occurs. It is accompanied by episodic rapid eye movements, the atony of the remaining striated muscles occurs.

Disorders in the processes of the course of sleep have a significant negative impact on the overall physical, mental and emotional state of a person. Before pharmacology has long been the task to create hypnotics, which can not only cause drowsiness, but also ensure the full flow of physiological processes.

For the first time this problem was solved by scientists in the middle of the nineteenth century. Sleeping pills began their history with a synthetic drug chloral hydrate. In addition to drowsiness, the drug had a calming effect. Sleep caused by chloral hydrate, approaching its characteristics to the physiological, its duration reached from six to eight hours. But its use caused irritating effect on the skin and mucous membranes, there was a drug dependence. Reducing the value of chloral hydrate because of its side effects has caused that this drug is now not used as a hypnotic .

A significant breakthrough in the search for drugs of hypnotic action was the appearance in 1902 of drugs that are derivatives of barbituric acid. For this discovery, the German chemist E. Fischer received the Nobel Prize. But in this case, the effectiveness of the new sleeping pills was overshadowed by a number of side effects. The use of barbiturates led to the fact that in the morning there was no feeling of cheerfulness and freshness, sometimes even a general slight fatigue appeared, which led to a decrease in working capacity, a deterioration in mood.

The sixties of the twentieth century gave the world a new group of drugs - derivatives of benzodiazepines. These include "Diazepam", "Chlordiadepoxide", "Phenazepam", etc. These substances not only have a hypnotic effect, but also have a calming effect. The action of benzodiazepine is more physiological and approaches natural normal sleep, it has been widely used in the treatment of insomnia of various manifestations.

But here, too, there were side effects, which in their negative manifestations, especially with regard to drug dependence, were stronger than those of barbiturates. Virtually all sleeping pills were not a panacea for insomnia, and their reception required monitoring by the doctor.

More recently, in medical practice, a drug, a derivative of ethanolamine, began to be used. The soporific Donomil immediately became widespread in the countries of Central and Western and Europe, the Middle East, etc., it was even included in the group of drugs distributed without a prescription. They release "Donormil" both in the form of tablets in the shell, and as effervescent tablets. Each tablet contains 15 mg of doxylamine succinate, hypnotic in drops is not produced.

To date, this is the most acceptable remedy for insomnia. It is easily excreted from the human body. The sleep caused by this drug has much in common with the physiological state.