Some of the commonly prescribed prescription sleep medications will be no carrying the FDA’s black box warning label, which will include the information to patients when they get the pills.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said, “Rare but serious injuries have happened with certain common prescription insomnia medicines because of sleep behaviors, including sleepwalking, sleep driving, and engaging in other activities while not fully awake. These complex sleep behaviors have also resulted in deaths.”
The agency has claimed that the prescription sleep medicines that are often linked to such incidents include Lunesta (eszopiclone), Sonata (zaleplon), and Ambein, Edluar, Intermezzo and Zolpimist (zolpidem).
The FDA said, “They are in a class of medicines called sedative-hypnotics and have been approved and on the market for many years. These insomnia medicines work by slowing activity in the brain to allow sleep.”
The agency has recommended stopping the medication and contacting a medical professional if you suffer a memory loss or any of the sleep events mentioned earlier. The FDA has warned doctors against prescribing any of the above prescription sleep aids to patients who have a history of “complex sleep behavior.”
