Aricept interactions with pain or insomnia medication?
My sister told me that when she asked for medicine to help my 74-year-old mother with the severe pain and insomnia she has at night (well, worse at night), the doctor told her that those types of medicines could be potenially fatal when combined with her Aricept medication. I cannot find any information online to support this. Is it true? I don’t feel my mother should have to suffer with such severe pain and insomnia at her age. OTC medications do not help her. What can I do? A: Your doctor may not be very experienced with aricept. He’s probably just trying to be careful, unfortunately that means suffering for your mom. Some hypnotics like benadryl (diphenhydramine), doxepin and barbiturates can retard the effectiveness of aricept. Some analgesics like tramadol can make seizures more likely. Some antidepressants like buprprion (Welbutrin) can also make seizures more likely when taken with aricept. Other sedating drugs like aripiprazole (aricept) can retard the effectiveness of aricept.
