Why are doctors reluctant to prescribe sleeping tablets?
A perfect sleeping tablet would cause sleep, but have no possible problems. Unfortunately, there is no perfect sleeping tablet. Possible problems when taking sleeping tablets include the following: • Drowsiness the next day. You may not be safe to drive or to operate machinery. • Clumsiness, drowsiness, and confusion in the night if you have to get up. For example, you may fall over and injure yourself if you get up in the night to go to the toilet. Some people have fallen down stairs due to the drowsy effect of sleeping tablets. (Older people who take sleeping tablets have an increased risk of breaking their hip, as the result of a fall.) • Tolerance. With benzodiazepines and Z drug sleeping tablets (see below), if you take them each night, your body becomes used to them. This means that, in time, the usual dose has no effect. You then need a higher dose for it to work. In time, the higher dose does not work, and you need an even higher dose, and so on. It only takes between 3-14 days
