Rx Side Effects...

Drugs have different types of effects and side effects on people. It may depend on the physiological as well as the physical condition of the person taking them. Medically prescribed drugs from doctors may have a better or worse effect depending also on any other drugs being taken at the same time. Drugs almost always have more than one outcome on an organism. Aspirin for example is usually taken for pain but it can also be used to reduce a high fever and can irritate the stomach. When medications are taken for health reasons the importance is focused mainly on the positive properties it will have, while the negative side effects are ignored. It is interesting to see how many drugs are being used by so many people without even having the knowledge of how they will affect the body and brain. If I have a headache and ask anyone how many aspirin I should take, their response will probably be, take two. This knowledge is basic and can be obtained simply by reading the label but it is not always the same for other types of medications. For example the prescription drug Ambien. This drug is used to treat insomnia (inability to sleep), and anxiety. It is a type of imidazopyridine (sedative hypnotic). Also known as zolpidem. Ambien primarily interacts with a neurotransmitter known as GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid). GABA's primary job is to facilitate communication among brain cells. When GABA is not interacting with Ambien, it is actively increasing and decreasing the activity of your brain cells. When Ambien enters your system, GABA's job changes, it encourages GABA to basically "turn off" the electrical activity of nearby brain cells. These brain cells stay "asleep" until the drug has worked its way out of your system. Ambien encourages GABA to target a specific part of the brain cell, which is why the users are able to wake up without a serious drug-induced sleep hangover. What happens if a person wakes up before the drug is out of their system? You cannot simply take another pill. Many users of Ambien have reported memory loss, sleep walking, sleep talking and even sleep driving while under the effects of this medication. In almost all cases people have no memory of doing any of these things. For several years there have been reports of people with brain damage who have partially recovered from a coma or unconscious state just hours after being given this drug. It’s bizarre how a drug that is used to help someone sleep can also wake someone up from a coma. Research is currently being conducted to see if this drug really is working in other ways besides helping with insomnia. It would be great if a medication may perhaps provide a miracle for people who suffer from some form of brain disease or damage and that it may be used to restore a persons consciousness. The challenge would be to provide evidence of such occurrences since reports of changes in people who are in a coma for instance, will many times be dismissed by doctors as being caused by other natural factors.