Capsules of the medication eszopiclone (sold as Lunesta) help people with severe sleep difficulties.
These pills, when taken properly, are made to help people to fall asleep quickly, and once the medication starts working, it can keep these people asleep through the night. When they awaken in the morning, they’ll feel refreshed and ready to tackle the day.
For people with long-term insomnia, these pills can be remarkably helpful. People who have struggled to sleep for ages might be able to get the rest that’s eluded them, all because they have the right medication helping them to succeed.
In 2013, about three million prescriptions for Lunesta were filled at retail pharmacies, per the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and it’s likely that most people filling those prescriptions needed help with a sleep problem. Lunesta probably helped them.
But there’s an entirely different class of people out there that’s also interested in Lunesta. These people might not be interested in getting better sleep or resting through the night. In theory, they should have no interest in Lunesta. In reality, they do love Lunesta, and they love it because of the brain changes it can deliver.
Profile of a Lunesta Abuser
People who obtain Lunesta for insomnia tend to use the medication as it’s prescribed. They need help with sleep, and they use the medication to solve that very specific problem. Rarely do people like this dabble in abuse or recreational use. When they take the pills, they expect to fall asleep, and they tend to fall asleep mere minutes after the pill hits their bloodstream.
A study in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry suggests that people who abuse sleep drugs like Lunesta are very different. They don’t have a prescription for the drug, in most cases, so they have no idea how it should be taken. They buy the drug from street dealers, and when they get it, they take as much of it as they can. Typically, a user is a male between the ages of 18 and 25, researchers say, but anyone could abuse the drug in a recreational manner like this.
Specific Lunesta Dangers
Euphoria, in and of itself, can be dangerous, as it tends to spark changes associated with addiction. People who are addicted to a substance tend to put that substance first, ahead of priorities involving:
- Health
- Family
- Relationships
- Community
- Work
- Financial stability
When the drug comes first, there’s a cascade of poor decisions that follows, and that can mean a person’s entire life can be transformed in no time at all. Any drug associated with addictive changes can cause this kind of transformation.
Lunesta comes with some specific changes that can also be dangerous. For example, Lunesta has been associated with impairment for 11 hours or more, the FDA says. People who take the drug may feel as though they’re restored to normalcy after a few hours, and they may do all sorts of things in response to that feeling, including driving, making purchases, forming relationships, and performing household repairs. They feel normal, so they go about normal tasks. In reality, Lunesta tends to stick around in the body for much longer periods of time, and people who take it may be impaired for much longer than they might realize.
That’s important, as people who are impaired might make all sorts of terrible decisions, including getting close to people who might harm them and operating machinery in an unsafe manner. People could harm themselves, or they could harm others, all because the drug is still working when they think it has worn off.
Lunesta has also been associated with an overdose in people who take very high doses (90 times the maximum recommended dose, per RxList). The drug doesn’t seem capable of causing death, as people who overdosed were restored to health in time, but people can become profoundly ill when they take too much of this drug. They may be in a coma-like state that could put them at risk for danger or violence from outsiders, or they could be injured while incapacitated. The drug can completely overwhelm a person, and that could lead to very serious consequences.
Adding Lunesta to another drug could up the ante of risk. People who blend alcohol with sleep medications, for example, can become profoundly impaired in just minutes, and when the body’s reflexes kick in, they might feel the need to vomit. Unfortunately, a person feeling the need to vomit while sedated can, at times, choke on that vomit.
Help for Lunesta Addiction
People in the midst of a Lunesta addiction will need help in order to recover, and that help should begin before they attempt to get sober. That’s because Lunesta has a tight grip on brain cells, and it can cause some unpleasant reactions during the withdrawal process.
A person with an addiction has bathed brain cells in Lunesta on a non-stop basis for a long period of time, and the brain has become accustomed to the presence of the drug. When the drug is gone, the brain cells panic and overreact, and the body’s alarm system goes into overdrive. When that happens, all sorts of unpleasant physical reactions can take hold, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, including:
- Stomach cramps
- Muscle cramps
- Nausea and vomiting
- Sweating
- Shaking
- Seizures
People in withdrawal may also feel anxious and nervous, and they may experience deep cravings for drugs. They’re at risk for a relapse.
A formal detox program can help, as professionals can use other medications to soothe physical and mental distress. They can taper those replacement drugs slowly, allowing the brain to adjust to smaller and smaller doses of drugs until no doses are required. Since detox happens in a safe, secure, drug-free environment, there’s a much smaller risk of relapse. After all, there are no drugs to take.
Detox itself is a necessary step, but it’s not a cure for a Lunesta addiction. Experts define an addiction as an all-encompassing problem that needs an all-encompassing cure. That means people with addictions often need help with almost every single aspect of life. They need job training, skills training, addiction education, relapse-prevention training, emotional support, family understanding, physical assistance, and so much more. Almost every single part of life must change, and that’s just not possible in detox, but it is possible in rehab. Here, people have a chance to really look at the addiction and at life in a holistic way, and when they do, they can make changes that lead to long-term healing.
That’s the help we can offer you at The Oaks at La Paloma. We provide a full-service healing environment for Lunesta addiction, and we’re accepting new patients right now. Please call us to find out more or to set up an admissions appointment.