Are there effective insomnia sleeping medications that do not build your tolerance?

This question was asked in Brook Park, Pennsylvania on 07/27/2012.
Are there any prescription insomnia drugs that work forever without the body becoming immune to them eventually making them ineffective?

Doctors Answers (3)

Syed Nabi, M.D.
Answered on: 8/9/2012 6

No. There are usually no such sleeping medicines.

J. Douglas Hudson, MD, DABSM
Answered on: 7/31/2012

The development of tolerance with most FDA approved sleep aides (hypnotics) is not an issue for most persons. Tolerance does occur in some individuals but sometimes it is not tolerance in the true sense but that some persons require larger doses of a hypnotic than the average dose for most persons. So, starting with a low dose and gradually increasing the dose until the effective dose is found may not be true tolerance. Many medications used for sleep but not approved by the FDA as a hypnotic often have tolerance issues. Tolerance, of course, means that your system becomes tolerant to a specific dose of a medication and higher doses then become necessary to be effective. If you have truly become tolerant to an approved hypnotic I would recommend changing to another approved agent. Or, consider alternating two different agents every few days.

Richard J. Schumann Jr., MD
Answered on: 7/31/2012

No. All work on virtually the same GABA receptor system and tolerance develops after chronic use. Cognitive Behavioral Therapies have beeter long term result in the treatment of chronic insomnia.