Can You Be Woken Up by Touching After Taking Two Sleeping Pills?

For some elderly people, due to their shallow sleep, it is easy to suffer from insomnia. However, many young people also experience insomnia due to increased life pressure. In cases of severe insomnia, patients can obtain some sleeping pills from the hospital. Taking them in the prescribed dosage can effectively alleviate insomnia symptoms. However, after taking two sleeping pills, patients may enter deep sleep and it will be difficult for them to wake up if someone touches them. Sleeping pills are also known as tranquilizers. They are white or nearly white crystalline powders, odorless, and slightly bitter in taste. They are almost insoluble in water but soluble in hydrochloric acid. They are easily hydrolyzed when exposed to acid or alkali and heat. Oral drugs undergo ring-opening under the action of gastric acid and resynthesize the original drug in the alkaline intestine. Therefore, they do not affect the bioavailability of the drug. They have anti-anxiety effects, with mild compensatory rebound and withdrawal difficulty after discontinuation. They also have mild residual effects and a wide safety range. First-generation sedative-hypnotic drugs include barbiturates, chloral hydrate, tribromide mixture, and hydroxyzine (Antalol), among others. Among them, hydroxyzine is more suitable for patients with autonomic nervous system dysfunction. Chloral hydrate is widely used in drug clinical trials and rapid hypnosis for certain special inspections due to its minimal drug-drug interactions. Phenobarbital can be used as a substitute and tapering treatment for benzodiazepines and other hypnotic drugs. It can also be used for diseases such as sleepwalking, night terrors, and nightmares in children, or to antagonize the adverse excitatory effects of drugs such as ephedrine, amphetamine, and aminophylline. Second-generation sedative-hypnotic drugs mainly refer to benzodiazepine sedative-hypnotic drugs. Early drugs in this class include methaqualone, meprobamate, chlordiazepoxide, diazepam, and sulpiride; later developed drugs include triazolam, midazolam, flurazepam, nitrazepam, estazolam, alprazolam, and lorazepam, among others. These sleeping pills are characterized by a high therapeutic index, low toxicity to internal organs, and safe use. So far, they are still commonly used drugs for the treatment of insomnia. Benzodiazepine drugs can rapidly induce patients to fall asleep, reduce the number of nighttime awakenings, prolong sleep duration, and improve sleep quality. However, they also alter the usual sleep pattern, prolonging light sleep, shortening REM sleep duration, delaying the first appearance of REM sleep, and reducing or eliminating dreams. Benzodiazepine drugs have their unique characteristics. For example, triazolam has fast absorption and onset, no accumulation, and no residual effects, making it an ideal hypnotic drug. However, its short half-life can lead to early morning insomnia and daytime anxiety. Flurazepam has a longer half-life and rarely causes early morning insomnia or daytime anxiety. However, its main metabolite is active, and the half-life of the active metabolite can be as long as 47 to 100 hours, making it prone to accumulation.