How do you treat intractable insomnia as Michael Jackson seemed to have?
January 23rd, 2010 | 
Author: Clearly, Michael was overmedicated and perhaps in mutual exhaustion his "physician" finally administered the propofol on top of everything else.
My question is – what do real doctors do to treat someone whose insomnia is unresponsive to medications – is this such a rare circumstance that it’s a rehab situation most of the time?
Clearly he had an addiction problem. Once you become that dependent on those types of medications, you need a much larger dose for them to become effective.
I don’t think this is as rare as people think it is. They would send him for a sleep study, find out what his brain is doing when he is trying to sleep, send him off to rehab as drug withdrawal is dangerous. Who knows if he had any other co-morbidity.
Propofol is NEVER given to someone just because they cant sleep. That is just insane. As well as off label usage of medication, it is necessary in some aspects of medicine. Certainly not this particular drug!
Posted in insomnia
If a regular doctor can’t find a physical cause for the insomnia, then he needs to turn the case over to a qualified psychiatrist, as the cause must be psychological. Continuing to treat a condition that you are not qualified to treat is malpractice. Using drugs like propofol or seroquel off label for insomnia is malpractice.
References :
Clearly he had an addiction problem. Once you become that dependent on those types of medications, you need a much larger dose for them to become effective.
I don’t think this is as rare as people think it is. They would send him for a sleep study, find out what his brain is doing when he is trying to sleep, send him off to rehab as drug withdrawal is dangerous. Who knows if he had any other co-morbidity.
Propofol is NEVER given to someone just because they cant sleep. That is just insane. As well as off label usage of medication, it is necessary in some aspects of medicine. Certainly not this particular drug!
References :