I can not remember a time that I have found cold medicines that are supposed to cause drowsiness to actually cause me to be drowsy. In fact, as I type this, I am under the effects of one such medicine–and can’t sleep, though I’d dearly love to.
Are there people “immune” (so to speak) to this drowsiness effect?
It so happens I have also always seemed to my self to be “immune” to the wakefulness effect that’s supposed to come with caffeine ingestion. For example, many years ago when I was in High School, I stayed up all night, and the next morning took a couple of vivarin about fifteen minutes or so (to my recollection) before a class in which I had a test. And I fell asleep at my desk and slept through the test.
I do not recall a time when I felt any difficulty resting or sleeping after having ingested caffeine.
Am I almost certainly somehow fooling myself? Or is it plausible for a person to be “immune” to these kinds of effects somehow?
Yes. The drowsiness is caused by alcohol. I have met people with a high tolerance to alcohol. One person told me he usually drinks about 10X the average to get drunk.
Since you asked, the reason why not is because I assumed the drowsiness-causing element in cold medicines was the same in each case. Apologies for the mistaken assumption.
This stuff’s active ingredients are Chlorpheniramine Maleate (4 mg), and Phenylephrine HCI (10 mg). I’m a six foot, 243lb (gasp) male.
my son did that once… Children’s Benadryl is a “drowsiness” medicine, but it made him as awake as could be… so one day I halved the dosage because I couldn’t stand the hyperness and Bam!! Out like a light.
Coffee won’t mess with my ability to sleep, but if(when) I drink it before bed, I am Ready To Go upon waking the next morning.
Maybe it’s something to do with body/brain chemistry, just like one teen can take Ritalin to calm down and “focus”, and another can use it as speed.
There are certainly genetic components to your ability to metabolically process medications. Some alleles can affect how certain drugs behave in your body. Google “pharmacogenetics” to learn more. I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone researching it in the context of cold medicine, but genetics plays a large role in the variation in drug effects from person to person.
Oh, and FWIW, when I injest caffeine, I don’t get any noticeable “high” from it, but I often do feel the crash an hour or two later.
I always thought that the “Warning, May Cause Drowsiness, Do Not Drive, Operate Heavy Machinery, Or Play Dance Dance Revolution”-type warnings on most cold medicines were because one or two people during the clinical trials stage did indeed experience drowsiness as a side effect, and the pharmaceutical company would rather (and rightly so, IMHO) play it safe and put “ACHTUNG! DROWSINESS!” warnings on the medicine than deal with expensive lawsuits from someone who did indeed take Cold-Be-Gone and fell asleep at the wheel of a combine harvester which ran through a home for orphaned kittens or something equally unpleasant.
There’s definitely more to it than just alcohol. When I take two ounces of store-brand-PM-cold medicine, I go out like a light. The stuff is 10% alcohol. Meanwhile, when I take five shots of 80 proof scotch… well, I wouldn’t want to get behind the wheel of a car, but I’m not about to fall asleep either.
Yes, but if a brand has two formulations, one dark blue-green Sleepy Time and one bright orange Sunshine, I think it’s fair to assume the former will cause more drowsiness than the latter. To the OP: do you notice any difference between the two types?
Well, there’s your problem right there. Phenylephrine is a decongestant but also a mild stimulant, so insomnia and restlessness are common side effects (though not as pronounced as with pseudoephedrine).
Chlorpheniramine is an antihistamine, a class of drugs which also typically cause drowsiness. I can pretty much guarantee you’re not immune to that side effect, though of course you may have a greater tolerance than others, particularly at low doses. Some people deliberately exceed the therapeutic dose of antihistamines such as dimenhydrinate in order to achieve a drowsy, trance-like state, often accompanied by very realistic auditory and visual hallucinations. The effects are not unlike those of sleep deprivation.
The “drowsiness” component is usually antihistimines. It doesn’t work one everybody. It doesn’t work on me. I think even when it works, the effects are fairly marginal and subject to other variables (like how tired you already are, and whether you’ve had anything to drink).
Like cmyk said, that’s the ingredient in most OTC sleep remedies. Sometimes, if the conditions are just right, they might make you feel a bit drowsy. The effect isn’t very powerful, though. If it was, it wouldn’t be available OTC.
In my experience they don’t all work the same way on the same person anyway. Benadryl only knocks me out if I take 3 of them (hives call for desperate measures) but taking the normal dose of Tavist D (dexbrompheniramine) would have me taking a nap almost immediately.
Oh, man, taking a whole box was a doozy. You lose your short term memory so bad that you can’t finish sentences. The hallucinations are real but nothing to get excited about.
antihistamines sdon’t put me to sleep, I can sleep just fine after drinking expresso, but the combination of clonidine and cozaar is giving me random nap attacks all freaking day. We have tried swapping out to different meds, but this seems to be the best at keeping my BP down to a good range. Major suckitude =(
I tried one of these OTC sleeping pills containing Diphenhydramine a couple of nights ago.
It certainly worked (very well) but left me with something similar to a hangover the next day. The hangover was so unpleasant that I have decided that not getting to sleep until 4am is preferable.
Another odd side effect was that I seemed to gain a couple of inches around the waist compared to the previous day. That was thankfully only temporary.
I know this was made years ago but I have a story to tell that just happened today. I just got 4 of my 5 wisdom teeth taken out. In fact I’m on my way home after it happened. I was supposed to be put under general anesthesia (the kind that’s supposed to put you to sleep). In the past, drowsy medicine has had absolutely no affect on my. Apparently that applies to anesthesia that’s supposed to put you to sleep before you have surgery. I was awake during the entire thing, screaming in pain, being told over and over that I was fine, and basically in hell