Vicks recently introduced ZzzQuil, sort of like NyQuil, but not for colds, just to help people sleep. The link is to their product safety page.
Is this a good idea? I find myself terribly dubious. It seems to be using an antihistamine as a sleep aid. But are sleeps aids, themselves, a good idea?
I can accept that some people have significant medical complications and sleep disorders…and I think such people ought to be seen by doctors and, perhaps, given prescription meds to help them with their conditions.
But…as an over-the-counter deal? It just makes me dubious. What’s wrong with warm milk and counting sheep? Is this a product that might be subject to significant abuse? Or am I wrong in depending too much on “nature” and an occasional bit of help sleeping is just fine?
There are a lot of over the counter sleep aids that have been available for decades. Most seem to contain Diphenhydramine. Nytol and Sominex are basically the same thing in pill form.
I have found that Nyquil is the only thing that makes life bearable when I have a cold/flu/other misery. I have got to the point where I have to sleep it away. The routine is like this: Drink Nyquil, sleep. Wake, hit the Nyquil bottle. Repeat until I am all better, and there is no more Nyquil in the house. Nyquil is helpful, and addictive to me. If I start a bottle because I’m sick, I always finish it, even if, maybe, I didn’t need to. I don’t use it recreationally or as a sleep aid, only when I am sick, but once I start, I can’t stop.
If ZZZQuil is anything like Nyquil, it would have to be just as addictive, and maybe one person could take a tablespoon or two a couple of nights a week, but many others would want to drain the bottle and probably hit it again when they woke up in the morning. Nyquil makes me sleep, but it’s not refreshing. When I wake from a Nyquil induced sleep, I just want to go back to sleep, which is often not going to happen without more Nyquil.
So when I first saw that ZzzQuil was a real product and not a joke, I was very surprised. And I don’t think it’s going to be a good thing.
It says right on the page you linked: “For more than 30 years, diphenhydramine has been approved by the FDA as an OTC (over-the-counter) medicine to treat occasional sleeplessness. Plus, diphenhydramine is non-habit-forming.”
Must be nice to not be plagued by insomnia, unlike 60 million+ Americans. If you’ve never needed a sleep aid, then you shouldn’t be criticizing people who do. What’s wrong with warm milk and counting sheep… really? They don’t help insomniacs get to sleep, that’s what’s wrong with them. :rolleyes: This product is not new, nor is it controversial in any way whatsoever. It’s just a money grab by NyQuil.
I’ve been using Zzzquil occasionally for the last three weeks, and it absolutely works, too. I’m not a complete insomniac, but most nights it can take me 30-60 minutes to fall asleep because my mind starts racing the moment I lay down. With Zzzquil, I lay down and almost immediately start gently fading into sleep.
It’s not a complete knockout potion; my phone went off around 2 am one night and jolted me awake. Even though I got back to sleep quickly, I was kind of out of it the following day. Even when I get a full 8 hours, I definitely feel a little odd the following day, which makes me cautious about using it. It’s certainly not habit-forming that I can see yet.
When I need it though, it’s excellent. I generally haven’t looked into sleep aids before, but I’ve always enjoyed any excuse to take Nyquil in the past, and I’m quite happy with Zzzquil.
I can’t imagine drinking anything similar to Nyquil for anything less serious than bubonic plague. If Zzzquil tastes anything like its predecessor, I’d be up puking all night. I can get diphenhydramine in a much less revolting form, TYVM.
You are wrong for assuming that your occasional problems with sleeping give you some kind of special insight on treating insomnia.
It’s kind of like me going “tsk, tsk, tsk” at people who take Pepto-Bismal for frequent digestive issues just because I can usually calm my stomach with ginger ale.
I have no idea if ZzzQuil is a good idea. But as someone who has just had to reluctantly get back on clonazapem after suffering through several months of sleeping difficulties, I’d probably prefer taking something like that over a benzo.
The problem with warm milk and counting sheep? That shit doesn’t work. I usually give it the old college the first hour of tossing and turning before I cave in and pop a pill. I’d LOVE to be able to sleep “naturally”, and when I can, I’m really happy. But chemical assistance is sometimes called for. Only an individual and their physician can decide when that point has been reached. The tongue-clicking peanut gallery on the internet should have no role in the discussion.
Even the Dayquils knock me out. Whatever they put in them to ameliorate the sleepy-time effect doesnt work right, and it merely leaves me edgy and irritable. And sleepy.
If I take it at night I’ll typically wake up feeling creeped out and/or paranoid. Which is a really strange thing because I dont believe in spooks, ghosties, spirits and deities. It doesnt seem to associate with dream imagery, just a vague feeling. I havent had an actual nightmare since I was a kid.
People were already drinking Nyquil for sleep. Most nyquil formulas contain acetaminophen, which kills more people every year than doxylamine ever has. When people get habituated to sleep aids they usually need to increase the dose. I’m sure this has lead to acetaminophen poisonings.
**ExcitedIdiot **got it. It’s about taking a recognized product people use in a not-safe way (NyQuil) and taking out the dangerous part, repackaging it and sticking it next to the bottles of what people are used to buying. It’s brilliant, and yes, I do think it will save lives.
Never underestimate the power of the mind. There are many people for whom NyQuil works to help them sleep, but Benedryl doesn’t. Nevermind that they’re the same chemical. For whatever reason, their brain has associated NyQuil with sleepy time, and so it works. Offering this stuff in a similar package made by the same manufacturer but clearly intended for sleep may help people make the switch and still get their sleep. *Without *downing excess acetaminophen.
As for the safety of antihistamines for occasional sleeplessness? Never seen a study suggesting it’s not safe. I’d be wary of using it too often, simply because, again, power of the mind. It may not be physically habit forming to most people, but it may train them that they can’t sleep without it.
But my SO suffers from horrible insomnia, and has been through the litany of prescription meds and sleep studies and the whole ball of wax. I’d be delighted if something OTC worked for him. Everything works for him for about three nights. Then nothing works for him, including barbiturates. It sucks…and insomnia is a huge risk factor for heart attacks (he’s had one already) and strokes (knockwood no.)
I think the other big reason NyQuil was so popular as a sleep aid is that most people consume it in its liquid form, which allowed the diphenhydramine to be absorbed and act far more quickly than the compressed tablet form used by most of the OTC sleep aid brands. It wasn’t just placebo, it did work more quickly than the available sleep aid brands. The best compromise in the sleep aid category had been in liquid gel forms offered as Chattem’s Unisom Sleep Gels and generics, which still take a while to dissolve and enter the blood stream, but are quicker than pills. (And those savvy enough to know about buying diphenhydramine in allergy-medication packaging rarely thought to look at J&J’s Children’s Benadryl liquid and generics in the pediatric allergy category.) I was honestly surprised that no manufacturer in sleep aids had taken a look at the popularity of NyQuil and offered their own liquid version before P&G.
There’s also a tack-on problem that NyQuil is shelved in the cough/cold area, while sleep aids are usually shoehorned into another unrelated category at the store (typically analgesics). People who know NyQuil works would not see other, safer brands of sleep aid shelved nearby, and would then be inclined to pick the one thing that they know works. ZzzQuil is hampered because it’s not shelved next to NyQuil (unless you’re at a convenience store where the entire OTC section is contained in a few shelves), but given enough advertising, it will hopefully get NyQuil abusers to realize that there is a separate sleep aid category and stop heading to the cough/cold section.
The idea of taking Benadryl is even more foreign for a lot of people; if you’re not familiar with diphenhydramine and just shop by brand, it makes little sense to look at the allergy section and use something indicated for seasonal allergies that has no dosing information for sleep use.
I don’t see why not. I’ve been using Benadryl or the generic version for nearly 50 years now for my allergies. I’m still alive and no unexpected side effects. It’s hardly a new compound, it’s very well understood.
Although I often find 25 mg, half the dose in ZzzQuil, to be sufficient to induce sleep whether I want it to or not. Really, folks would be better off purchasing generic diphenhydramine and taking it in 25 mg doses as the default, only doubling that if they’re still having trouble sleeping. But then again, there might be a placebo effect with the brand name.
The name “ZzzQuil” sounds like such a stoner idea I’m having trouble believing it’s real. How is that pronounced, anyway? Zee Quil? Zee Zee Zee Quil? <buzzing sound>Quil? <snorrrrre>Quil?
But yeah, clever rebranding of the same crappy diphenydramine that’s in almost every other OTC sleep aid and several brands of allergy med. I don’t use them personally, because the “sleep” I get from them is more like a weirded-out half-sleep followed by a foot-dragging hangover the entire next day.
As to abuse potential, I can imagine some idiot teenager guzzling a bottle of ZzzQuil thinking it’s like Robitussin— and you can definitely get fucked up and hallucinate from too much diphenhydramine, but it’s reported to be a pretty horrible buzz by most who’ve been stupid, fearless, or desperate enough to try it. I doubt there are many repeat attempts.
Nyquil is legitimately a more effective sleep aid than straight diphenhydramine. Nyquil has 25% alcohol (listed as an “inactive ingredient”). That’s nowhere near enough to get you drunk from normal doses, but it’s enough to seriously enhance the effect of diphenhydramine. You can, of course, combine alcohol and diphenhydramine yourself. It’s not dangerous except in the “avoid use of heavy machinery” way.
(I discovered just how powerful that interaction is by personal experience. Sometime in college I was taking maximum diphenhydramine doses all day to keep bad allergies at bay. Later that night there was a party, I had maybe half a drink before I fell asleep in a chair in the corner. At 7 pm.)
Of course there’s no alcohol in the zzzquil gelcaps, but from a marketing perspective people will associate it with the relative effectiveness of nyquil.
Last summer I had a long period of serious insomnia. No physical reason - I assume it was a combination of jet lag and, you know, psychological reaction to a certain @$$hole going on a rampage way too close to home. I had some of those antihistamine-as-sleep-aid tablets, and took a half-dose each night for five nights. It got me back on track and I was back to my normal sleep habits.
I think such a medicine has its uses, in other words. I understand concerns that people could become dependent on them, but if antihistamines aren’t available, someone who has trouble sleeping might turn to something more habit-forming - like alcohol.
Seems like a good idea to me. My husband is very sensitive to diphenhydramine, it seems. If he takes a single Unisom (diphenhydramine 50mg), he’s knocked flat and sleeps 12 hours. You can’t cut these Unisom gel-caps in half all that easily, so he can take a very small dose of liquid Zzzzzzquil and sleep normally if he’s having problems falling asleep, then wake up refreshed.
Plus we bought it because we thought the name “Zzzzzzquil” was a real hoot and it’s funny to see it among the boring stuff in our medicine cabinet. Looks like a cartoon, and it amuses us.
There are several references above to NyQuil (not ZzzQuil) having diphenhydramine. I do not believe this to be correct, as it is not listed as an active ingredient: cite, click on “package information.”
So it seems to me that the only similarity between NyQuil and ZzzQuil is the marketing, really.
Bad idea, but mainly because the active ingredient is available in generic products for a lot less money. It’s Vicks’ attempt to remarket a cheap, easily-available product in a way that makes them more money - but otherwise does you no more good than anything you can already buy.
From a medical standpoint: sure, why not use it (or whatever) for the occasional bout of insomnia. If it works, of course; it makes some people paradoxically hyper, it just makes me mean). If it’s more than occasional, then yeah, see a doctor.