A wunder drug?
 

Reports have appeared in British newspapers of a sleeping pill causing coma victims to awake. It has been suggested by doctors that it wakens dormant cells in the motor section of the brain. The effect lasts about4 days.
Juan on braintalk 1 has said that a drug albien aids gait. I looked up the structure of ambien, and found it is the same chemical as zolpidem.
Maybe this is a drug to give us a 4 day "on"??
Ron

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/tex...n_page_id=1770

Brain-damaged patients wake following sleeping pill treatment
By NICK McDERMOTT

A group of severely brain-damaged patients given little chance of recovery by medical experts are awakening after receiving a radical new course of medication - in the form of a sleeping pill.

Instead of sending them into a deeper slumber, coma patients being treated with Zolpidem - a generic sleeping pill - are reporting remarkable improvements in both speech and movement, with many communicating with their loved ones for the first time in years.

Louis Viljoen, who was in a persistent vegetative state after being hit by a lorry while out riding his bike, was first given the sleeping to control involuntary spasms.

To the amazement of staff at the Ikaya Tinivorster rehabilitation centre in Springs, near Johannesburg, South Africa, Louis began to speak for the first time in five years.

Family GP Wally Nel, who prescribed the sleeping pill to Louis, told The Guardian that the accidental discovery was a "remarkable" breakthrough.

"Something strange and wonderful is happening here, and we have to get to the bottom of it," he said.

"Since Louis, I have treated more than 150 brain-damaged patients with zolpidem and have seen improvements in about 60 per cent of them."

Dr Ralf Clauss, a physician of nuclear medicine, carried out brain scans on Louis before and after taking the drug, and describes the results as "unbelievable".

"We did scans before and after we gave Louis zolpidem. Areas that appeared black and dead beforehand began to light up with activity afterwards," he said.

"I was dumbfounded, and I still am."

Medical trials are now expected to begin in South Africa aiming at understanding how the drug is waking brain cells once thought dead.

Keen sportsman Riaan Bolton, 23, suffered severe brain trauma after a serious car crash in July 2003, and specialists warned the family he had only a 5 per cent chance of recovery.

Until June, Riaan remained in a vegetative state, but after his parents Johanna and Tinus gave him the pill they noticed immediate improvements.

"We gave him the pill and we noticed him moving his fingers in his left hand and touching them against each other.

"His eyes went big and he began looking from left to right," said Tinus.

Since taking the drug, Riaan has begun responding to questioning and can drink through a straw, "It has given us hope," says Johanna, "to have communication with him again, to know he becomes aware of us and to tell him we love him."



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Find this story at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770

Hi Ron!

This is reminiscent of the movie "Awakenings." I take Ambien, so I should be good for the get-go.

Peggy

Ron, zolpidem is ambien. This is so fascinating. Thanks for posting it.

Reminds me of what I posted yesterday about a researcher who is her own guinea pig. She believes that, altho tapping fingers is hard for Pwpd, if you tap with great effort, it may rewire the brain in some way, and cause improvements in other motor symptoms.

Being counterintuitive is a gift, it seems.

I know this is old
 

This is an old post, but as someone said, Zolipidem is the generic form of Ambien. It is the same thing. It is also in a class all of its own...it's not a benzodiazepine, or a sedative, rather it is a Hypnotic drug (whatever that means in the realm of drug classification). I've been prescribed it for almost 10 years faithfully and have taken it every night for those 10 years. I can say this, it could help me sleep, but it actually takes away the dreadful, debilitating pains have all day from botched spinal surgery along with 10 vertebrae that are either herniated, bulging, and/or have osteophytes. It can go both ways, I can lie down and sleep, but wake up to more pain that gets nothing done or I can take it, be relieved of the pain and take care of my house cleaning, shopping, my home business's, etc and forget the sleep. I take the latter because it gets things done.

DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE THE SAME EFFECT ON AMBIEN?

My Story: Several Lipomas on spinal nerves, Discectomy on L5-S1 after severe compression on S1 nerve, surgery left excess scar tissue & damaged several nerves, lateral herniation L3-L4, Schmorl's node L3, straightened Lumbar, Straightened Thoracic, Reverse Cervical Spine, Herniations at C4-5, C5-6, C6-7, osteophytes onC4, C5, C6, C7, a 1CM right sided posterior thyroid cyst that abuts the osteophytes in my neck, Fibromyalgia (which I don't believe in), Lupus, Factor IV Leiden, Lupus Anticoagulant, PCOS, List goes on..... And no doctor I know believes in upright MR imaging which I have less than 15 minutes from me! I have 2 kids I care for on my own and one is autistic and he needs his mommy 24/7... Which is hard. Can anyone help me find a doc who will help, I'm at the point where I feel like I'm choking constantly, things constantly stick in my throat, my BP was always normal and now since all this got worse for the last 2 years, my BP went from a steady 112/60 (all my life) to 190-200/165-185 only when I'm up and trying to do things, yet its normal at night after the ambien and normal in the am for less than an hour after I start moving.

Wonder drug
 

Reminds me of a cartoon I saw.

PATIENT: That new drug you gave me didn't help at all. I thought you said it was a "wonder drug."


DOCTOR: It was, but now we know.