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Wait what are the sleep medications they actually recommend?
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DORAs. Rather than being sedatives, they directly target receptors in your brain that make you think you should sleep. I think the oldest one came out in like 2011.

It's kind of like neuroscientists found the trigger to tell your brain "we're going to do a clean shutdown now, trigger transition to runlevel 0".

Quiviviq, Dayvigo, Belsomra. All still on-patent, so they don't have generics and are pretty expensive (like $1000/mo if your insurance doesn't cover them). A lot of doctors won't recommend them in practice because most of their patients won't yet be able to get them covered.

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Genuinely thank you. I’ve had sleep issues my whole life and no one has mentioned these. Not saying I will pay that, but more info is always good.
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GoodRX is always worth checking out, a ton of manufacturers will have coupons if you have insurance but they won't cover it.

Ask your doctor about them, look them up in your insurance's formulary to see what's required (e.g. if you have tried both Ambien and Trazadone and can document it), and see what they can do, before writing it off!

The expectation is Belsomra will lose its patent in 2029 and then generic makers can try to get one approved - so it's not that far off!

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