Dr. Kharazmi tells women what they should do and where they should go if they think they have a sleep disorder.
Dr. Kharazmi:
Again, if it’s felt that the patient has sleep disorder they really should be tested. We need to know why. What is the cause of it? Is it because they can’t fall asleep? Is it because that their sleep pattern is interrupted by abnormal movements?
Is it because they have sleep apnea which is very common and because we’re a rapidly growing, physically growing population which is associated with obstructive sleep apnea? Could be a product of medication or again, a lack of hormone production?
All these can be causing an individual to have sleep disorder so really the best way to find out is to test that individual and a sleep lab would be the most appropriate place for that testing to take place. I think the other important aspect of it is this, is that, if you don’t know what you’re treating in terms of sleep disorder, you may actually cause more problems in terms of their physiology, cause more harm, such as giving them the sleep-enhancing drug. That actually can make things worse.
Giving Benzodiazepines, a lot of them take Valium, pop a Valium because they can’t sleep or pop another medication because they can’t sleep. What that does is really causes you to become tired, but it doesn’t enhance your restorative sleep. It reduces your REM sleep and it causes more problems long term, it causes more problems with reference to memory recall, cognitive impairment is associated with it.
So at some point you really test individuals. Know where the problem lies and treat them accordingly.
Dr. Kharazmi, M.D.
Dr. Mohammad Kharazmi serves as the anti-aging medicine specialist at the Genetic Institute of Anti-Aging in Costa Mesa, California. He attended the University of California at Irvine for his undergraduate educations and later earned his medical doctorate (M.D.) at UCI’s medical school. In addition to anti-aging, Dr. Kharazmi is Board Certified in internal medicine and geriatrics.
Dr. Kharazmi is the partner and cofounder of Sherman Internal Medicine Clinics, cofounder of Medical Information Network Systems, and member of the American Medical Association. When he is not treating patients Dr. Kharazmi is a national speaker and consultant to Pfizer, Novartis, Aventis, Sankyo, Abbot and TAP.
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