Sleep problems and Insomnia in Serious Illness: A Podcast with Cathy Alessi and Brienne Miner

Insomnia. We’ve all had it. Lying in bed at 2 am staring at the ceiling, getting anxious every hour that you’re not falling asleep as you have a busy day coming up. Insomnia sucks.  Chronic insomnia sucks even more. For those with serious illness, sleep problems and insomnia are all too common.  Instead of reflexively jumping to melatonin or ambien, on today's podcast we talk with two sleep experts, Cathy Alessi and Brienne Miner, about a better approach to sleep problems and insomnia. We will go over epidemiology of insomnia, how these experts think about work up including which medications to avoid or discontinue, non-pharmacological treatment such as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), and what if any is the role of pharmacological therapy in including newer agents like melatonin receptor agonists (ramelteon) and dual orexin receptor antagonists (like suvorexant).