Disclaimer: Clinical information is provided for educational purposes and not as a medical or professional service. Persons who are not medical professionals should have clinical information reviewed and interpreted or applied only by appropriate health professionals.
Primary Care Physican
1. What is seconal?
Seconal is the trade name for secobarbital, a short acting barbiturate. Onset of action is 10-15 minutes, duration of action is 3-4. Seconal is metabolized by the liver, via the microsomal enzyme system, and may increase the metabolism of other substances that are metabolized by the microsomal enzyme system.
2. What does seconal do?
Barbiturates act on the central nervous system. They can produce different effects, but in general, they are depressants, with the higher doses causing increasing levels of depression.
3. How does seconal affect sleep?
Seconal can be used as a hypnotic agent to induce sleep. Seconal induces sleep, but the sleep it induces is different from physiologic sleep. Seconal induced sleep has shorter REM sleep and shorter stage III and stage IV sleep. Seconal loses it's effectiveness as a sleep inducing agent after two weeks of use.
4. Is seconal a reasonable treatment for insomnia?
Not really. There are many approaches to treating insomnia, which included sleep hygiene, counselling, treatment of underlying psychologic disorders, and short courses of hypnotic medications. Barbiturates were popular in the 1960's and 1970's, but are rarely prescribed now. Seconal and other barbiturates are dangerous if an overdose is taken, leading to respiratory depression, coma and possibly death. Also, insomnia may rebound if the drug is topped suddenly. In general, most physicians will prescribe medications from the short or intermediate acting benzodiazepine classes, if needed.
5. What will happen if a person takes an overdose of seconal?
Within 15 minutes, the patient will become sedated, will begin hypoventilating, and will experiences a drop in body temperature. They may develop pulmonary edema, congestive heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias and renal failure. If the patient has taken one gram of the medication, they will be poisoned. Lethal doses are between 2-10 grams (between 20 and 100 pills). If the drug overdose is undetected the person will die.
6. Will a seconal overdose always cause death?
In the proper doses, seconal will likely cause death. However, any person attempting to take a lethal dose of medication may be thwarted if they are unsuccessful in taking the full lethal does, because of vomiting or other difficulties. Also, if they are discovered and treated, they may develop toxicities but not death. Such toxicities may include brain damage from hypoxia, renal and cardiac damage.
References:
- Physician's Desk Reference 1997, page 1529
- Gillin JC, Byerly WF, The Diagnosis and Management of Insomnia, NEJM vol 322:239-248, 1990.
Disclaimer: Clinical information is provided for educational purposes and not as a medical or professional service. Persons who are not medical professionals should have clinical information reviewed and interpreted or applied only by appropriate health professionals.