More than half the adults in the country suffer from insomnia, some to a chronic degree. But new medical science can offer help.
There is no one cause of insomnia.
"Insomnia covers a lot of different things, but basically it's not getting enough sleep and it can be due to a lot of different causes,” said Dr. Jamil Sulieman.
The mysterious element involved here is the fact that insomnia can be caused by a variety of issues - mental and physical.
"Those problems can sometimes be treated, but people are left with a chronic insomnia. And it turns out that people aren't very comfortable with discussing with their physicians. One study in fact showed that 85 percent of people who have insomnia don't even discuss it with their doctor,” said Sulieman.
At his sleep therapy clinic, Dr. Sulieman attempts to arrive at the root cause of a patient's insomnia.
But his work doesn't end there.
"Insomnia can co-exist and become its own living problem,” said Sulieman. “So that even if you treat the other problem, the insomnia can persist and that's the kind of patients that we see with the chronic persistent insomnia."
Every night, we see commercials on television advertising sleep medications.
Dr. Sulieman offers words of caution. "So there are complications related to how long the drug is active so I really try to suggest to people that they not take those and see if there is other therapy for their insomnia."
Dr. Sulieman recognizes the value of medications but says the best approach to insomnia treatment comes with a variety of therapies. "And then slowly tapering off the medications. And several studies came out just last year that showed that the use of these kind of programs long term seems to be the most effective way to treat chronic insomnia."
