Numerous people have asked me to comment on Michael Jackson’s purported use of Propofol (Diprivan) as a sleep medication.
This is an anesthetic and sedative medication that is only administered IV (intra-venous) in a hospital setting (for example, it is used in the operating room during surgery and in the ICU when a patient on a ventilator needs sedation). It is fast acting and the effect is short-lived and therefore it is administered as a continuous IV drip. The patient should have cardiac and respiratory monitoring at all times as there is a warning that respiratory depression of apnea (no breathing) can occur.
This is not a medication that should ever be used in the home. If a person has serious insomnia refractory to conventional sleep aids, there are other oral medications that some physicians might turn to, but the use of propofol for this purpose is completely inappropriate because of the danger involved.
Use of Propofol (also known as Diprivan) in the home has no place in treatment of insomnia or any other sleep disorder. It can, in fact, lead to fatal respiratory depression or fatal sleep apnea
