Drug may help vets struggling to get rest

For many combat veterans, insomnia is a huge problem, and the struggle to find a way to sleep can morph into alcohol abuse, marital problems and increased risk of suicide.

Dr. Murray Raskind, a Seattle-based researcher, has focused on the new use of an old, cheap generic drug — prazosin — to help patients get some rest. In recent trials with veterans, Raskind found prazosin is working better — and at a much-reduced cost — than antipsychotic drugs that have been widely prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

While it does not induce sleep, prazosin helps normalize sleep so that patients can have normal dreams rather than nightmares, according to Raskind, a psychiatrist with the VA Puget Sound Health Care System.

"This drug changes lives," Raskind said. "Nothing else works like prazosin."

Raskind and other VA researchers are working with Madigan Army Medical Center doctors in a major trial of prazosin with active-duty soldiers who have the disorder.

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com