Most people take sleeping for granted. But only about one in three American adults is getting the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended seven hours of sleep nightly. Insomnia also creates elevated health risks, including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, heart attack and even stroke, not to mention depression and anxiety.
David Rittner of Centerville says he has had sleep issues as long as he can remember.
“My daughter, Jessica, is approaching 40 years old. And I can remember having trouble sleeping when she was an infant,” Rittner says.
Rittner says he has trouble shutting down his brain at bedtime. He says he has tried many different drugs to help him go to sleep and stay asleep.
Raised in northwest Dayton, Rittner graduated from Meadowdale High School in 1981. With a lifelong interest in cars, he went to Sinclair Community College and earned his Associate of Applied Science in automotive technology.
“I love seeing what makes things tick,” Rittner says.
Rittner’s first automotive related job was with a local Toyota dealership as a technician. There he learned to do everything and anything needed – from oil changes to an engine overhaul.
“Over the years I worked for several dealers and earned a lot of certifications,” Rittner says.
In 1996, Rittner and his wife, Becky, bought their home in Centerville and moved there from east Dayton, with their young daughter. Throughout all of this time, Rittner continued to struggle with sleep.
“When it became apparent that none of the drugs were working, I stopped taking them,” Rittner says. “I just came to accept the fact that I couldn’t sleep at night.”
Rittner says he grew accustomed to functioning on little to no sleep and just did the best he could, though it was hardly ideal. Rittner tried reading before bed and found he could fall sleep but wasn’t able to stay that way.
“The moment I wake up, I start thinking about everything I need to do,” Rittner says. “It’s like it never shuts off.”
Rittner says his mother instilled in him a strong work ethic, so he trained himself to get up every morning with the alarm, drink a lot of coffee and eat something to help him wake up enough to start his day.
“My focus is maybe part of the problem,” Rittner says. “I learned to stay focused and deal with everything. It wasn’t a pleasant way to live.”
Besides grogginess, Rittner says lack of sleep affected his stress and his mood. Eventually, he was “sick and tired of feeling tired.”
“I went in to get a sleep study,” Rittner says. “I’m not sure how fruitful that was.”
Rittner was diagnosed with mild position dependent sleep apnea, a rather common condition that affected him if he was sleeping on his back. Rittner was prescribed a different medication and was told he also had a “touch” of Restless Leg Syndrome. Though Rittner says he fell asleep easier and stayed asleep with that drug, he had difficulty with side effects.
“I was in a fog all the time when I was awake,” he says. “I was getting sleep, so I told myself that was the price I had to pay.”
While working in the automotive industry for more than 30 years, Rittner says he prided himself on his memory. But the newest sleep drug was robbing him of that skill.
“I knew I had to do something different,” Rittner says.
By this time, newer drugs like Ambien and Lunesta had been approved to help people with sleep disorders. Rittner tried the latter after reading about the side effects of Ambien. And like all the others, the drug helped him for several years, though his doctor had to keep upping his dosages when lower dosages became less effective.
“I wasn’t sure what else I was going to do at that point,” Rittner says.
Then in December of 2022, he went to see his doctor for a routine checkup and asked her about a new drug he had seen advertised. That drug, Quiviviq, is in a new class of sleep treatment medications called dual orexin receptor antagonists (DORA) that work by reducing the activity of the neuropeptide that regulates the sleep wake cycle. Rittner’s doctor agreed to prescribe it.
“I tried it for a week and didn’t see a difference,” Rittner says. “I gave it another week and then asked for a higher dosage.”
Rittner noticed that he was having no side effects and before he knew it, he was sleeping. He was not only falling asleep faster but was also going back to sleep quickly if he did wake up.
“It’s been such a godsend,” Rittner says. “Once I started sleeping again, I was able to go down to a lower dose.”
Now 60 years old and experiencing good sleep for the past year, Rittner says his health is good and his memory has returned.
“I am quick to tell anyone my insomnia struggles,” Rittner says. “A lot of people tell me it’s their problem too. Every drug has side effects but for me, this has worked great with no issues.”