From the "Dirty Little Secrets" Department....

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I stopped by my pharmacy the other day. It's a local, mom-and-pop store (remember those?) where the druggist knows the customers by name (remember those?). I asked if I could take a sleep aid while taking the other medications that I take. This is something you get from a mom-and-pop druggist. He told me a dirty little secret: the active ingredient in sleep pills like Sominex is the exact same thing that's in antihistamines like Benadryl. So I went to the Walgreen's web site and compared the price of the "sleep aid" and the "antihistamine." Same active ingredient, mind you. The pills packaged as a "sleep aid" were about five bucks more expensive. Wow. Here's the late Randall Hylton, who was a masterful thumb-picking guitarist (and a fine human being), and his take on OTC medications: