Had been taking 10 mg, cut it down to 5 mg (no more than two nights in a row). Still, if I don’t take it (I don’t take it a third night in a row), I have terrible withdrawal–can’t sleep. So, I try to run more, to process whatever “awake” chemicals I am on, to make the withdrawal easier. I use Ambien very carefully, and as little as possible. At 10 mg, It makes me feel euphoric, like I can keep going forever, not so much at 5 mg, but it still has an effect.
I love natural sleep–not Ambien induced sleep.
I just wanted to pass on some familiar information about everyone’s wonder-drug for sleep, ambien. I too am a college-educated 44 y.o. female with a high tolerance for most medications. I take 10 mg. of ambien at night and have had many instances of sleep-driving, sleep-eating and a couple of other things I won’t even mention. The scariest part of all of the effects is the sleep-driving. I have had numerous trips made to stores and liquor stores after taking it and I don’t even drink. The only way I would know that I had been somewhere was that my car would be found in a different street-parking place than when I had been the day before and I would find bottles of booze in the freezer. Like I said I don’t drink. I have had several instances where I just go out and drive to the hospital and have no recollection of going but I wake up with an armband on where I had been to the e.r. I have one particular incident where I went driving after ingestion of ambien and had an accident two blocks from home and did $3,000 in damage to my car and $1200 in damage to a parked car. The police were called and apparently I was convincing enough to the officer and he called me a cab ( my car was not drivable) to get to the hospital. That’s apparently where I was going again. I was admitted to the psych floor for 10 days and had no idea of the damage to my car, where it was towed to or the fact that I had hit another car. It also is a convenient method to attempt suicide. I got a new script for it and took the whole month’s supply (30 pills) at once and was upright for about ten minutes after I took it. I was talking to my mother online and she said I needed to call someone to get me to the hospital. I called a cab. I remember walking downstairs to go out of the building to wait for the cab and lighting a cigarette. I remember nothing after that. I had fallen and crushed my meniscus and tore the medial ligament in my knee. The cabbie said they thought I was on the ground from heat stroke or something of that nature…it was 102 degrees that day. He and a neighbor were pouring cold water over me to try to help while waiting for an ambulance. I was in desperate trouble as a result of that attempt. I spent over 24 hours in the e.r. in a trauma room because of the respiratory suppression. They treated me for blood clots as a result of the meds. I spent another 9 days in the psych unit and continued to get ambien for sleep. While in the hospital, I would take sleep showers…with my clothes on. I don’t know what I would do without the sleep-inducing power of this drug because I have horrible insomnia as related to the bipolar part of my diagnosis. I don’t want to be one of those people that gets caught driving without my knowledge and end up on the wrong side of the law. I have hidden my keys to try to curb the situation and that doesn’t even help. I have had to put an alarm on the front door to stop me from going out. That isn’t completely effective either since I know the code to stop the screaming of the alarm. You wouldn’t think you could do such complex tasks while sleeping but that seems to be the case. I don’t want to see this drug removed from the market but you need to be advised of the possible problems. My only education of this med had come through the leaflet from the pharmacy and what I have been able to find on the internet. Please, educate yourself about any and all medications that may be prescribed to you. Don’t feel as though you should place full faith in your physician or psychiatrist and go blindly into a stupor from this medication.
I feel it is very important that I share my experience with Ambien and my withdrawl experience. I had never been addicted to anything in my life, not even nicotine when I smoked for eleven years. However, I started taking Ambien over eight years ago, because I’m somewhat a chronic insomniac. Over the eight years, I went from a very non-threatening 2.5 mg per night to requiring over 20 mg per night minimum. Although, I didn’t sleep-eat or sleep-drive, as some people have described, I did make purchases, although intended in the future, without knowing until I got email confirmations. Ambien did cause short term amnesia type symptoms. Sometimes, if I didn’t get to sleep within an hour or two, I might even double it. I did what most addicts do to maintain their supply, doctor shop, on-line pharmacies (dangerous), etc. I ran out of authentic Ambien about two months ago and only had what I purchased on-line (very expensive) that wasn’t real (didn’t work), so I decided that was it, I was going to quit and just not sleep for however long it took, thinking it would only take a few days. However, the rebound insomnia lasted over a month . . . yes, I said a month. Strange things happen to your body when you don’t sleep for that long a period of time, paranoia, hallucenations (sp?), physical maladies, and even seizures (ended up in the hospital twice). To finally resolve this insomia, because there was no end in sight, I was prescribed a small amount of diazapam, followed by lorazapam to help me sleep and bring me more slowly off of the prescriptions. It worked. I am now at the point of using 1/2 diazapam to get to sleep and if I wake in the middle of the night, I lay in bed quietly and wait for sleep without taking anything else. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But I’m sticking to the plan. I have also contracted a pretty nasty cold and have been taking over the counter cold medication for my symptoms. While I was using Ambien, I never felt the drowsiness effect of the medications, now I do. I’m not using this as a substitution, but more as a test of how my body should react naturally to these medications while I’m controlling my cold symptoms. There are also some very good natural sleep aids available that I feel comfortable using regularly that I take when I need to sleep, have time to wait and time to sleep a full eight hours, as these natural sleep aids tend to stay in the body longer than Ambien did. Please, please, please take me serious because I don’t want anyone else to have to experience what I did. If you have already taken Ambien, be VERY careful how you use it, it is VERY easy to become dependent on. If you’ve already found yourself in a similar situation, talk to your doctor to discuss your options. Whatever you do, DON’T cold turkey this medication. I don’t care what the industry tell you, it IS dangerous to quit cold turkey. If your doctor won’t listen to you, find another doctor until you find one that will. Feel free to print this and share my story because it is very important to know what you’re dealing with. I’ve dealt with it the hard way. It is the most physically challenging thing I have ever gone through. It is really nice to be on the other side of that experience, knowing that I can sleep without Ambien and that I am actually sleeping more healthy.
I see it’s been a while since your post & I wonder how you are now. Hope everything worked out well. I used zolpidem for 5 years and decided to quit just over a week ago. went cold turkey with no terrible withdrawal symptoms. the worst is insomnia.