Ambien Side Effects

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.