Have any of you had strange experiences with the sleep medication, Ambien?

[Bullwinkle925]

I'm curious to hear your stories.

[malta blue]

1. none personally, but my MIL cooked pasta

in her sleep.... :shrug:

Is everything okay? :pals:

[lizziegrace]

2. PM WCGreen

he posted about Ambien one time. Don't remember the particulars but recall it was scary and funny at the same time...

[Bullwinkle925]

7. thanks LG . . .

i just PM'd him.

:hi:

[SPKrazy]

3. Fell on my head after falling asleep sitting up on my bed

woke up just before hitting the ground but rolled my neck despite my hand catching me. Was so stunned I lay there and fell asleep. Woke up later and got up. Bizarre.

I would take it and think, I can tell when I'm getting sleepy I'm not ready to lie down yet. Never ever worked but I tried it over and over, insanity?

It is strong stuff, and it creeps up on ya.

Lunesta less so, but that butterfly is more like the giant lunar moth from Dr. Dolittle, it will take you also.

Lots of forgetfulness, another fall off the bed. A bad burn from my laptop! Scary really.

My coworker calls it "the devils drug" 'cause his wife has been on it for years and she takes it earlier and earlier he says and she is bizarre on it, eats, talks crazy, and then goes to bed. She thinks it is wonderful.

It is a hypnotic sedative drug and it causes memory loss. My Doc said to take it and "go straight to bed" which I didn't do and she says that is the problem. Nevertheless, I seem to be incapable of doing that.

:hi:

:hug:

[darkstar]

5. Yeah you should go to bed

I take a third or so, never more than half, and it works only if I lay down right after swallowing it. That is, if I have to brusm my teeth, feed the cat, etc, and dork around for 10-15 minutes, it doesn't work. Otherwise, I'm asleep in that same 10-15.

:hi:

[easttexaslefty]

4. Yes,

Much talking in my sleep.I once woke my husband up saying Danny flew in the window. He asked me how he was...I said he told me he was happy...this was a good thing :}. Also did some eating in my sleep. I personally loved my ambian but my doc would not give me a refill. I had been talking it for 6 months... constantly since Danny's suicide. He told me I had to get to the root of why I couldn't sleep..well duh...my son suicided and I found him....maybe that's why i can't sleep:eyes: These days I take an old class of anti-depressant that also makes you somewhat sleepy, over the counter sleep aids and couple glasses of wine....miss my ambian though.

[XemaSab]

14. That's horrible!

:(

So sorry for your loss. :(

[latebloomer]

16. I am so very sorry

What a terrible loss.

[zanne]

26. I tried Lunesta...

It never helped me fall asleep, so I'd get about three to four hours of sleep and wake up feeling hungover from it. Ugh.

[I Have A Dream]

28. ...

:hug:

[Hawkeye-X]

6. I'm on Ambien right now.

So you can watch me sleep.

isodpj;jfdjdcjiooi;ioddiofdjio

zz....z....

++++ATH0 CARRIER LOST

[Lindsey]

11. I'm on it now and its been a lifesaver. I went for several weeks only

sleeping about 3 hrs. a night. I finally had to call my Dr. last week. I have been having pretty intense dreams but thank God I'm sleeping now.

[Connonym]

8. I finally stopped taking it because I was freaked out

I was sleep walking, talking, cleaning, cooking, emailing, phoning, etc. My kids thought it was funny and they tell stories of some of the stuff I've said but I started to get worried because I had no recollection of any of it and I couldn't be positive that I wouldn't do something terrible like get in my car and drive. I took it daily for about a year and quit cold turkey on New Year's day this year. I can't sleep for shite. You don't even WANT to know my hell story about the evil Xanax as a sleep aid.

[moriah]

12. Ambien works well for me....

... I keep the bottle in the medicine cabinet in the master bathroom.... I brush my teeth, swallow the pill, and go straight to bed.

A few times people have called me and woke me up after I'd been asleep and I didn't remember the call, but they said I sounded perfectly normal and rational, just drowsy and I didn't talk long, just said "Yeah, uh-huh" or answered in monosylabes, then said I needed to go back to bed.

Xanax is evil as a sleep aid. It doesn't work. My doctor had been giving it to me before the Ambien, at first it did make me somewhat sleepy at 0.5 mgs. Then that stopped working, so my doctor kept upping my dosage. Finally he had me on 4 mg before bed.

When that did not work to put me to sleep, I decided my doctor was FOS and quit it cold turkey.

I didn't sleep for five days, and went into manic psychosis. As I was only about 20 but I was female, they were concerned about possible schizophrenia when they first admitted me, before they did a drug screen or got my medical records, and popped me with Haldol and Ativan. The Ativan was related to Xanax so I calmed down and slept. They thought it meant the Haldol was working (Ativan is not usually considered the active drug in that cocktail). They started me on oral Haldol while waiting for my records, and after a day on it I started having severe muscle problems that escalated into "neuroleptic malignant syndrome" -- basically my body was metabolizing my muscle tissue, I got a fever and my kidneys started trying to shut down.

When they finally got my records and saw the medicines I'd been on, they put me on Valium, and I snapped out of the mental issues, although it took me awhile to recover from the NMS.

They told me I was actually lucky. Most people have grand mal seizures when they do what I did.

[Connonym]

13. 4 mg!

that kind of dosing put me in the ICU with a breathing tube and 5 days in the hospital. Shit that's a really dangerous dose level.

ETA: I'm glad the Ambien works for you and they were able to figure out your drug reactions. Insomnia sucks as does being put on medication that makes you worse rather than better.

[moriah]

21. Yeah.

Doc had said that as long as it was raised slowly there wasn't much of a ceiling dose. I think he was simply FOS.

It took six months to go from the original dose to that level. I probably should have thought about that when I decided to quit cold turkey.

Abrupt withdrawal from any benzodiazepine can cause seizures -- high potency and short half-life versions have worse withdrawal, even if it's not done cold turkey. Xanax has one of the shortest half-lives and the highest potencies of any of the benzodiazepines. I found it it's relatively common to have withdrawal psychosis when quitting cold turkey, although it's more common to have seizures.

The seizures might have been prevented because I was also taking Neurontin for nerve pain (ulnar nerve entrapment). Neurontin isn't a potent anti-seizure medication, it's usually used as an adjunct in people with epilepsy instead of a mainline treatment like Dilantin or Tegretol, but it does have some anti-seizure effects.

It's possible that Ambien could cause problems on withdrawal because while it's not a benzo it still affects the benzo receptor. I only take it when I have to get enough sleep for work -- so three days out of the week I don't take it. That might be why my tolerance has stayed low.

[Skittles]

9. only once, and I'm a long term on/off user

I woke up with a bowl of rice - yup - I don't know if I made it to eat or what because I don't remember making it at all. I got a pill-splitter and take 'em in halves.

[Dangerously Amused]

10. It makes my Mom hallucinate if she takes it and doesn't go straight to bed.

It also throws her whole sense of balance off. Then I have to deal with her hallucinations, and try to get her to bed without falling.

:(

[Missy Vixen]

15. I had to take it because I had a sleep study

Ambien is what they use to knock one out while you're hooked up to enough equipment to get HBO.

Let's just say that one of the side effects of Ambien (at least with me,) is something that would get the thread locked ASAP. I will not take it again.

:blush:
Julie

[Maddy McCall]

17. Oooo do tell!

In code words maybe? LOL.

[Missy Vixen]

29. This is embarrassing, but I'll fess up

Let's just say it's something I wouldn't want to have happen in front of other people.

Very, very strange.

Julie

[zanne]

27. OMG! Did that happen during the sleep study? nt

[XemaSab]

18. Two stories:

My friend Daryl was a juror in a trial where the woman drank a 6-pack of beer, drank a bottle of wine, and took an Ambien.

She drove at around 70 mph from Ojai to Ventura. When she got to the 101 she started going about 90. Going down the 101 she blew a tire, got out to look, got back in the car, and kept going. She was finally cornered at the Ventura county fairgrounds. She was found guilty of drunk driving because of the amount of alcohol she had consumed, but her defense was that the Ambien had messed her up.

My grandma was here for a month, and she was on Ambien and Methadone (for teh arthritis), and I swear that woman came in my room every night talking all kinds of crazy stuff.

Ambien will mess your shit up.

Half a Lunestra, on the other hand, will send you off to teh sleep of angels. :)

[mitchum]

19. I did what? I didn't even know that I had a webcam!

I take it 3-4 times a week, but no strange experiences...yet

[davsand]

20. Ambien made me hallucinate and have panic attacks.

First night I slept like a baby. Second night was pretty good too, but the morning after I started to have really strange things running in my mind. I "saw" my kid laying in the street dead and was washing her blood off the the pavement. I "saw" my husband hanging in the basement. THEN the panic attacks started.

Wave after wave of panic left me unable to function. I would go off on crying jags with no warning. I seriously thought I was losing my mind, and to be honest had I not had experience with hallucinogens I might well have lost it completely. As it was, I treated it like an acid trip and just rode it out. I told my husband what was going on and asked him to keep an eye on me until I could call my Doc.

Oddly enough, this was before the reports about people "sleep eating" and all the other stuff had hit the media. My Doc really was not much help--saying something like, "Well, gee, I have NEVER heard of this reaction before. You probably should not take it again."

It took about three days for that shit to clear my system and I had panic attacks th entire time. I finally self medicated and took some antihistamines to sleep thru part of it.

To be fair, I think that my root problem was PTSD and that probably contributed to the bad reactions. I have been on a low dose of Xanax since then, and hope to go off that fairly soon. Insomnia sucks the big one and I do understand needing sleep. I do NOT, however, suggest Ambien as an option.



Laura

[Awsi Dooger]

22. One generic batch that didn't work at all

The pharmacy insisted it was identical to my typical prescription but I'm still skeptical. The pills were small and round instead of slightly bigger and oblong.

The round type had literally zero impact. I resorted to store brand sleeping pills until it was time for my next Ambien prescription. Those were the typical oblong variety and they work great, half a pill and I'm quickly and comfortably knocked out.

[moriah]

25. They have new generics of Ambien now.

Both of the times I've had generic Ambien the pills were round. One batch was lilac, the other was smaller and white.

The lilac colored ones would have cost $65 for 30 without insurance. The small white ones cost $29 for 30 without insurance. I did notice they seemed slightly less effective than the lilac ones, but were still good enough to work for me.

[ChoralScholar]

23. My dad took his in the morning by mistake

(uses one of those morning noon evening pill dispensers, so something got mixed up)

He claims only to remember bits and pieces of that day... Bible falling out of lap at church, getting stopped by a state trooper for weaving.

Moral of the story... take it at night.

[moriah]

24. Erk.

I can't imagine driving on it I bet he was weaving, all right!

[grace0418]

30. My husband tells the most bizarre stories. I think he's having hallucinations but

he remembers nothing the next morning.

[NewEnglandGirl]

31. I have never taken it but

my friend saw monsters in her yard and my other friend got up and ate everything in the house (food products) and didn't remember it.:crazy:

[southpaw]

32. I've been taking Ambien CR for about 9 months

I quit (switched to Lunesta, actually) about a week ago because I've been having daily headaches since about the middle of February. I have read accounts of others experiencing similar headaches after several months of Ambien, but they say it can take several weeks off the medication before the headaches completely go away. I'm hoping for the best.

Never had any of the sleepwalking/eating/driving stuff... as far as I know.

[Blue Gardener]

33. SO had hallucinations when he took it

Very bizarre, and very scary. I would advise not being alone if you are taking it.

[Bake]

34. I take it occasionally and it's great. HOWEVER ...

The first or second time I took it, I had what I thought was a very vivid dream. The next morning my wife asked me what I was doing on the deck at 3:00 AM, outside the back door, in my underwear, scratching on the back door trying to get back in! I told her I dreamed that I had gotten up to let the dogs out. In fact, I had locked myself out and was standing under the light by the door, lightly scratching on it to get back in.

That's the only unusual occurrence I've had with Ambien though.

Bake

[Inchworm]

35. I take amitriptyline when I don't want to sip beer

I don't get hangovers from alcohol usually, but it is guaranteed that I will have one from the pills.

It is rather annoying.

:hi: