I am never taking Ambien again. I swear I fucked up my body for life

[LynneSin]

Wednesday night I took one and then sometime around 3am I feel down the steps. I don't even remember going there.

My body is so sore and banged up (nothing is broken except the general concept of my body being broken).

HELP - how do I recover from this?

[old mark]

1. Drink a lot of liquids - non alcoholic, and no caffine - to flush the dregs out of your body.

Ambien is horrible stuff for some folks - I won't go near it.

don't take anything similar for a rew days at least - if I need sleep help, I take melotonin with good results, not ill effects.
Hot showers and aspirin for the body aches. You are fortunate you didn't break anything.


mark

[TZ]

2. Go have a sleep study done to see if the reason

you are having trouble sleeping is sleep apnea. There are some simple solutions for that.

[LynneSin]

3. I don't need a sleep study, which I've had one of those

I was just stressing and my problem is falling asleep, which has nothing to do with actual sleep

[TZ]

6. Cut out all caffeine. Don't exercise after 8pm.

Thats the only other thing I can suggest. Maybe listening to white noise/waterfall/birds kind of recordings to occupy your mind?

[LynneSin]

8. check and check

I've been an insomniac since I was a small child.

I've been sleeping better lately but this election stressed me out

[Crazy Dave]

4. Be careful with that stuff

Have you ever tried melatonin, something more natural instead? I usually have to take one Sunday evenings as I like to sleep late on the weekends.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin

[LynneSin]

9. I've done Melatonin for decades...

what people don't seem to understand is I'm not your typical sleeper - I'm a busy brain and this election has been so stressful on me that melatonin AND GABA weren't doing the trick. And since I'm losing weight, the lack of sleep was making it even harder.

[Crazy Dave]

12. I've heard that using melatonin for extended periods...

...does make your body produce less on it's own and of course, more tolerant to it's effects. I too have a hard time shutting off the brain when the lights go off, everything's quite and there's no other distractions, except for my thoughts. Once asleep I sleep good for the entire night but sometimes getting there is the hard part.

Good luck :)

[Redstone]

5. I had an "Ambien Incident" as well, though not as bad as your. I switched to

Lunesta, which does cause some "memory holes" so I still have to be careful (I only use it an average of once per week, ond only take half of a 3 MG tablet) but there haven't been any "walking around and talking and doing stuff while completely asleep" incidents like with Ambien.

Redstone

[underpants]

7. Stay away from it

I know someone who life fell apart because she couldn't stop

Marriage
Child
Future

Really sad.

[pitohui]

10. i will never take this drug after discussing it w. others and seeing the effects

i've seen the inability to be roused for myself, in fact, in one case, i thought the man might have died (and i heard the flight attendant later comment that she was starting to fear the same thing)

i've also heard too many stories of sleep eating, sleep DRIVING, and even sleep walking that led to fighting (presumably when someone tried to stop the sleep walking person from heading off in a bad direction) -- you don't even remember what you did but nonetheless if you go sleep DRIVING and are arrested, you are not found innocent by reason of ambien, you can and will be prosecuted under the DUI laws

an awful lot of people wake up in the morning and find out that they got in a fight on an airplane and now have an arrest on their record they don't know about and there are even cases, as i've said, where people have been arrested for DUI when the last thing they remember is going up to bed!

it just doesn't seem worth the risk to me

falling down is unpleasant but it could have been much, much MUCH worse -- you now have fair warning that this drug causes you to sleep walk and move about without your own knowledge -- get away from it!

[Parche]

11. what is the reason you took it in the first place

start from there.........:hi: :hug:

[Highway61]

13. Dangerous stuff

I am so sorry you are going through this. Last November my daughter had a surgery on her neck. She was in a LOT of pain as expected and her doc put her on Ambien for sleep. After 4 weeks she stopped taking it (slowly weening from a 1/2 for a few days ...then nothing) She called me one night and was crying telling me she felt like she was crawling out of her skin. Being a nurse I knew what the score was. To make a long story short in about 7-10 days (and LOTS of fluids) she got past the withdrawl....believe me, she vowed she will NEVER take any sleeping med again! Stuff has some serious side effects.... DRINK LOTS of H2O flush and detox yourself...and remember...this WILL pass. Give it a few days. Good luck

[curse of greyface]

14. Ambien is a great excuse if you wife catches you at the neighbors at 3am.

Sorry to hear about your fall.

[Fire Walk With Me]

15. "Wow, someone should get in there and show them how it's done

and hopefully use a riff on PeterU's 'Tombstone me' joke."

[redqueen]

16. Holy crap.

Long soaks in hot water... ice packs while resting... lots of resting.

I'm so glad it wasn't worse... that stuff is scary.

Just out of curiosity... do you meditate? I have trouble falling asleep sometimes too... I'm going to try that.

[4_Legs_Good]

17. I've been taking Ambien too because of stress/sleep

I get near panic attacks sometimes at night, particularly when I just get to sleep, and I have to go through a whole breathing ritual to try to get through it, so Ambien has really helped out, but I've also started to get a bit dependent on it when stress levels are extra hight (like around this election, big things at work, etc.), and it adds stress to the nights when trying to break the habit.

I do only ever take 1/2 tablet or less, and also I don't have any refills on my perscription, so I'm counting the doses I have left, which encourages me to conserve (though I'm sure I could get a new perscription if I needed to).

Anyway, bleh. Sorry about the falling, that' awful. I've never had any negative effects that I know about! I keep hoping for the "sleep-sexing", but nothing...

David

[Bake]

18. I ended up on the deck in my underwear at 3 AM, scratching on the door.

I had locked myself out. I thought I had dreamed I was taking the dogs out.

But that's the only incident I have had with Ambien.

Sorry you fell!!

Bake

[puerco-bellies]

19. I had took Ambien for almost two years.

I just switched to Lunesta yesterday. Ali considered it a truth serum and on several occasions she would start a conversation with me, then start asking me questions, she said that I would not hesitate to answer ANY thing she asked me. In fact the first time I confirmed that I would marry her was on Ambein, and I only had the vaguest memories of that conversation. The only things that I would physically do on Ambien was getting frisky. Ali would ask me the next day if I remembered having a "Ambien Night". I rarely did.

[musette_sf]

20. works fine for me

for which i am grateful.

[davsand]

21. Made me hallucinate and have panic attacks.

First night I took it I slept like a rock. I got up the next morning and felt great. The second night I took it and got up the next day and started hallucinating. Thought I was washing my daughter's blood off the street where she'd been run over--yeah it was THAT bad. I had wave after wave of panic attacks. Had crying jags. I'd just sit and shake while I contemplated my life.

I told Kevsand that I was in serious distress and to assume that anything I did or said was drug related. I called the ER (of course this was over the weekend) and talked to them and was told not to take Ambien again (duh!)

I was still having the panic attacks four days later.

It finally worked its way out of my system, but it took a lot longer than I'd have liked.

I took Xanax for a couple of years and it worked fine. Never needed to up the dose or anything, but the Docs said they wanted me off it because I might get addicted (I'd think after two years an addiction would have manifested if it was going to--but I am no doc...)

Doc prescribed Rozerem here just recently. Told me it could take up to a couple weeks to work. I dunno if it works or not because I quoit taking it after the first night when I took it and was awake LONGER than I had been without taking it. My "sleeping pill" kept me awake! Sure enough, I did some reading and found out that other people have had the SAME things happen with these sleeping pills.

That sleeping pill stuff is just nasty and I have come to the conclusion that the drugs might kill me, and if I am not sleeping it probably isn't gonna kill me (even IF I feel like crap some days!) I am gonna tough it out from here on out, I think.




Laura

[marzipanni]

22. Ouch- I agree with very warm baths and ice packs.

I hope your soreness goes away fast. :hug:
When I go to bed I make sure to stretch my feet, flexing them and spreading my toes like a cat. If I'm tense I do abdominal breathing like a baby-let my belly stick out while inhaling slowly and deeply. If there are any parts of my body that feel tense I consciously make them loose, then imagine how that fading-and-getting-sllleeeepy feeling feelssszzzzzzzzzzz :boring:
Whaddya know, here's a Japanese study-'The Effects of Foot Massage and Abdominal Breathing for the Patients with Insomnia and Accessory Symptoms'
http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200417/000020041704A0551813.php

[Locrian]

23. tryptophan?

I take 500mg tryptophan and 1mg of timed release melatonin, and 500mg DL - Plenalyalinine. Works pretty good for me.

Valerian will put you out but for me I then wake up at 4:00 like its time to get up...

I tried a ton of other stuff including tradenezone (oh crap is that baaaaad).

[Red State Rebel]

24. I Had Ambien Sex The Other Night....

Took one and half an hour later we started messing around, I woke up the next morning remembering NOTHING!!! He was leaving for a few days so I started things up again and afterward I confessed I didn't remember what happened the night before. He cracked up and said we had indeed done "the deed" and he was a bit suprised I was ready to go again the next morning. Oh well - have fun while ya can!!

[libodem]

25. I saw a thing on TV where

people who are semi-comatose wake up and start talking on the stuff. It definitively has mind altering capabilities. Sorry you got hurt. Heal fast.

[mnhtnbb]

26. Hubby is a psychiatrist and he will NOT prescribe Ambien. Better to stay

away from it.

[Minimus]

27. I had many episodes of sleep walking and sleep eating while on Ambien and

did not remember a thing. I quit taking it too.

[BlueJazz]

28. How did you Feel?

I hope you're ok and heal speedily. :)

[astral]

29. So whatever happened to plain ol' sleeping pills?

The doctors put my uncle on Ambien and I am sure that caused some of his hallucinations he never had before.

Do they still have plain ol' OTC sleeping pills? Like Sominex or whatever? That you can just take and all it does is make you fall asleep?

Why do people now need psychotropic drugs like Ambien or Lunesta?

I'm sorry, I've never taken sleeping pills to sleep. My occasional insomnia is just occasional. In fact I think I conk out within a minute of hitting the pillow -- once I've got the pillow properly folded at the corners so I don't get a crimp in my neck.

Pharmaceutical Companies Rule!

(and I don't mean that in a good way)