Anyone take Ambien??
 

My doctor prescribed Ambien to me today because I am haveing trouble sleeping. Dont know if it is my hormones all wacked or what. I was wondering how you do on it and if it makes you really out of it. I am not a medicine type of person and I'm afraid I will be in a really deep sleep and I wont wake up if anything happens. :confused:

A friend of mine at work takes it and says she couldn't sleep without it. I am in Menopause now and started HRT and some of the meds have made me sleep better but it takes me a while to get out of a fog when I wake up in the morning. Google it and see what they say the side effects are, but I am finding out with meds they effect everyone different. Hope this works for you I would be worried about becoming addicted to it.

I know I mean my doctor said it is not addictive, and i could take it everyday or every 2-3 days. I dont know if I want to start that.

Maybe you could start with 1/2 pill. My sister took it for several years and then stopped when they changed her medicine to something else. I know she said she would awaken at night sometimes and other times she says she seemed to sleep through storms and such.

I take it, works great, no lingering effects for me. Only problem is if I take it everyday after about 5 days I get a headache. So I try to only use about every 3 days.

I took it for a short period of time.

I found more effective medications to sleep w/ less side effects. Just know that sleep walking/driving/texting/phone calls/taking flights and much more have been reported.

It is a really scary class of medication imo and I would only take it at last resort. My step-father was on it for ages and we would wake up to trails of food from the kitchen, from sleep cooking attempts. Used to drive my mom crazy. lol

Oh and I was on sleep meds since I was 15. Very bad insomnia. Now I fixed my bodys sleep pattern and only take OTC stuff once in a while.

theres 2 differernt types. regular Ambien and the other i think is called AmbienCr
the other kind claims it helps you fall asleep and stay asleep. its a stronger pill.
there are different mg strengths of ambiean. like 5 mg i think might be the weakest one.
my dr prescribed it to me when i told her i was having trouble sleeping. i took it every day and it worked great. when i went back to her in a month and told her it worked great and i was expecting a script for more, she said no, it is addictive. ( i guess she is a real conservative type Dr) So now i just have some for when i feel i really need them. so, i dont depend on them for every day, only once in awhile. i always take them with me when i go away somewhere cause thats when i have the hardest time falling asleep.
But i have pretty much eliminated caffine after a certain hour. that helped alot.
But the low mg amount Ambien is not a real strong pill. i wouldnt be afraid to take it.

Mine is 10mg and he gave me 30 pills and 5 refills. Now I'm scared to take it at all. I think I will just stay as I am.

i think the one that is associated with those side effects is the AmbienCR , not the regular ambien. and you can cut the 10mg one in half. but if you dont need it then that's better not to take it at all. a small dose like that will not knock you out, just help you get sleepy. you would still wake up if you heard a loud noise or something.
have you tried to just eliminate caffene. like in the morning is ok. but after a certain hour like in the afternoon , dont drink anything with caffene

I took ambien off & on for about ten years. I finally built up an immunity, but since it's been a while it may work again.

I loved it, take it walk to the bed, set the alarm & bam-I'm out. As long as I had 6-8 hours to sleep it off I was not drowsy the next day. The biggest problem I had was that towards the end it didn't work so well & I'd do things.

One thing I'd call 'drunk dialing/texting' but I wasn't drunk, just on ambien. Usually I'd call my bff & talk for a long time, then the next day I'd talk to her & repeat & she'd say I already told her last night.:rolleyes: There's also 'sleep eating' that I would do. Wake up in the morning to dirty dishes in the kitchen or left overs gone, lol, it is kind of funny to me now but was irritating then. Those side effects or something similar should be listed or at least found online. I think precautions could be taken to minimize the risk of this happening, I guess I just never got around to it.:rolleyes:

I've tried lot's of meds & all of the newer sleeping pills. Lunesta is one that works pretty similar to Ambien but I never felt the side effects. I've just been on too many over time that it's hard to find anything that works. Right now I take Melatonin & it really works. The average dose is 1-5mg.-I take 10 & that's about the max they recommend. Hope you can find something that works for you. Insomnia seriously sucks!

Try 1/2 a tab (5mg) first ESP. Since you aren't a medication type of person. I general give Ambien or Restoril at the hospital where I work as a nurse. Have you tried taking melatonin? It is over the counter. You could also try Tylenol Pm or benadryl- They all work for me.

I wish I could find a miracle drug for Menopause that has very little or no side effects.

if you only use it once in awhile , you wont become addicted. and by addicted, it more means that you are dependent on it to fall asleep, and then you will build up a tolerence to it , so you will need a stronger strength of it. but one or two every now and then , the low strength should not be any problem at all, you wont be addicted. dont worry.

and i think the Tylenol PM is a great idea. i've taken that at night and it makes me very sleepy

My mom took it and yeah, it made her sleep, but she would act crazy sometimes. One night she had a whole conversation with me and I thought she was awake. She even ate a burger and she didn't remember it at all (we were on a cruise, and I came back to the room at 3am with a burger, LOL). Yeah she did not remember anything. Apparently she, uh, did some things with her husband too and did not remember it. (Sorry if that's TMI!!) but it's true... Ambien kind of scares me, lol

I took it several times and it worked well to help me sleep, but it gave me a weird amnesia type problem the next day. My doctor put me on antidepressants when I started menopause to help with hot flashes and insomnia. It helped with hot flashes but not with sleeping. I would give anything to be able to go to bed at night and wake up the next morning. I have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. I have always been that way. I hope you can get some sleep.