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.

I LOVE Ambien. Love it, love it, love it. Unfortunately, I am addicted to it, meaning that if I don't take it, I will not fall asleep for 24 hours+. I have done a few crazy things on it. Tip: don't surf shopping sites after you take it. And I've found that it gives me unusually vivid dreams.

I remember distinctly that one night I was convinced that I had the answer to life, the universe, everything, and I carefully wrote it down before I went to sleep. I woke up the next morning and discovered that I'd basically drawn a long, vertical line down the legnth of the page. Apparently the answer to life, the universe and everything is "up-and-down-ness".

The CR is not different from regular Ambien -- it just has a timed release capsule because Ambien usually works for about 5 hours, when people generally want 8. So you may have the same side effects, though perhaps more mild because you essentially take a smaller dose 2 times over the course of the night.

I realize this probably doesn't sound very appealing to you, but as someone who has had horrible problems falling and staying asleep, I will say that it literally changed my life. I was unable to keep to a 24 hour sleep/wake cycle before I started taking it. That made things like job holding a lot harder. Also, if you've ever had any anxiety issues, there is this wonderful 5 minute period where all your cares melt away, and you feel completely at peace. That was the period in which I wrote the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Oh yeah, and for the night eating: I would cut up a piece of fruit, or microwave an apple right before I took my pill.

Now I dont take a sleep medication but I do take a med for depression that puts you into a deep sleep and the only problem I have with it is I am really out of it when Im asleep, sometimes I sleep walk or talk in my sleep, and now Ive been taking it for years and I will sleep wake up go back to slee[ wake up etc.

Ok I'm NOT taking it !!! I am just kind of sleeping off and on all night. Not really getting a restful sleep.
I have cholinesterase deficiency..it is an allergy to the muscle relaxer they give you before general anesthesia. I don't have the enzyme to break down the muscle relaxer. So it takes longer for my body to remove it. Only I didn't know I had this issue until...When I lost my twins I had to have anesthesia so the doctor could remove them and I was only supposed to be put out for like 45minutes and I was out for 5hours. They tried to wake me after the procedure and I was paralyzed still. I was awake and could only see but not move. I was intubated and the idiot machine was breathing for me and I was awake the whole time. It was really scary because I kind of panicked in my head and I couldnt breathe for myself the stupid machine was going to slow for me. Now I have anxiety because of that frightful time. I take anxiety medication but I am afraid to take anything that will make me feel like I wont wake up.

Forget the stupid Ambien. I will just deal with it, it's not that bad.

I am so, so sorry about everything in that entire experience.

There are a few Rx meds out there for anxiety that relax most enough to be able to sleep on their own, while they're not actually putting you out. Right now I take Klonopin. It can help with anxiety if I have it during the day-it just relaxes me, not like I've had some wine either. But if I take it at night it makes it so I'm not laying there thinking-which is my biggest problem-and I can fall asleep. I only usually get 4-5 hours of sleep (by my choice) and I never wake up feeling tired from the med.

You can PM me if you'd like. While I'm no professional, I do have a ton of experience with meds of that type as I've been taking them since I was a teen. Just a thought & sending hugs until you find a solution, I know there's one out there for you.:)

This is a pretty good med to sleep as well I took for about 5 monthes and also got 8 hours of sleep. Be careful of this one as well. Its pretty addictive (physically, not mentally) and can be a nightmare to get off. I ended up in the hospital really sick and. I only took it once a day for sleep.

Maybe you could ask your doctor about amitriptyline. Its technically an antidepressant, but at low doses it works great for sleep. I had realtivly no side effects, except I would wake up super hungry. :p It was the first thing my doc put me on because it was safe and I was only 15 at the time.

Everyone's different, but for me:
I'm a "lifelong" insomniac...really, since I was 8-10.
I tried Lunesta and tasted "pennies" so strongly, was nauseated, and couldn't eat anything. :(
I tried Benadryl, per my old doctor, and that worked well. I've also tried about half a doze other meds.
About two years ago I was prescribed Ambien and have tried both regular & Controlled Release). The CR works better, but after a few days I get irritable. So I take the regular...every night. I move my dose around...say, 1/4 pill, 1/2 pill, whole pill, 1/2 pill, 1/4 pill, etc. so that I don't become dose dependant. I get enough sleep on even 1/4 pill that I am not totally sleep deprived.
I do refer to my "Pre Ambien" and "Post Ambien" conversations; I don't necessarily remember things Post, until someone reminds me. I wake up when I hear noises, get up to go to the bathroom, etc. I sleep 6-7 hours on a full dose, but do wake up during the night (more on lower doses). On nights when I really try to take none, I don't sleep much at all.
I have been told and read that you cannot drink ANY alcohol at all when you take Ambien--that's when the weird actions take place. I also don't drink any caffeine.
Good luck! Overall, I would not be afraid...it has been a lifesaver for me!

I have severe insomnia and take Ambien (10mg, the regular kind...not the CR) every night. They tried pretty much every med out there for my insomnia, and Ambien is the main one that works w/out crappy side effects.

I see that it didn't work for you - but I wanted to mention there are sooooo many other meds you can try that work great too. Don't give up...sleep is so important to your well-being. :)

I've had insomnia problems my whole life which can vary from having problems falling asleep to having problems staying asleep. I've taken both Ambien and Lunesta and didn't like either. I don't think either really worked that well for me. I do remember calling Lunesta "Lunasty" because I had a horrible taste in my mouth the next day that would last all day.

What does seem to work for me is over the counter melatonin. Also, when I can exercise regularly, even just walking 20 minutes 4 or 5 times a week, I find that I sleep like a baby.