Ambien really didn’t work for me, either. The weird feelings kept me up until the point when I would have been so exausted that I’d fall asleep anyways.
What did work for me, surprisingly enough, was a small Melatonin. When I started taking it, I took less than 150mcg. Yes, micrograms. The 3- or 5-gram preparations are overkill, and can actually make sleep worse.
I also found that so-called non-drowsy Dramamine (meclizine) and Claritin (loratitidine) made me really sleepy, as long as I didn’t take too much and start feeling lightheaded.
I used it a few times. Slept like a rock but felt hungover the next day. It worked very much like anesthesia for me–one minute I’m awake, the next thing I know I’m waking up, and I have no memory of anything in between.
Now I take Restorial nightly. It doesn’t make me fall asleep, but it stops my anxiety driven mind so I can fall asleep naturally. And it stops the menopausal night sweats.
I took Ambien for about three weeks during an extremely high-stress period in my life. For me, about 15 minutes after I took it, it was like someone flipped a switch and I was sleeping. 7.5 hours later the switch flipped the other way and I woke up. No hangover. No sleep walking/talking/driving/match lighting/whatever, although my spouse did say he was able to rouse me sufficiently that, had there been an emergency I could have exited the house under my own power (He’s disabled so he can’t carry me, or probably not even drag me out by my heels). I have no recollection of that event, though I have no reason to doubt him, either.
For me, it worked exactly as I wanted/needed it to. Your mileage may vary.
I should also point out that my insomnia had a very definite trigger which was eliminated after a couple weeks, after which point I stopped having trouble sleeping and stopped taking Ambien immediately with no problem. So mine was acute and not chronic insomnia. They can be very different animals.
Naturally, I recommend consulting a doctor for your particular situation. Ambien is useful, but it’s not a cure-all and not everyone will find it helpful for their particular problem.
Sleep of the Damned. Yeah, I sleep, but I wake up tired and hungover. Its better than no sleep, but not by much.
I have good luck with the melatonin and valarian, sometimes with a benedryl on top for good measure - that works better than the Ambian and I’m not nearly so hung over. But none of it on every night, and sometimes just one of three. They have different effects. The meletonin resets my body clock and says “time to sleep” the valarian turns off my racing brain, the benedryl makes me sleepy. So what I take depends on - when its bedtime and I’ve laid awake for over half an hour - WHY I am having trouble falling asleep - is my mind racing? Am I off my sleep schedule? Am I not tired?
My doctor gave me a prescription for 20 tablets of Ambien CR (10 mg). It worked too well; they warn you to leave at least 7 hours for uninterrupted sleep, but when I woke up after 8 or 9 hours, I was still so groggy that I was literally crashing into things and had to call in sick to work. After that I would leave at least 10 hours, but its effects were kind of unpredictable. (They always included a LOT of sleep, though.)
I’ve taken Ambien maybe 20 times before. The first 19 times, it was okay. It didn’t make me sleep immediately or anything, but after an hour or two I did manage to fall asleep. The last time I took it, it made me hallucinate, and then I found out that that’s actually quite common with Ambien, and I’ve been too scared to take it again.
But that was a few years ago. Then recently I started going 72+ hours without sleeping and was willing to give it another try since nothing else was helping, but my idiot doctor refuses to ever prescribe it to anyone under any circumstances, because apparently some people use it recreationally (of course, the same is true of cough syrup…but, addict that I am, I still take Nyquil sometimes when I’m sick). This is why I must find a new doctor, one who knows how to weigh risks. While there is some risk of developing dependency on sleep meds, I heard a crazy rumor that there’s also some risk involved with routinely going days without sleeping. The irony of it is that I’m just too tired to seek out a new doctor.
I’ve suffered insomnia in various degrees since the early nineties. At its worst I was getting a maximum of an hour a night and the heading off to work. Zolpidem (which according wikipedia is what Ambien is, known as Stilnoct here in Sweden) is pretty much the only way I can get any sleep anymore. Luckily I don’t seem to build up any resistance. I’ve rarely been off it for the past five years or so and a single 10mg tablet (apparently the standard amount here) still works. Occasionally, as in once very three weeks or so, I need an additional tablet, although I recently changed doctor and my new one doesn’t like me doing it, so I will try and not do it.
To be honest, without it I am not sure how I could function in ‘normal’ society. My body completely refuses (and boy have I tried) to adjust to a sleep pattern similar to everyone else that works an office job.
