Tell me about your Ambien (and other sleep aids) experiences...

In My Humble Opinion
41

Been taking Tylenol PM <and now, generic versions of just the ‘PM’ part; don’t need the Tylenol, so don’t take the Tylenol> for about 12 years. Without it, I operate on a 20-22 hour day followed by a ten hour night. That’s just not acceptable when I work a 40 hour a week job. Never had any kind of ‘hangover’ from it. It kicks in after an hour, and after 2, I am asleep if I am lying down, no matter how much I want to finish this or that book.

But…I also have problems GETTING to sleep, not staying asleep; they are two different problems, and I suspect the PM stuff might not work for those waking up in the middle of the night wide awake, as I have been awakened by a sister in labor, after being asleep for 2 hours, and was indeed able to drive to the hospital without a problem. And, if I recall correctly, I’ve actually taken it and stayed awake just to see what would happen. Nothing happens; it just wears off.

Again, no side effects, and it’s never lost it’s effectiveness; just as glad to not be taking Tylenol every day, though, so thank goodness the price on that dropped. For a while, it was more expensive w/o the Tylenol than with it. O.o

For the record: Melatonin works for me for one night. By the second night, and continuing on through the third and 4th <I haven’t been tempted to try further> I have incrediblely vivid, freaky dreams. I do not like them. I’ve tried this only twice, but both experiments were the same, and honestly, I want to SLEEP, not feel like I just acted out Blade Runner all night.

42

OK, funny story. I decided to stop taking ambien, so I didn’t plan to get the script refilled. I did however, need to get my ritalin refilled. They look exactly the same. I got the ambian refilled by mistake.

So, I was working from my home office; I was talking to a colleague and reached in to take my ritalin, but of course, it was ambien.

My coworker suddenly noticed that I wasn’t answering or even making noise. He looked over to find me drooling into my keyboard. He thought I had had a stroke! He made me do various things and finally decided that I hadn’t had a stroke, but he didn’t know what was wrong. He just put me to bed and watched my dog the rest of the day.

I can say that I will never ever make that mistake again! But it *does *make you sleep!

43

Khadaji, it’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking anything when I read that or my company would fire me for ruining a keyboard. :stuck_out_tongue:

44

Interestingly, I was given Ambien while 9 months pregnant at the hospital, after having a long weekend of Braxton-Hicks and no sleep. I’d never before used any kind of sleep aid (and haven’t since) but I did indeed sleep well, about 8 hours, and wake up refreshed the next morning.

Of course, I had to be driven home from the hospital - totally stoned on Ambien - hallucinating that the walls were swirling around me. Other than that - great drug! :slight_smile:

45

Agreed.

I will get to our experiences with drugs, but I wanted to say that the best approach I have found (and I think my husband would agree for himself too) is lifestyle and sleep hygiene.

Have the same bedtime and wake time every day - even weekends.
Don’t do anything in bed but sleep and sex.
Cool room.
White noise/ear plugs.
If you can, don’t do any work or wakeful/stressful stuff in your bedroom.
Get regular exercise.
Don’t eat shortly before bed.
Give yourself wind-down time before bed - don’t exercise, do work, or call your obnoxious relative in the hours before bedtime.
I have read that taking a hot bath an hour or so before bed can help, because it raises your body temperature, preparing it to fall after you get out, which is associated with sleep.
Avoid alcohol and caffeine (sometimes caffeine at 3pm will keep me up at night).
Get help for any medical condition you may have - depression, high blood pressure, etc.

Meditate - body scan meditation is notorious for putting people to sleep, even when they are trying to stay awake, sitting up in a chair, in a public place.

Now, drugs:

When I had depression and a job I hated, I got insomnia - waking in the night and unable to get back to sleep. Now, I could have sworn that Ambien was the new thing at the time - specifically meant for that situation, since it didn’t knock you out for 8 hours. And that they later introduced a slow-release version for all-night use. But maybe I’m mistaken - it’s been a while! Anyway, they gave me Ambien and it worked great. I wouldn’t use it routinely, only when I needed it. Then I got fired and my life got much better, and I didn’t use Ambien anymore.

Nowadays I have occasional times when I feel really wound up and stressed, and I need to know I will sleep well, and I take Benadryl. Works great, no side effects, other than grogginess if I take it less than 5 hours or so before wake time.

Husband has always had sleep issues. Finally tried Lunesta, and it gave him a horrible, unbearable bad taste in his mouth. Tried Ambien and it worked, but his brain forgot how to sleep without it, and after going through hell to get off it, he refuses to use any sleep aid again.

46

I’m pretty sure that’s what I was given while in the hospital when I was pregnant, also. No contractions, I was in for observation due to preeclampsia and barely slept the first night so I asked for a sleeping pill the second night.

47

I’m here to back up Alice the Goon on the Xanax, I took it for sleep for over a year (back when I had insurance), it put me to sleep with no drowsiness in the morning. I had no addiction problems. I had tried Ambien in the past, it just doesn’t work for me. With no insurance, I went to Melatonin. Less is more, as ftg said. I tried the 3mg, didn’t work. Someone told me to try less. I found the 500mcg at Trader Joe’s, its the TJ brand. Two of those put me to sleep, sometimes I take three. But its not as reliable as the Xanax was. That worked every time. Many years ago, I tried Valerian root. The pills did nothing, however they did sell a concentrated liquid in a little bottle w/eyedropper and that actually worked. I can’t buy it now because I’m not working and its pretty expensive.

48

I have occasional bouts of insomnia. I have found in the long run, my best bet when I can’t sleep is to go without sleep. If I toss/turn and realize it’s gonna be one of those nights, I get up and read until the alarm clock goes off. I’m tired/irritable that afternoon, but I usually fall to sleep that night. If I try to force sleep, I end up looking at crappy sleep for several days.

49

Lifetime insomniac here.

I take a half an Ambien usually. It does keep me asleep, but I feel more confident that I’ll wake up normal. Also, I find that I can sit around watching TV for awhile on that so I don’t have to either go to bed early or risk feeling crappy when I wake up. In fact, I usually take it at 9:30 and go to bed at 11. Just not when Lost is on! There are nights when it hits me harder than others, but I almost always wake up at 7 feeling better than I have ever in my life.

There are times I’ve taken a whole one. I’m a bit groggier and I do have to get into bed quicker. The only remotely weird thing that ever happened to me when I stayed up too long on a whole Ambien is, my laptop showed that I had been looking up The Joy Luck Club on Wikipedia. I don’t remember it and I don’t know why I was doing it.

I tend to sleep longer on a whole one so I don’t really do it anymore.

50

I’ve had good luck with Ambien. I took it once or twice a week for about a 4 month stretch when I was going through a stressful period. I didn’t have trouble stopping after that, but I wasn’t taking it daily.

One other thing to try that I haven’t seen mentioned here - Unisom contains doxylamine succinate, which is a different drug than benadryl and works better for some people, me included. A whole Unisom will leave me hung over if I don’t take it 12 hours before I have to be awake, but a half dose at bed time relaxes me, makes me drowsy, and lets me fall asleep easily. I can get up at my normal time with no problem, although I do find that a morning workout does help to chase away the last of the drug’s effects. If benadryl hasn’t worked, I’d give Unisom a try (or the non-brand equivalent… just look for doxylamine succinate on the label) starting with half a pill.

51

I tried Nytol a while back. The herbal stuff I found was completely useless, didn’t do a damn thing. The One-A-Night did knock me out fairly quickly, good stuff in a pinch. Rough as arses in the morning, though.

52

Everybody’s different.

Ambien works for me, but I tend to be a bit wired the next day, and to perhaps have trouble falling asleep without it the next day. The time-release seems to affect me less in this regard. DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOL WHEN TAKING THIS DRUG.

I find melatonin to be very effective, and I only need a very small dose (1/6 mg). I tend to have headaches, increased tinnitus, and minor depression after a couple of days, though.

Ativan is absolutely the best drug I’ve ever taken for sleep, but it is very slow to act (in excess of an hour). I have no side-effects from it whatsoever.

Valium is the second best. Much faster than Ativan, but not quite as reliable. There’s heavy pressure on doctors not to prescribe this as a sleep aid, owing to past abuses (by doctors).

I have had very bad luck with Rozerem (works, but I sleep forever), and Lunesta (makes me very tired, but leaves me awake).

OTC drugs do zip, as does Valerian.

53

Nothing really works for me. Ambien did absolutely nothing. I take melatonin, but I’m not sure it helps.

My problem isn’t getting asleep, nor is it necessarily staying asleep. It’s frequent short wakings. Two nights ago I went to sleep at around 10:15-10:30, then woke up at 11:45, 1:11, 2:46, 4:35, and 5:30. My alarm goes off at 6:00. Each wake-up was only about 2-3 minutes long–long enough to roll over, look at the clock, and adjust pillows and blankets. I’d love a night of deep, restful sleep, where I fall asleep and then wake up when the alarm goes off. I don’t remember the last time I did that. It’s been well over a decade.

54

While benzos (xanax, ativan, etc.) are worthy of a little healthy fear and respect, like all medications, everyone’s physiology and psychology is different. Some people are able to take it for years and stop without problems, without getting addicted to it/having to go through a long painful weaning process. Some people unfortunately cannot, because of their physiology or negligence on the part of their medical practicioner, which is awful and terrible and horribly difficult and I’m truly sorry you had to go through that, but I feel like it’s not productive to keep holding your experience up as typical. (Disclosure: I took Xanax for a few years for panic disorder. I was pretty much psychologically addicted to it, but because I never upped my dosage, I wasn’t physically addicted to it and was able to stop taking it with not a problem, other than obviously, increased anxiety, until I realized “Hey, I’ve been on the same dose for years so I’m tolerant to it, and it hasn’t been helping, I’ve been doing it alone.” I’ve done the same with Ativan, which I was on temporarily while titrating to a maintenance dose of Wellbutrin.)

For me, personally, OTC benadryl or the generic, taken orally do nothing. Even the oldschool Sudafed didn’t knock me out! The few times I’ve been in the ER with status migranosis though, they gave me benadryl via IV and it knocked me out for hours. When you’ve had a migraine for over 2 weeks, this is bliss! Same with OTC sleeping pills or Tylenol PM, they don’t make me sleepy.

I currently have a script for Ativan that is prescribed for “one a day as needed”. If I can’t stop my mind from racing by meditating/using progressive relaxation, I’ll take one, and sometimes it’ll help me to calm down enough to sleep. And while it’s habit forming, because I don’t take it habitually, I don’t have a problem with it. Luckily I don’t often have lasting sleep problems, and I hope you all find something that works.

55

You can’t possibly mean Sudafed. Sudafed would be just about the last OTC drug you’d want to take if you have insomnia.

56

Yeah, Sudafed wires a lot of people out like crazy!

57

Ditto this. Benadryl/diphenhydramine will make me drowsy/loopy, but not necessarily help me sleep. Unisom (doxylamine) is my go-to sleeping pill. If I wake in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep, .5mg of Xanax does the trick, but I don’t do this often enough for it to be troublesome from an addiction stand-point. I’m prescribed .5mg, up to 3X a day, as needed for anxiety. So I get 90 a month; it’s not uncommon, at the end of a month, for me to have 40 left.

58

I’ve been on Ambien for about a year now and haven’t had any of the bad side effects. However, it doesn’t hit me like many of you said it does. I get sleepy, but I don’t conk out. If I don’t get at least 7 hours sleep, I’m a zombie most of the next day. Haven’t had any urges to abuse either, which is good.

I had to get on something to sleep. I was having horrible, horrible nightmares that made me terrified to go to sleep. I’d stay up all night for 2, 3 days in a row so I wouldn’t have to dream. None of the OTC stuff was working, and believe me I’d rather be on Ambien forever than go thru nightmares that I had.

59

I don’t like pain pills because they make me feel so out of it, and the effects of feeling all tired and dragged out seem to last for days.

However, Ambien doesn’t do that to me. If I don’t give myself plenty of time the night before, I do feel a bit sleepy the morning of the next day, but it’s not like some sort of incapacitating zombieness.

And I can and do wake up at night just fine, it doesn’t “put you out” so that you are unable to wake up properly and respond to emergencies if need be, anything like that.

My mom and sister both have forgotten things they did after taking their ambien (simple things, like the plot of a TV show, or that they’d seen a particular episode), but I never have, I do get somewhat silly and don’t make good sense when I’ve taken mine though.

I don’t know if this helps but my doc has me and my sis on “as needed” rather than nightly doses. My mom, sis, and I have the same doc (or did before she moved to the states), and the doc had mom on nightly doses.

None of us have had any “zombieness” problems the next day.

Good luck to your wife, insomnia is the worst!

60

Good lord TEN mg of melatonin a night? 1 mg is enough to knock my ass into a coma for 9 hours. Has she tried smoking pot? It makes the body generate it’s own melatonin which is why stoners get sleepy all the time.