Ambien Wierdness

Anybody else have any strange Ambien stories?

Last night I kept waking up (like always). I noticed that each time I woke up I was laying on the bed on my back and sort of sitting up on my elbows. How I got there I don't know.

Within a couple of seconds I'd fall back asleep. Then I would hear a huge BANG and wake back up. Odd.  It kept happening over and over. Bang - wakeup. Bang - wakeup.

This morning I woke up with an egg the size of a golfball on the back of my head. I realize now that I kept hearing the BANG because I kept falling asleep still leaning on my elbows and my head would go back and hit the headboard on the bed. BANG!

Needless to say - I might have to actually nail a pillow up there...I thought eating in my "sleep" was bizarre (and even brought food (cookies etc) up to my bedroom because I thought navigating the stairs to get to the kitchen was too risky (since I almost died falling down the stairs in '04) - but this...I might end up comitting suicide by bashing my own head in and never have a clue.


My GOD this stuff is bizarre.   Either that or I've just gone completely crazy.

Either way - what a headache!  ;)

[stangshelly]

yes, I take lunesta but still the weirdest sides...I have woke up the next day and bruises from where? Probably in a drug induced sleep walk,hope I didn't venture outside lol but I could have. Last night I was wiped and after taking my lunesta thought I would probably sleep all night long. My hubby asked me if I remember him yelling at me last night???huh???
I guess he was trying to sleep and I got up, went to kitchen and opened a whole bag of peanut m&m's ,placed them in  glass container,which had to make some noise plus a few on the floor lol, then proceeded to come back to bed and eat the whole bag! he woke up to my husky in bed with me eating m&m's and the clanking of them in the jar each time I refilled my mouth lmao! ... I remembered nothing except waking up to a jar next to the bed and a 1/2 glass of milk lmao;) this stuff is weird! shelly

[nygirl7]

OH MY GOD that is exactly like what happens to me!!!!!!!!  hahahaha people must think we are frickin' nuts!

I wonder what we are really doing during the night...I'd LOVE to put some motion sensor tape machine on and then watch myself the next day to find out!

The thing that bugs me the most is if I take the med and then after an hour try to watch a tv show. I don't remember NOTHING most of the time. If it's a 10 show I'm staying up for...I have to look at it the next day on Tivo and go OH YEAH...I DID see this!

Your poor husband - I can just picture him. I'm sorry it's funny. Probably like me bashing my own head in all night long. I can picture this group of pajama wearing sleep eating fools stumbling about in the middle of the night - my God can you imagine how we LOOK??

[mremeet]

A couple years ago I was taking ambien for insomnia. Then one day a really big storm blew up and knocked down the electrical lines for miles all around. The power was knocked out at my place for an entire WEEK. Since the power was out I had to "improvise". I own a large wooded lot nearby, so I basically ended up camping out there for a while. It wasn't the most comfortable way to live, but it would have to do until the power came back on. So I had my campsite all set up and I had this expensive $120 top of the line fancy campstove I bought at REI.

Long story short I was taking ambien to get to sleep in my tent at night and then getting up in the morning and going to work. But I had some sort of damned blackout, or amnesia attack, because when I came back one evening to cook my dinner using my fancy stove, the thing was GONE. I had a vague recollection of stashing the stove somewhere behind a tree or something (which I would often do so no one would steal it while I was gone), but I just couldn't be sure. I looked everywhere, behind every tree in the area and all around. It was gone, never to be seen again. And to this day I have no idea what I did with it. I've had other strange episodes of momentary amnesia on that stuff - not remembering conversations, where I put the car keys (thankfully I eventually found them, unlike the stove) and what I did the night before. Plus I developed an addiction to the stuff, I couldn't sleep without it. I just had to quit it, it got to be too much. I've had better luck alternating benadryl, atarax and lunesta since being on treatment.

But yeah, ambien can make you into some kind of hypnotized, amnesial sleep zombie. Weird!

[stangshelly]

that is so off the wall lmaorof!!! I am glad I am not alone, whew, I have a bad habit of hiding things in a special place so that only I know where to find it. Since starting tx and lunesta I have lost and recovered things you wouldn't beleive. The other day I lost my car keys. I knew I had put them somewhere the night before that I couldn't miss them..okay...4 hours later still no keys and I hid the extra set somewhere..When I gave up the search due to frustration and exhaustion I decided to lay down for awhile to rest my eyes so to speak, under my pillow inside the case there was an object poking me , hence my car keys!!! still can't find the extra set will turn up somewhere,sometime lmao:)shelly

[cajunlady]

That is what is happening with my husband, but he did not take a pill that night. Could be the chemo for him.  He was being chased, he kept running and running as fast as he could but never moved from the spot he was in, so in the dream he just kept running to get away from what ever was chasing him.  He woke up about 5-6 times that night and each time he went back to sleep he went right back into the same dream with the same thing happening.  When he woke in the morning his heart was racing, he was very anxious and tired from not sleeping.  I could actually see the fear in his eyes as he was telling the story.  You are right WEIRD, VERY WEIRD STUFF.  So Bizare.

Cajun

[Forseegood]

Hi, there was a thread about this very thing down there someplace, just a few days ago, and I shared my own story about this, I hope you can read it, too busy to post on it now...just about trying tranquilizers for sleep, instead of sleeping pills, this might work for you as well, be well and I cant stand ambien either, though it does work for many....hope youre getting better and better...

[Forseegood]

it was 2/23, called Sleeping Pills, one page down...

[northstar]

Wow, I cant up that wierd one!! Banging your head huh?!
The instructions I think tell you to go to bed when you take this stuff. Me,....I got some kinda kick (I guess) trying to see how long I could stay up after taking it. I literally must have gone to sleep in some sense, cuz the next day I would have no memory of ANYTHING. Everytime I would start to talk about something, my hubby, or daughter would say, "you said that last night"  and you said it over and over. It was like it turned me into one of those alcoholics who babble and repeat themselves, in a complete blackout.
The upside to it was that I could watch the same show over and over, and it was always the first time I had seen it!!!!!!

[wyntre9]

The stories are a riot, but I gotta add that I recently saw an expose about ambien, hallucinating and sleep walking.

A woman had taken ambien, gotten up in the middle of the night, gotten into her car, driven around, gotten into an accident, driven back to her home, gone back to bed and woke up the next morning without any memory of what had happened.

According to the story, there were a significant number of other people who'd experienced equally bizarre and dangerous reactions.  (I'll try to fond the link and post it).  

I think the term used to describe the condition was ambien-induced amnesia.

So be careful, everyone, and don't take more than the prescribed dose.

NYG, I have some potential alternatives to the nailing-the-pillow-above-your-bed solution.  :)

[GoofyDad]

Are you complaining about getting banged all night long, or waking up in between?

[wyntre9]

hahahahaha

That's what I wanted to say!  

(Not in quite those words)

[wyntre9]

FYI

"Reports are surfacing people taking Ambien are experiencing sleepwalking, memory loss / amnesia, binge eating while sleeping, having sex while sleeping, and other disturbing side effects. Some of the most serious side effects involve Ambien users having auto accidents the day after taking Ambien due to daytime sleepiness and the lingering feeling of being drugged.

One disturbing report concerned a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who could not recall advising residents on rounds the morning after taking Ambien."

For more info google ambien induced amnesia

[GoofyDad]

1) "....having sex while sleeping"

See it's in the report....

"One disturbing report concerned a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who could not recall advising residents on rounds the morning after taking Ambien"

2) Be glad he wasn't on the nite shift or we could have had more of (1).

[rosebud57]

you all are so funny, (i know these are serious tellings) but i am picturing a modern day night of the living dead, instead of the traditional brain eating zombies, the zombies are doctors and other partakers of ambien... kind of like one of those spoof parady movies on the horror flicks.

[wyntre9]

ROTFLMFAO!

Seriously, though,

You had a motorcycle accident after taking ambien?

Wow!

[wyntre9]

Sorry, Giddy,

Got the names mixed up and the second half of the comment was directed to you.

[giddyup]

I'm sorry I don't read enough posts to know exactly where you are  honestly I haven't read this thread all the way. I wanted to say my my doc was eager to get me off ambian  and I learned the hard way by taking one and then going out and wrecking my car . I easily could of died.My point is if your done with tx try and wean yourself off the ambian because it is a serius drug.
giddy

[ladybug52]

Ouch! Yes,that ambien is some serious stuff! You need a padded bed with an alarm that goes off when you try to get!

[HCVnoob]

LMAO... that is very funny.

[susan400]

Actually, I find some of these stories quite funny.

I've had to put myself on a computer time out, BEFORE I pop in my Ambien at night.  I was sending emails to people and didn't remember sending them, or what I said!!  I ordered some things on the computer and then, the next morning, had to go back and attempt to fix what I didn't really need to be ordering.  Get myself into too much trouble, if I don't turn off the computer completely, the switch off, etc., BEFORE popping the Ambien.  I know that I haven't wandered outside, I'm in a condo full of really nosey neighbors who watch EVERYTHING and somebody would have been knocking on my door telling me off about it, so I know I didn't do that.  But, I've found myself cleaning out drawers in the middle of the night (that's productive--a good thing!).  90% of the time, I just sleep.  I've tried to get off of it, no success and I have terrible nightmares when I stop(when I can even sleep).  The Lunesta does not work well at all for me.  It might allow me 1 hr of sleep and it's a nightmare sleep and then, I feel terrible the rest of the night.  Benedryl makes me have a problem with my legs (restless legs-tingly legs,etc.).  I take the Ambien-CR, I don't know if that makes a difference, or not.  I know the insurance doesn't want to pay squat on it.  Most of the payment comes out of my own pocket(which isn't very deep these days).  I really wish to throw ALL of my drugs in the garbage disposal and never take another one.  I mean all of it, the thyroid, the Ambien, the Allegra, the Zantac, etc.   I think that if I could just stop everything that maybe, eventually, my body would either, 1.  Get right, or 2.  Go to a better place.      Don't worry, I'm not doing it.  But, has anybody ever felt this way?

Susan

[wyntre9]

"I really wish to throw ALL of my drugs in the garbage disposal and never take another one."

I can definitely relate to that.

[nygirl7]

That last sentence is quite the rhetorical one isn't it?  ;)

i think we've ALL felt that way - at least those of us on ten meds even after treatment that is ;)

[chcnme]

OMG I read your story and could not believe it -- but COULD believe it because I have a friend who had an awful experience on Ambien.  He was arrested in his boxer shorts in a downtown area after walking there from his house -at 2 a.m.  He is a pharmacist!! He had no recollection of how he got downtown in his boxers  (they say he was dazed and confused LOL - really NOT funny but it kind of is).  At his home, they found all of the kitchen cabinets slung opened and glasses all over the counter, some dishes all over the kitchen, his clothes drawers in the bedroom had been dumped on the bed, and ... some other weird stuff.   No recollection of it.  He had been taking Ambien for about a month.  He was devastated - I mean.... holy cow, a pharmacist gets arrested in boxer shorts at 2 a.m. LMAO.  whew -I think someone REALLY better look at Ambien and... maybe reconsider ??   From what I've heard and read, it could really be some dangerous sh** -- deadly! People driving on the stuff and no memory, cooking and no memory, rearranging the house and no memory, etc.  You poor thing - I can't imagine hearing a bang like that and realizing the next day it was my head!  I would be scared to take it anymore!  

[susan400]

Hi Sandy, I haven't heard from you in awhile.  I appreciate your feelings on the Ambien.  Is that new drug you're on for the sleep, the one with Melatonin as a part of it?  If so, that doesn't work well in my body.  There's some new drug that is out where Melatonin is a part of it's chemical make-up, it's a prescription drug. Anyhow, whenever I took Melatonin before, it screwed me up too much with my hormones and I couldn't deal with it.  I guess all of us have different bodies.  Most people wouldn't do 7-1/2 rounds of Interferon or Infergen, like I did either, but I guess we pick our poisons.  Am I a little bit too cavalier?  Too unconcerned about this?  If so, I'm sorry.  I realize that you've not had a good experience with it and you're just trying to warn us.  

Susan

[SJL]

I have been through the craziness of Ambien!!!! B-E-W-A-R-E!!!!!!!

I am sure you all know of the lawsuit which has been filed against the pharmaceutical company which makes this?

It is my advice to get off of it now, before you do something crazy because of this drug.

I could go on & on about the repercussions I suffered because of Ambien-the scariest problem being driving my car in the middle of the night, not even knowing it!

I am now taking Remeron, (their is a generic form), which works like a dream for me. I actually get a full nights sleep!

Check on the lawsuit, my name is on it!! This drug should be off the market.
Sandy

[SJL]

Hey Susan-yes Remeron (generic restoril) is for sleep. I will read the drug sheets as for ings.

The good news is that I have 2 appts., set up at Shands. One a Orthopedic (who treats the Gators) and the other a Neurologist.

I am really tired of trying to deal with these Orlando Doctors. They appear to be just sending me around in circles.

I still have the numbness in my feet & legs which comes & goes all the time, also a torn miniscus.

I hope things are better for you. Let me know. Of course, I am still seeing Dr. Johnson-forever!
Sandy

[SJL]

Sorry, I gave you the wrong name for the sleeping aid, it is Temazepan, 30 mg., but the generic name was right! Restoril.

[TashaZZ]

Is anyone using Ambien having a good effect?  I find if I eat before taking it (which the directions say not to) it takes longer for me to falll asleep.  I have been taking it a month w/o problems but now I am leary.  Thoughts?