Ambien

I’ve written previously about the sleep-inducing drug Ambien (also called Zolpidem) in a post called Losing My Mind. In that post I recounted how someone changed all my clocks from Daylight to Standard time one night while I was sleeping. The problem: I was the only person in my house, so who set the clocks back an hour? Apparently, I did, while I was asleep. I had taken Ambien that night.

The list of Ambien side effects is a long one. There have been reports of people taking Ambien and then sleep-walking, sleep-driving, and sleep-eating bizarre things like buttered cigarettes and whole eggs including the shell. People have driven cars into people, injuring or killing them, with no memory of it after taking Ambien. People have taken Ambien and gone to bed and gone to sleep, only to awaken in the morning to find themselves in jail with no memory of what they did.

But I forgot about that clock episode when I recently complained of poor sleep to my doctor and she prescribed Ambien. I took the Ambien for three and a half weeks before I decided to stop. I stopped for two reasons. First reason: I was beginning to feel bad during the day. At first I didn’t connect that with Ambien, but after two or three days I concluded it was daytime Ambien withdrawal. Second reason: I saw that things were happening in my house that I couldn’t remember doing. It was as if I was living with another person – a person I never saw but who left behind telltale signs of his presence. I could only conclude the obvious: the other person was my sleeping self, who was apparently getting out of bed during the night and doing who-knows-what.

The first night after I quit Ambien was miserable. Not only did I not sleep at all, I was very restless and kept getting up, watching TV, going back to bed, lying there a while, getting up, and so on, all night long. The next day I felt really bad withdrawal symptoms. I was anxious and shaky. I could hardly believe that three and a half weeks on Ambien would cause such distress.

The strange thing is that many years ago when I was having sleep problems, I took Ambien for a month or two with no ill effects. It put me to sleep, I slept all night, and I awoke refreshed. When I ran out of Ambien I didn’t renew the prescription – I just didn’t take any more Ambien and I had no withdrawal symptoms. Many people take Ambien without any problems, just as I once did. But for those unlucky enough to have problems, the problems can be major – life-changing, even. And not in a good way.