texasmama Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I don't sleep well. Occasionally, I have taken 10 mg of generic Ambien. I don't like taking meds in general, but it is also bad to be up until 4 am and then get 3 hours of sleep. I have taken the generic Ambien about three times and took one last night. My husband wanted to watch a little TV with me before bed right after I took it, so we stayed up for about 30 minutes. By the end of the 30 minutes, I couldn't walk, felt nauseated, my speech was incoherent, and I may have thrown up...I don't know if my vague memory of that was a hallucination or not. (My husband is still asleep, and he was there so he could answer that question.) I scooted down the stairs (we had been watching TV in the upstairs room) and then crawled most of the way to my bedroom, stopping to lay on the floor at times. My husband had to help me walk the last five feet because my equilibrium was so "off". I remember him having to help me lay the right way on the bed. I was halfway down the bed on the wrong pillow. This morning, almost 12 hours after taking it, I feel dizzy, mentally foggy and nauseated. Clearly, this is not the drug for me. I would rather deal with the hangover of Benadryl than this. Is this a common reaction to Ambien? What have other people's experiences been? (P.S. Wish my husband would get up so I can ask him if I really threw up and if some of the other things I seem to have a vague recollection of really happened.) (P.P.S. I don't recommend this experience. It was like being back in my young and foolish college frat party days.:001_huh:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renee in NC Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 My stepfather takes Ambien and has for years. He often does things after taking his meds that are totally crazy and he doesn't remember them the next morning. It is like he is drunk! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heather in Neverland Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 All of that and more. Ambien gave me wicked nightmares! The only thing that worked for me was Lunesta. I wish I could get it here. :glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommyfaithe Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Yep, I went and ordered a whole bunch of books and stuff online. Dh said I was up and talking and hanging out with him.....I remember NOTHING. Never again! He says it doesn't make me sleep....just makes me forget I am awake....and yes, I sometimes woke up on the couch...or on the floor by my bed. Not worth it. I'd rather be tired. Faithe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasmama Posted September 30, 2011 Author Share Posted September 30, 2011 Well, this is affirming to hear. I had heard/read of odd side effects, but this is beyond ridiculous. I think I would rather be tired, too. I keep waiting for the nausea to pass. (Funny aside: I vaguely recall telling dh last night, "Don't take any of these pills. This is some serious s*%#." I'd kind of like to give him one just to see what it does to him.:tongue_smilie: However, he is 6'6", and I don't want to have to haul him around the house if he reacts like I do. Neither of us drink alcohol at all so this Ambien thing is a very "different" experience in our house...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrothead Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 The worst I do while on Ambien is come to the board and ramble incoherently. I have on occassion felt sick to my stomach if I"m not prone pretty quickly. If you are effected badly you can take half of a tablet. I find that half is enough to put me to sleep but without many of the side effects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 My dh took Ambien ONCE this summer. He had vivid hallucinations, thought he was touching the curtains that were 10 feet away, thought he had been levitating on the bed. Yup, he took it once. Scary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paige Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 My friend's DH had a similar experience. She almost took him to the hospital because he seemed so off. She used to take it until she found out that it was making her um...drink some tea that she wouldn't normally like. She had no recollection of it but just knowing she had been ordering that tea was shocking to her. Her DH had no idea that she had no idea what she was doing. LOL! I think she switched to lunesta too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Rat Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 My mom got up and ate (a lot!) on Ambien. She also fell a couple times and had to be helped back to bed. This happens to her with lunesta, too. She gained a lot of weight in a short amount of time. We attribute it to her nighttime eating. (She had gastric bypass-so weight gain is bad, bad, bad.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misidawnrn Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I took it once about 8 years ago when I had switched from working night shift to day shift and I couldn't sleep at night. I have had insomnia for years and that switch didn't help. Anyways, I took it and went to bed. I hadn't been in bed long when my friend brought over ice cream. I got up, sat at the kitchen table and ate my blizzard and sat and visited with her. The next day, she asked me what drugs I was taking...????huh??? She said I mumbled, rambled and happily ate my ice cream...in nothing but my underwear!!!!! I didn't even remember she was there and the only proof was the 2 blizzard cups in the garbage. I never took it again. I had a new baby coming (by surrogacy) and I thought "I am going to forget that I have a baby!!!) I use Unisom now and it works great. It is not benadryl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catwoman Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Whatever you do, don't get in your car and drive any time today or tonight! I took Ambien once, and had much the same reaction you did, except I didn't have any nausea. I got up the next morning feeling woozy, but by later in the day, I thought I was fine. That evening, we went out for pizza and I said I'd drive home. We were driving along on an empty road when my husband yelled at me to stop -- it turned out there was a line of cars stopped in traffic right ahead of me, and I never saw it. It wasn't there until my dh told me to stop the car. Had he not been paying attention, I would have plowed right into those cars. I didn't see them AT ALL, and I thought I was fine and I thought I was alert. So please be careful today. You might be fine, but you might not. And I swear I felt perfectly normal. :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosy Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 My OB prescribed Ambien to end my "false labor". :glare: DD was born in the van in front of the ER. The only reason we made it in is because my husband was watching me and timing my contractions. I did not have the presence of mind to know that I was about to give birth until about 20 min. before she was born. I think anyone who takes Ambien should be closely supervised, at least at first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serenade Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I have taken ambien for years, and the generic stuff for several. I don't have any side effects, as far as I know. However, I only take 1/4 to 1/3 of a 10 mg tablet. That is enough to take the edge off and allow me to sleep, but I can still function with that amount if I had to. My only bad experience with ambien was when I took 2 1/2 tablets accidentally, thinking it was prednisone. (The generics I was using looked just like prednisone.) Now that was scary. I didn't go to the doctor or anything, but I had to go to bed for the rest of the day. I had taken them in the morning, when I take my prednisone. Ay yi yi. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denise in Florida Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Yep, hallucination and nightmares, but at least I didn't care at the time. :001_smile: I took the pills for one week solid (this was the plan my Dr and I worked out). The first two nights off the sleeping pills were crazy, vivid spaced out dreams. I still take it once or twice a month. My body has adjusted and now I just sleep. Dh used to watch over me until I 'settled' (I love that man). I really needed the sleep my insomnia had gotten bad enough that I was a danger to myself (along the lines of the near car wreck one of the PPs mentioned). Luckily, I was able to adjust to the ambien knock off and have good results with it now. Side note: one of dh's coworkers was given sleeping meds in the hospital and had a flashback to his military service and thought he was being held prisoner. Very scary. He was glad he didn't try to hurt anyone he just kept trying to escape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommaduck Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 My friend's DH had a similar experience. She almost took him to the hospital because he seemed so off. She used to take it until she found out that it was making her um...drink some tea that she wouldn't normally like. She had no recollection of it but just knowing she had been ordering that tea was shocking to her. Her DH had no idea that she had no idea what she was doing. LOL! I think she switched to lunesta too. :lol: Imagine that being on the list of side effects! I think I'll steer clear of Ambien. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T'smom Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I take Ambien and have for a long time (long enough that my doc is saying I have to stop soon) and I have not experienced anything like that. I take it when I go to bed and read for awhile and then go to sleep. If a child wakes up in the middle of the night I am perfectly able to take care of them and then get irritated at dh the next morning because he slept through the whole episode and has the nerve to say "oh, A slept through the night last night, didn't she?" It seems to give me a 'window' of time that I can fall asleep- if I push past the window to finish a really good book, that's it, I missed it and I'm not going to sleep that night. If I don't take it- I don't sleep. At. All. Not sleeping is really close to being in h*ll and I don't know what I'm going to do when the doc cuts me off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littleWMN Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I took it for awhile and made too many orders on Amazon I didn't remember. :o I'm now on Lunesta with much better results. Oh, and I could only take 5mg of Ambien. 10m made mr unable to crawl out of bed in the morning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Elf Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Oh my! I would stop using that med immediately! Ugh!! FWIW, Ambien doesn't bother me. In fact, it doesn't even really help me fall asleep. My doctor wanted me to take it and go to bed immediately, except I spent over an hour laying there wide awake just waiting for it to take effect. Another doctor suggestion I take it one hour before I go to bed. I still don't feel tired with it but I can fall asleep within 30 minutes generally. The medication that I hate is Trazodone. I don't feel any effects from taking it, but I wake up in the morning feeling like I have a massive hangover. I quit taking that one. I haven't found a sleeping pill that makes me tired yet. I'm going to start a new thread about that actually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hen Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 dh just happened to be talking to his brother the other night, and the brother had taken an Ambian...dh did not know that. They were having a normal conversation and then suddenly, like a switch, the conversation got weird and bro became very uncoherent. We found out the next day what happened. bro is a Dr. he said when he gives it to patients, he strongly tells them to not take it until they are actually in bed, ready for sleep- it should be the last thing they do. Sounds like strong stuff...! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tap Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 It is a mixed bag for people who take Ambien. Some people do fine on it, others have odd half-awake lives on it. If you take ANY sleep aide, you should take the pill and GO TO BED. The pharmacist or doctor should have mentioned that, or if not the product literature should have advised this. Ambien makes people go to sleep despite their own natural rhythm/control, so that is what it was doing. Ambien has the worst reputation of the common prescription sleep aids. There are others you can try. Sonata and Lunesta are two common ones used. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnsinkableKristen Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 My OB prescribed Ambien to end my "false labor". :glare: DD was born in the van in front of the ER. The only reason we made it in is because my husband was watching me and timing my contractions. I did not have the presence of mind to know that I was about to give birth until about 20 min. before she was born. I think anyone who takes Ambien should be closely supervised, at least at first. This happened to me, too!! Except I made it to the hospital with 10 minutes to spare - LOL. I knew I was in labor, but also thought I was in a forest with dinosaurs. :lol: Yeah, Ambien can do some pretty crazy stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeindeed Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 All of that and more. Ambien gave me wicked nightmares! The only thing that worked for me was Lunesta. I wish I could get it here. :glare: :iagree: I occasionally take Lunesta & haven't had any problems with it. Of course I have to get in the bed no more than 30 minutes after I take it or I will fall asleep wherever I am.:tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zookeeper Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I used to take Ambien when it first came out. The name brand stuff worked great for me (though it was expensive!) When it switched to the generic, I had to stop taking it. I had the worst side effects, dizziness, dry mouth, etc. When baby #6 was about 8mths old and I hadn't slept in those 8mths, dh and I planned a weekend night that I would take half of a 10mg to sleep some. It didn't help me sleep and completely dried up my milk supply. It was horrible!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TravelingChris Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I took it once and it didn't help me sleep at all. Just made me feel weird but not sleep. I was having problems with early waking insomnia and I was given Ambien XR for that. No help at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TranquilMind Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I don't sleep well. Occasionally, I have taken 10 mg of generic Ambien. I don't like taking meds in general, but it is also bad to be up until 4 am and then get 3 hours of sleep. I have taken the generic Ambien about three times and took one last night. My husband wanted to watch a little TV with me before bed right after I took it, so we stayed up for about 30 minutes. By the end of the 30 minutes, I couldn't walk, felt nauseated, my speech was incoherent, and I may have thrown up...I don't know if my vague memory of that was a hallucination or not. (My husband is still asleep, and he was there so he could answer that question.) I scooted down the stairs (we had been watching TV in the upstairs room) and then crawled most of the way to my bedroom, stopping to lay on the floor at times. My husband had to help me walk the last five feet because my equilibrium was so "off". I remember him having to help me lay the right way on the bed. I was halfway down the bed on the wrong pillow. This morning, almost 12 hours after taking it, I feel dizzy, mentally foggy and nauseated. Clearly, this is not the drug for me. I would rather deal with the hangover of Benadryl than this. Is this a common reaction to Ambien? What have other people's experiences been? (P.S. Wish my husband would get up so I can ask him if I really threw up and if some of the other things I seem to have a vague recollection of really happened.) (P.P.S. I don't recommend this experience. It was like being back in my young and foolish college frat party days.:001_huh:) I was once given Ambien when I was taking care of an elderly Mom and two preschoolers and just wasn't sleeping well. I quickly learned that I needed to take it in maybe 1/16 of a pill increments. That stuff is powerful. That said, I slept well and didn't experience any of what you experienced. It isn't for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ria Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 It is a mixed bag for people who take Ambien. Some people do fine on it, others have odd half-awake lives on it. If you take ANY sleep aide, you should take the pill and GO TO BED. The pharmacist or doctor should have mentioned that, or if not the product literature should have advised this. Ambien makes people go to sleep despite their own natural rhythm/control, so that is what it was doing. Ambien has the worst reputation of the common prescription sleep aids. There are others you can try. Sonata and Lunesta are two common ones used. Yep, yep, yep. If you take it, you should go straight to bed. Also, you can get the 5 mg strength...not sure why the doc started you w/ 10 mg. Sonata and Lunesta are not available in generic form yet, so they would be more expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JessicaLady Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I have a good friend who must take Ambien nightly due to insomnia from her post-transplant meds. They keep her pretty wired and she is so thankful to have Ambien. She takes two although I'm not sure the total dosage. It does work great to help you fall asleep and stay asleep. I tried Ambien shortly after having my first son. I couldn't sleep and my OB prescribed Ambien. I was one of the extremely unlucky ones who had psychotic reaction including hallucinations. This was when the med was relatively new and these reactions hadn't been cited as potential side effects. The ER treated me like a drug abuser and even had somone supervise me giving a urine sample. It was by far one of the worst nights of my life AND did NOT make me fall asleep. I guess I am both allergic and unresponsive to it? LOL I'm sorry you had such overwhelming side effects although they do not sound too out of the range of 'normal'. I'm pleased that Ambien has been alerting via TV commercials/print as to their more worrisome side effects to educate the public. I don't know if this would have influenced me into taking/not taking it had I known, but it was a very scary experience for myself and DH to be dealing with (not to mention being first time parents of a 6 wk old). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SweetMissMagnolia Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I tend to see people who aren't there and have conversations with them when I take ambien LOL I've only taken it while I was in the hospital so I'm not sure if it made me weak or not (was on bedrest) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tap Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Yep, yep, yep. If you take it, you should go straight to bed. Also, you can get the 5 mg strength...not sure why the doc started you w/ 10 mg. Sonata and Lunesta are not available in generic form yet, so they would be more expensive. I am pretty sure Sonata is generic as Zaleplon. Lunesta isn't available in generic yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasmama Posted September 30, 2011 Author Share Posted September 30, 2011 These are some crazy stories! With all the side effects, I have to wonder about this drug still being prescribed, particularly when there are better options. I think I will take Unisom in the future. I asked dh about the events of last night, and he confirmed what I remember, added some more details and also confirmed the fact that I threw up. I lay on the living room floor for a long time, then sat up on my hands and knees and told him I was going to throw up. He ran and got a bucket from the laundry room. He said that he gave up talking to me because I was incoherent. Mostly he just followed me as I crawled towards the bedroom. After he put me to bed, he then LEFT ME for several hours to go check on an account for his business.:001_huh: Not that I will ever take Ambien again, but I told him that he needs to not leave me in that state in the future. :glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracieT Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 A friend of mine was in the hospital and had given birth. They gave her an Ambien and that night she peed the bed. She didn't remember much about it other than the nurse yelling at her and making her change her own sheets. (bad experience) I told the morning nurse what had happened and she said she HATES that they give anyone Ambien. She said she routinely deals with people peeing the bed, walking down the hospital hallways naked and all sorts of stuff because of Ambien. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ria Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I am pretty sure Sonata is generic as Zaleplon. Lunesta isn't available in generic yet. So *that's* what that is. LOL. :) Can you tell I've cut my hours?! We don't dispense a lot of it, probably because it's still in one of the upper price tiers for insurances. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mimm Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 My mother takes Ambien and mostly doesn't have an issue with it but every now and then she emails me after taking it before going to sleep. It's the most hilarious thing ever. The last one included a comment about needing to end the email because her "stupid fingers won't flippin work right". :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommy22alyns Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 Yes. I have taken Ambien for years now and if I don't remember a previous night's conversation, he'll just ask, "Were you on Ambien?" :glare: I've gotten better about it and usually don't do anything but fall asleep reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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