So the TeeWee commercial for Ambien CR, in the hushed, rushed, and breathy disclaimer towards the end, says something along the lines of "Ambien CR may not be right for you. Side effects can include sleepwalking or driving episodes followed by amnesia. If you experience this, talk to your doctor."
Yeah...
How's that work? You come to, blinking in an amnesiac stupor, in your car under the "Welcome to North Dakota" sign and you're surrounded by cops with drawn guns yelling "Get out of the car! Drop the gun! Why'd you kill him? Put your hands up!" and you're stammering "Hey, maybe Ambien CR isn't right for me, guys! Hold on, I need to call my doctor!"
When they say it can be habit forming they're not kidding. I've seen what abuse of Ambien can do to someone. It's not pretty.
ReplyDeleteIt does explain how I get to this site as often as I do. ;)
ReplyDeleteChris
My wife works in the ED of the local hospital. One of the docs was doing a hard schedule turnaround (off the clock at 0200, back on the clock at 0800) and took some Ambien so he could get some sleep in the space he had allotted. He woke up at some point in the night to the sound of pounding on the door, as he had apparently called 911 and reported that there were burglers in his house, and then promptly gone right back to sleep.
ReplyDeleteWhich is still pretty mild compared to what I hear the effects are if you take Ambien and then intentionally don't go to sleep.
Heh.
ReplyDeleteMy ex destroyed 2 new cars while taking Halcyon, an early cousin of Ambien. One of those incidents left a new Thunderbird suspended from a pole some 8 feet off the ground after failing to stop at a T-intersection. She had no recollection of either incident- no idea where she was, what happened, what became of the vehicle, and she denied the event for days until the photographs were available.
Both these incidents happened in the middle of the night when she was on call, trying to get to work. She'd take Halcyon trying to cram 8 hours of sleep into a couple of hours of real time. She had managed to get within 2 blocks of work on both occassions.
Anymore, her issues are not my responsibility to clean up after, fortunately.
Regards,
Rabbit.
That Ambien is a hell of a drug.
ReplyDeleteI'm a chronic insomniac...went for 15 years getting 3-4 hours of sleep on nights that I actually slept and at least 2-3 nights per week I didn't sleep at all.
ReplyDeleteAmbien helped me get rest...but it is a serious drug. I stopped taking it and went through some psychotherapy that actually has me sleeping much better. Now I only have a sleepless night 2-3 times per month.
Oh...Ambien was responsible for our 3rd child. Just didn't know what I was doing...
My doc prescribes it for me only on the agreement that I will use it no more than once a week. It works well enough that I'm ready and willing to follow the rules of the deal. I'm also impressed with it enough (afraid of it somewhat) that I won't use it even that often. So far no stories of my doing anything unknowingly and untoward.
ReplyDeleteBut yet they advertise it, not for doctors, but for patients to ask their doctors for it. And people wonder why I won't even take an aspirin if I don't have to.
ReplyDelete