Posted by Patient on July 17, 2004, at 13:45:07
In reply to HELP! Bad Ambien problems, posted by green willow on July 11, 2004, at 20:25:50
> Have any of you had problems with Ambien? I have bad insomnia, and my sleep doc has had me alternating Ambien and Sonata every other night. All of a sudden I cannot sleep on the Sonata nights, except for about 1 hour 45 min. I think it is Ambien rebound. My doctor just said he cannot comment, but my pharmacist agreed with me. What do you guys think I should do, discontinue the Ambien and find something new to fight the insomnia, or take Ambien every night till it fizzles? Doctor had me try Zanaflex with the Sonata, also Traz with the Sonata. I still did not sleep on those nights. It is like I am wired to stay awake - a chemical high. I am convinced that Zanaflex is from the other side (hades) and Trazadone messes with my heart too much. Incidentally I am ill with auto-immune problems and also trying to recover from serious injuries. What are your thoughts? Have any of you been prescribed alternating Ambien and Sonata ? How have some of you weened off Ambien?
I've tried Ambien; 6 doses that my doctor gave me as samples last year. It helped to fall asleep quickly within a half hour to hour after taking it, but I would be wide awake in the wee hours, like 2 to 5 a.m. I've heard that Sonata and Ambien work great if you are the type of insomniac that can't fall asleep, but useless for those that fall asleep readily, but have frequent awakenings in the wee hours of the night. I'm the latter-I fall asleep easily enough, as long as there isn't any recent severe stressor, but wake up about 2-3 in the morning and can't go back to sleep until about 6 or so. I've tried trazodone at 12.5mg and it works excellent for helping me to fall asleep and stay asleep until it's time to get up. I've also tried 0.5mg lorazepam and it too works well. But, with traz and loraz I often felt groggy in the mornings or would end up sleeping in late-lorazepam will also cause a bit of imbalance for a few hours in the morning after arising. Good point about loraz is that I don't have dreams. (I often have disturbing dreams with recurrent themes: internal conflicts I believe.) I've tried melatonin. Sometimes it would help me sleep great, other times not.
Currently I am taking 250mg Epival E-C (divalproex sodium) after bkfst, and 40mg Celexa (citalopram) 6-8p.m. since Feb. '04. I slept well much of the time, but recently I have been awakening again in the middle of the night and began to resort to trazodone and lorazepam. I really didn't want to start taking these again for insmonia, so, I thought I'd give valerian a try. I bought some from Kroger's line and took 2 caplets at bedtime, as suggested. For the past two weeks I have been sleeping all the night through! No groggy feeling in the morning. I have also tried taking 3 caplets one night and it works just as well, and maybe just a slight bit of grogginess in morning, but it was still easy for me to get up at a decent hour.
Just a suggestion if the other medicines do not work for your type of insomnia. I haven't had any bad reactions to valerian, no drug reactions that I can tell.
poster:Patient
thread:365148
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040714/msgs/367157.html