Addiction to Ambien

I have a question for all of you who quit Ambien cold turkey...
After I quit Ambien, I became exhausted because I couldn't sleep for a few days, so I took some Benadryl to help me go to sleep (that worked) but I was afraid that I would become dependent on that so I switched to Melatonin which I figured was more natural and that it would set my sleep clock back to normal.
My question is, for those who quit cold turkey, did you rely on something else to help you sleep, or did you wear yourself out and fell asleep naturally.
The last two nights I became very anxious around bedtime so I quickly took a Melatonin... The sleep was decent without any sweats, nightmares or any of the symptoms I had when I first quit.... It's now been 16 days since I quit.

Hi, Paul,
I tried cold turkey last night after splitting my pills for the previous four nights - to 6.0 mg (which I slept taking)...but last night with nothing was tough. I didn't sleep at all, even after drinking Sleepytime tea and taking valerian root. My brain was simply alert...waiting on the Ambien.
I spoke with my pharmacist, who is working on getting 10 mg zolpidem that I can cut and then work a taper. I withdrew from hydrocodones in April cold turkey and don't want to suffer like I did then. Am hoping that the taper is better. It takes months, but maybe safer and more comfortable to do it this way. 10% cut is recommended for a week or two...then another 10% and so on.

Hi Paul and Lily. When I stopped taking Ambien 10 mg (nightly for 6 years) I went through hell! After three days I called my doctor who said, "No, get back on it!" I told him I didn't want to lose those 3 days of rehab. He then told me he was sending a prescription down for Seroquel. I immediately looked that up on the internet and found that there were many contraindications to its use. I refused. I have tried non prescription pills like melatonin and teas, but they don't work.
Nothing works!

It's now 12:30 am and I'm continuing with my all night sessions on the computer. I can't sleep! This sleep deprivation has made me depressed, cranky, anti-social,
having anxiety attacks and my jerking motions are lasting longer and mimic epilepsy without being asleep.

Last week I kept tossing and turning in bed and then went through epileptic -like involuntary spasms for an hour. My husband woke up and tried to massage me, so I would calm down,but to no avail!.

My doctors refused my efforts to get help from them for Ambien withdrawal. They said they had NEVER HEARD OF ANYONE NEEDING AMBIEN WITHDRAWAL! The doctors haven't called me during these 5 months to check on me.

It's a crime that prescription drugs and doctors aren't monitored on a regular basis!

I don't know when I am going to join the living again! I don't feel like myself and can't understand why my health care (Kaiser) doesn't make any attempts to find out how I am doing after their big mistake of prescribing this deadly Ambien to me 6 years ago!
My only friends through this ordeal, have been the wonderful people I have met on this site. Thank God for them.

You have discovered the same thing I have. 1) Doctors are for the most part clueless about ambien withdrawals and 2) the insurance company doesn't care about you.

I realized that the only thing my doctor could do to help me was to simply give me more drugs. It is all they know to do in situations like this. Too many doctors just don't have the time to read studies and research the side effects and withdrawals of the drugs they prescribe.

Seroquel is a nasty drug, I don't blame you for not taking it. Did you now that one of the prominent withdrawals from seroquel is "severe insomnia"? What kind of idiot doctor would give someone suffering from insomnia a drug that causes severe insomnia when you quit taking it???

Hang in there - six years of ambien is a long long time, and it will take time for your brain to heal. The first week is the worst, and it is pretty much hell on earth. It quickly gets better after that.

Zootal, thank you for responding to my cry for help. I really don't know what I would have done without your validation of the horrible things that have been happening to my body for the past 6 years, due to Ambien.

I guess everybody in my family doesn't understand this Ambien threat! I have tried to read some of your comments (all of you) to them, but they don't want to hear it. I tell them how therapeutic the Topix Ambien Site is, but they don't have a clue, any more than the doctors do!

I wish I could have gone through a withdrawal program (rehab), to have the encouragement of others that were experiencing the same horrible side affects. Since I couldn't get any medical help, I thank all of you so much!

God bless. Lina

I know how you feel about family not wanting to hear it. They don't understand, they don't believe it, they think we can just "get over it".
My own wife doesn't get it. She has seen me live through over a year of hell thanks to ambien, and she is sick of it and just doesn't want to hear it anymore. I can't talk to her about it because of that, and I think most of us here are the same way. We have each other, and no one else really understands.

Zootal, I just now read your response to my note on the 'deadly' ambien.

I thank you for being there for me! I slept all day long , in intervals, for about 6 hours, today. I am not myself! I wish I could do something to make the drug companies and doctors accountable for the 'hell' we Ambien users have gone through. I feel like a clinical study group and wonder how many of our Ambien friends have died from its use or are near death!

After reading back on the Topix Ambien Site from 2006, I think I have been on this drug the longest! Six years of unexplained symptoms all make sense now!

I can't trust my doctors any more! It's really disconcerting! I will continue NOT taking Ambien CR again and will only find solace in opening up to all of you other victims of Ambien!

I wish I had identified this problem when the doctor first prescribed it. My body has taken a beating from it and I don't accept responsibility for any of it! The doctors and pharmaceutical companies are negligent, big time ! God bless. Lina

I think maggiecolusa is the longest ambien taker - she said 17 years I think.

I started in Sept 1997 - finally off for good June 2010 but was off a few times it wasn't continuous but only off at most a year's worth of days in that time frame.

Aras, do you know how Maggiecolusa is doing NOW? I'm really curious, because I think my 6 years on Ambien is horrendous!

I wish there was some way of grouping all of the users of this site into years of constant use of Ambien. We would all benefit from this disclosure. Furthermore, we might (or might not) see a light at the end of the tunnel!

Aras, you said Maggiecolusa had been on Ambien for 17 years. I understand that Ambien was released in 1992. That means she took it when it first was released to the public. Was she on straight Ambien or Ambien CR?

I read a note from someone ( under the 2006 Ambien Class action suit) that said that all of us are responsible for what we ingest as drugs. She said we should have studied all of the information before starting Ambien We are all drug addicts that want to blame the doctors and drug companies, and consequently make some money, according to this woman.

When one is ill, one doesn't feel like going to the doctor. Finally, one drags themselves into the doctor's office for help. The doctor prescribes medication and one doesn't question the drug!( Who has time to 'investigate' when you are in the throws of an illness or life threatening disease? The woman who was criticizing Ambien users as being responsible for any adverse reactions to Ambien, is (OTL)'Out to lunch'!

Class action suits are created by a group of individuals who have been 'duped' by the drug company or doctor. In a class action suit against Ambien, I would expect for the 'powers that be' to investigate honestly, the affect of this drug on its user! I would make sure that we could protect others from this deadly drug Ambien.

As we watch all of the drug commercials on tv today, we hear a long list of reasons NOT to take the drug. It always says, "This drug could cause death in the young and elderly!" If the drug is so potentially dangerous, why do the doctors even prescribe it? They don't know that much of these newer drugs and eventually rely on our 'statistics" !I don't appreciate being a guinea pig for the medical doctors that prescribe drugs without monitoring them.

Lina, Maggie C. is a regular poster on the thread "Ambien Withdrawal and Headaches". The site is very active with over 8,000 posts. You'll get the support you need there.

Ambien is horrible. I've been off it for 2 yrs. 3 mos. after 5 yrs. of nightly use I feel great and the wonderful people on the Withdrawal and Headache thread helped me tremendously. Good luck to you!

Sleeping Drug Free: Thank you for taking the time out to respond to our questions and remarks about the deadly Ambien epidemic! I'm glad to hear that you are now 2yrs+ being off Ambien! It certainly gives me more hope as one who has taken Ambien for 6 years nightly.

I pray that we will all be able to get off of Ambien, like you, and not be left with irreparable damage to our minds and bodies! God bless. Lina

Hi, all,

In the last week of Sept, I began scoring my Ambien CR 12.5 and taking half of them (I know that scoring CR isn't recommended), then got 10 mg. generic zolpidem (cost difference from $198.00 to $7.98). I scored these and have been taking 5 mg for the past two weeks. Some weird dreams, but no night terrors, brain jerks, or insomnia.

Scoring the halved caps is too difficult if I am trying to get the same dose every night, but I'll try it. I learned about titration from YouTube and may try that next.

I had been taking Ambien 12.5 for four years, so hopefully, this will encourage those long-time users to know that my side effects have not been that severe. But I have not attempted to sleep without an aid for four years...baby steps. Take care all.

I quit ambien cold turkey last october. I had horrible withdrawal and just like the rest, my doctors refused or were unable to help me. They had no clue about ambien and when I questioned 3 different pharmacists about the safety of quitting ambien they told me that the only side effect would be rebound insomnia. I also asked 4 different PC doctors to help and they said they didn't see why I wanted to stop taking it anyway!
I I showed the doctors and the pharmacists the paper that came with my prescription that told of the possible withdrawal side effects and they said that was not correct. They actually told me that the warnings on the drugs are not accurate. How is that possible?When I went back to them and told them what I was experiencing, they said that it had to be something else and not the ambien.
We have to spread the word.
Dr. Oz had a show about ambien addiction last October but never aired it again. I caught it by accident right around the time I decided to quit taking it due to side effects and knew I was in for trouble.
He recommended detoxing in a rehab but I couldn't find a single one that knew squat about it.
Try www.benzo.org.uk or www.pointofreturn.org for all the info you need arm yourself with the truth!
Prayers and blessings all on your journey back to life!

i took it everynight for years and then didnt get it refilled one time and was wwithout it for a week, it was kinda tough falling asleep the first night but the 2nd night i was fine. so im not sure how u can take it a few months and act like ur withdrawing from illicit drugs. but maybe i guess everyone is different

I quit ambien cold turkey after taking for 5 years and now I'm coming up on one week ambien free....I'm miserable :( I'm so tired yet I can't sleep, when I do nod off the slightest sound wakes me up. I never thought it would be this hard. My doctor took me off ambien because she said she was not a huge fan of long term use. She recommended melatonin, which made me drowsy but did not give me a restful sleep as promised on the bottle. I'm getting maybe 2 full hours of sleep a night. I feel like I'm losing my mind :(

find this thread - Ambien Withdrawal and Headaches (Oct '06)----- it has over 11 thousand posts

start reading it - start near the end first and work your way back a year or so then start at the beginning and read it all

http://www.topix.com/forum/drug/ambien/T8MMMF...

I didn't even bother to read the thread, addiction to Zolpidem, bo***x. It's a mild hypnotic, it doesn't even sedate, how anybody could get addicted to this pill is beyond me. I've tripped off my face on this stuff, sure, take enough and it is crazy, I took it as prescribed for months, addiction, give me a break. It helps me go into a dream, that's about it, I can't see how anybody could become addicted to this compound.

But hay, what do I know. Maybe it is addictive. And I'm just being an intolerant d*****k.