Balls and Walnuts
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Ambien, Drug of Darkness
Egalia at Tennessee Guerilla Woman has posted full text of Maureen Dowd’s Saturday column, Valley of the Rolls. (JP has it, too — and don’t miss his contest, either!) I have my own Ambien story to share, but first . . .
The next mishap is sure to be sleep-governing. A headline on Wednesday read “Study: Ambien Users Invade Countries in Their Sleep; Wake Up With No Memory of Reasons for Invasion, No Exit Strategy.” The story was written by the humorist Andy Borowitz, who also imagined that an Ambien side effect might be a tendency of some politicians to concoct incomprehensible prescription drug programs while asleep.
Yup, you can always count on MoDo to make it political. More:
But real life once more outstrips satire, as the military in Iraq conducts Ambien air assaults. The president and some Pentagon officials have no memory of authorizing the strikes, and the generals in Iraq have no memory that they’ve already used these tactics without lasting success.
There is, after all, precedent for Sleepers in Chief. The first President Bush’s doctor caught flak for giving him the sleeping pill Halcion — fingered as a possible contributor to Poppy’s embarrassing frow-up moment at a state dinner in Japan.
Here’s a modest proposal: mandatory drug testing for all Presidential candidates, and random spot checks (minimum, once a week) while they are in office. Hey, let’s extend that to Congress and the Supreme Court, too. Let’s keep addicts like William Rehnquist off the bench!
Here’s my story. I’ve dealt with insomnia for as long as I can remember. I attribute much of my writing passion to my insomnia since, as a kid, I used to tell myself stories in the boring hours that passed while I lay awake. About ten years ago, I discovered the Joy of Benadryl, but over the years I have tried other sleepers, with varying degrees of success.
Or failure, mostly.
Current cocktail: one melatonin and one-half Benadryl. This gets me to sleep within a half hour, but I’m not the least bit drugged-up. That’s critical, since as a doc I sometimes have to bugger out of the house in the middle of the bloody night, and I had damned well not be half-asleep. When the phone rings, the subsequent adrenaline rush takes care of me just fine, thank you.
About four years ago, my doc told me I should try Ambien. No side effects, no next-day sleepiness. A real miracle drug.
Within a week, I found myself daydreaming about suicide. I didn’t feel the least bit depressed, but the idea of killing myself seemed strangely captivating and romantic. I said to myself: Why not? I have tons of life insurance, and it all kicks in even if it is suicide.
Mostly, though, I fantasized about how I would do it. I don’t like pain, and I didn’t want to risk ending up brain dead, um, more brain dead, and I didn’t want to leave a mess . . .
Finally, I had a what-the-fuck moment and realized none of this made sense. I stopped taking Ambien and felt fine the next day.
Somehow, my office staff found out about my Ambien adventure and made me promise never to take it again. Why?
“You were mean,” my receptionist said.
My billing gal concurred. “Evil. Nasty. Horrible to be around.”
To the best of my knowledge, I didn’t sleep-eat. No, it was the other way around. Ambien was eating my brain.
I am so not going to try Lunesta.
D.
Techorati links lifted from my favorite Guerilla Woman:
Maureen Dowd Ambien Assault Operation Swarmer Iraq War Bush Cheney Ambien War Dowd
Where can I get hold of some of this Ambien then? My boss needs to take large doses…don’t worry, he’s insured…his family’ll be fine….honest
Glad you found what works for you and that you have such a great staff. You may not notice it, but you always speak of them with such affection.
So did I, Doug.
Lord o’ mercy, Doug. Would you believe I was planning to ask my doc to prescribe a sleep aid that would help me with my insomnia? It was right before this Ambien thing came to light.
Not anymore. I guess I’ll just have to muddle through on my own. I take half of a generic unisom most nights and an NSAID for fibromyalgia pain.
After I had kidney stones, I fell in love with hydrocodone, which I later found out is generic Vicodin… It was perfect because it relieved my pain and helped me sleep when I took it before bed.
It was my favorite drug of all time, but it makes me itch like crazy now. I’m convinced God caused the itching because I liked them too much. I can so understand how people get addicted to that stuff.
Anyway, I have enough problems with my moods, I don’t need anything like a freaky sleepin pill to send me over the edge!
And the sleep eating thing. How weird is that?!
Itching is a common side effect of opiates. I rarely use opiates (last time was when I had my umbilical hernia fixed) for that reason. If I’m in pain, I take 800 mg of ibuprofen.
Unisom is, I think, the same as Benadryl. Get yourself some melatonin and you’ll be enjoying my cocktail. Speaking of cocktails, I find that alcohol might help me get to sleep, but I end up wide awake at 2 AM. Not good.
Wow … scary.
Half an over-the-counter Unisom will do it for me, when needed. Maybe twice a month.
That Ambien story just freaked me out. I have had mild clinical depression off and on for years. About a year and a half ago I was having a particularly tough time dealing with a divorce and my father’s terminal illness. I was taking Zoloft and it was helping, but I was still having some sleepless nights. My Dr. offered me a prescription for Ambien, but I turned it down because as a single mom I sometimes have to wakeup in the middle of the night to deal with child drama and heaven forbid if the house caught fire! I also have an aversion to sleep aids. I have never taken a prescription sleeping pill, but the OTC stuff, like Tylenol PM and Nyquil, gives me nightmares. Just the thought of taking something thay may have made me suicidal at that time in my life makes my skin crawl. I have always defined my depression as mild because I have NEVER considered suicide. YIKES. I feel like I dodged a bullet.
KariBelle, I don’t know how common my reaction was, but some of the antidepressants . . . wasn’t it Prozac that started getting a bad rep (people committing suicide or going postal)?
The take home message for me: doctors shouldn’t hand this stuff out like lollipops. If you’re going to put your patient on these things, keep tabs on them.
I have an eating disorder, and several years ago, in the worst stages, I had nightly sleep-eating episodes. When the Ambien story broke, I tried to figure out how a sleep aid could result in sleep-eating. I theorized that if anxiety caused the insomnia, Ambien took care of the result but not the cause. So, the anxiety still needed an outlet — hence, the sleep-eating.
I’m not a doctor or a scientist, so my theory could be total crap. Then again . . .
The active ingredient of Unisom, according to my handy-dandy med-box, is doxylamine succinate, 25 mg. The reason I switched from Benadryl is because I got too drugged out and couldn’t wake up.
But, I was taking a whole one. I was using the kind that’s marketed as an allergy med, so it was in the form of a capsule, which I don’t think you can split. If the benadryl sleep aid can be split, I may alternate those with the unisom when I need ’em so they don’t stop working [is it just me, or do they seem to work better the first night?]
I’ll be looking into Melatonin, too. I think it gave my dad nightmares, though, so I’ll be careful. I think I’m turned off forever from prescription sleep aids.
I had to laugh when I read that you used to make up stories while you waited to go to sleep, Doug. I did the same thing! From about the time I could talk, I think. I remember making up stories in my bunk bed, which we got rid of when I was three or four, so I’ve been an insomniac forever! Truly frightening what memories get jogged loose sometimes. 😉
I think that’s why I related so well to the character Anne Shirley. I used to get so into it, I’d have myself bawling because of some of my stories. It wasn’t very soothing, and probably added to my insomnia, but I had a lot of fun being tragic:-D
I wish I’d written them down, though. That way I’d be a little more experienced in getting the words from my brain to the paper. A lot gets lost in translation, you know?
The take home message for me: doctors shouldn’t hand this stuff out like lollipops. If you’re going to put your patient on these things, keep tabs on them.
Heh. Corollary message from the peanut gallery: patients should do their homework and not leave everything to overworked docs.
I saw one doc (GP) who told me my CFS was just depression, and I should take some Prozac & quit wasting his time. He also said that no, seeing a psych professional wasn’t necessary, and the way to tell if I was depressed was to take Prozac for several months and see if that cured me.
Not coincidentally, that was about the time I decided I could deal with it just as well on my own, thanks.
(No offense, Doug–not all doctors are as conscientious as you. :))
Don’t know how conscientious I am, but I have seen my share of don’t-give-a-damn doctors. Burn out sucks in our profession. In the old days, you would make so much money you could retire about the time burn out struck. Nowadays, we’re working into our 60s and beyond.
Which reminds me . . . I wonder what the Lotto is at?
You don’t need the Lotto–you’re going to sell your books, and they’ll be mega-bestsellers, and you’ll just sit back & rake in the royalties.
That was the plan, right?
I’d kiss you if you weren’t way the hell over in Europe somewhere.
Lotto is the back-up plan 😉
[…] When it comes to treating my insomnia, I’ve never had much luck with my doctors. Either they try to get me hooked on benzodiazepines, or on crap that turns me into a psycho. So on a recent sleepless night, I had a brilliant thought: I need a shaman. […]