Ambien

[Cat]

I've had trouble sleeping ever since I was a little kid. From the time I was six years old the only thing that worked was for me to read a book until I fell asleep and one of my parents would have to come turn off the light. Whenever I spent the night at a friend's or at camp where we had to turn the lights off at bedtime, I would lay awake for hours. Freshman year of college I had to share a dorm with another girl who needed darkness to sleep, like normal people do, and my insomnia was really bad that year.

However, I never took sleeping medication (except for Tylenol PM occasionally) until I started taking Adderall. The first year on Adderall I would literally go days without sleeping. My doctor prescribed me Ambien - at first, just 5 days a week thinking I could do without on the weekends. But eventually I was taking it every night and became addicted.

I cut off the relationship with my doc when I decided to quit Adderall so I thought it made sense to quit Ambien at the same time, cold turkey. About a week in, I was desperate and exhausted and miserable and rethinking my decision to quit both at once. So I called my doc and she sent me a 3 month script for Ambien. However, I didn't fill it right away because I had tried Nyquil and found it to be somewhat effective, and I thought maybe I could just take Nyquil as needed while weaning myself completely.

But the Nyquil has since become a daily thing. I get super anxious at nighttime thinking I won't be able to fall asleep, especially because there's no Adderall free pass to get me through the next day. Plus I googled Nyquil and found out it's not that great for your liver. So two days ago I broke down and filled the Ambien prescription.

The NYTimes published an article about 3 weeks ago recommending that women only take 5 mg Ambien instead of the typically prescribed 10 mg. But my doc wrote the script right before that article came out and so what I have is for 10 mg. I am thinking about cutting the pills in half and seeing if 5 mg works.

I guess I'm just also trying to figure out what my plan is for dealing with insomnia. I wanted to quit both meds, but quitting and staying off Adderall is number one by far. I'm about 40 days clean now and never going back.

Has anyone had experience quitting sleeping medication? Did you wean or go cold turkey? Did you quit at the same time or before/after quitting Adderall? Or do you continue to take sleep meds?

Another semi-related question: Depression runs strongly on both sides of my family (my father and two of his siblings committed suicide because of it, and there are two cases of bipolar disorder among my mom's siblings). So I am very attentive to my own symptoms in that regard. So far I'm feeling okay, and my goal was to go 90 days free of meds before visiting a new shrink. But I am doing research in the meantime, and might want to ask about Wellbutrin. I've never taken an antidepressant before. For those of you on Wellbutrin, is insomnia one of the side effects?

Thanks for reading this!

[Greg]

Uhh..I have confession. Advil pm has been a daily thing for the past four months maybe longer? ( But it's not addictive right? does anyone know the answer to this? I googled but really havent found much of anything..)

Cat I don't think I'm the best person for advice on this..

[lea]

Cat - of course this is something you must discuss with your doctor but since rehab for vicodin - I have been on trazadone for sleep and it works like a charm. Knocks me out in 30 minutes or less. It was originally marketed as an antidepressant so it does have antidepressant qualities. Prior to rehab I took benzos for sleep for years - same dose every night - but had to come off of them very slowly and with some other antiseizure drug for the first 2 weeks.

If you can talk to your doctor about addiction concerns, see if this is an option. You could probably get this, or something like it from your primary.

[FALCON]

Cat hi Ambien is in the benso family do your research never quit a benso drug cold turkey it’s a big no no .What is your rush finish your recovery from Adderall first then when your PAWS go away then go off the Ambien take your time do not rush slow you ass down a little you can’t quit everything at one time your doctor was right by giving you the script jest take the Ambien as prescribed do not abuse it and you will be ok when you’re ready to quit Ambien it will be easy for you to wean yourself off do not go cold turkey you must step down your doctor can help you with the step down dowses when you’re ready for it also welbutran will give you insomnia it is the corrector of the drug it’s a great drug for quitting Adderall and depression associated with quitting addarall good luck

Your friend FALCON

[Cat]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Falcon - thank you for the advice, you're right -- there's no reason to rush everything at once. Better to do things right and be successful. I had no idea it was bad to quit Ambien cold turkey, glad to have that info.

Lea - good to know. I'll bring that up when discussing options with my doctor.

InRecovery

[ashley6]

It's unreal to me how doctors don't tell people not to cold turkey this stuff, when it could cause seizures amongst many other things. Benzos can at least. My friend quit cold turkey when she got pregnant on a decently high dosage of Xanax, which obviously is dangerous to the health of the baby,so it's good she stopped, of course, but she had no clue of the risks of stopping it until I told her. Unreal.