Patrick Kennedy and Ambien info.

[alfredo]

Ambien is very addictive, and probably was not the best choice of a sleep aid for a person with an addictive personality.


Below are two links. One is about drug rehab for Ambien users, the other is a list of comments from users.


http://www.drug-rehabs.org/faqs/FAQ-ambien.php

http://www.askapatient.com/viewrating.asp?drug=19908&name=AMBIEN

You will see that loss of memory is common with Ambien.

[AndreaCG]

1. My experience with Ambien

I took it for about a year with no known side effects. The I came home from work one day and looked in the mirror and my eyebrows were gone. Apparently I had shaved them in my sleep. This was totally out of character as I have never even plucked my eyebrows while conscious.

Oh yes, no one at work said a thing even though I looked like a freak.

[alfredo]

3. That is scary. They need to take that crap off the market.

[Warpy]

5. Nah, they just need to use it like they use Halcion

which means closely supervised in a hospital or nursing home.

The problem with sending these drugs home with patients is that people tend to take them to prevent insomnia, not treat it. After all, you don't know you're going to have a bad night until it's far too late to take the drug, so you want to take it in plenty of time to prevent the problem, right?

They all have warnings not to take them on consecutive nights, warnings that are ignored by people who need sleep in order to be able to function at a job that goes by the clock, not by the needs of the human body.

Over the counter sleep aids generally contain Benadryl (diphenhydramine) which is safer and non addictive. Yes, there's a mild hangover, but it generally dissipates within an hour or so. Any persistent insomnia that doesn't respond to an OTC sleep aid indicates a far more serious problem and should be checked out, not medicated with powerful and dangerous sleeping pills.

[foo_bar]

14. speaking of Halcion without supervision

But the next day the NYTimes had an even better piece of news about Halcion. It was by Benjamin J. Stein, and ran on the op-ed paged as "Our Man in Nirvana." Stein mentions that recently (after President Bush fainted and blew chunks at a Tokyo state dinner) it emerged that, like James A. Baker before him, the president uses Halcion when he travels. http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_01.30.92/news/med0130.htm

[Pavulon]

7. Read the TOXNET info on asprin (nt)

[alfredo]

11. I've never given my cat a perm or cooked a three course meal

on aspirin and not remember doing it.

[Pavulon]

17. Aspirin has a much more

serious side effect set than ambien. Ambien is not the problem here.

It is not addictive, it is a sleeping pill. If you had a side effect, call your doctor. There are plenty of other drugs for insomnia.

[alfredo]

23. I agree, but aspirin is not addictive. ambien is a problem if steps are

not taken to prevent addiction or incidents like we have heard and read. Here take this pill and pay the cashier on the way out medicine is why Ambien is causing problems.

I take Lorazepam for my sleep disorder (once every week or so). It is addictive but I do not have an addictive personality like Kennedy. My doctor told me up front about the possibility of addiction. After all this time he sees that I only use when it is really needed, so intervention was not needed. If Kennedy's doctor had paid attention he might have seen if he was over using the drug. Why didn't the doctor rethink the prescription after reports started coming in that pointed to a sleep walking problem? Why didn't this problem come up in trials, and if it did, why did they let it on the market?


It just seems like they should pull it off the market to do further tests, then if they can either change the formula or under what circumstances it is prescribed, then they can put it back on the market. The sleep walking side effect is what makes it dangerous.

[Buck Laser]

13. Ambien

I beg to differ. I've been in a battle with leukemia for more than a year, and the occasional use of Ambien has enabled me to get some sleep when I need to. You might as well campaign to take beer off the market. Lots of substances produce scary results, but you don't solve every problem just by refusing to look at it.

[glitch]

4. Yikes! No one said anything? You must've been semi-asleep when you left in

the morning, otherwise you would have noticed then too. Very scary.

Your co-workers are so polite!

[greenman3610]

2. haven't seen that side effect yet

but I'm very, very judicious in using this.

[Pavulon]

6. Facts, not so much..

Ambien is a SLEEPING DRUG. It is not a schedule 2 narcotic. On the label it states clearly DO NOT DRIVE or CONSUME ALCOHOL while taking this drug.

It is not PHYSICALLY addictive, like morphine. It can be PSYCHOLOGICALLY addictive like Dope or eating ice cream when you get stressed.

I have read a few posters saying " I took it and was really tired 30 minutes later, it was scary."

You are supposed to take it in BED. I have taken it when crossing timezones. No problems.

It usually causes problems with people who have existing psychological disorders.

[LiberalHeart]

33. I think the standard dose is just too high for some.

That's how it was for me. At 5 milligram it's fine. But my doctor tells me it is addictive. She's not worried about me because I've never needed higher doses in order to fall asleep. She said some people do and that it's an escalating thing. She said if I ever found myself needing "more" it's time to stop taking it. Well, I've taken it for many, many years and have never increased the dose. All I ever did was cut it after finding out I did bizarre things when taking 10 milligrams.

You're right: you are supposed to take Ambien and go right to bed. In the beginning, I took it, then stayed up, waiting to get sleepy. Somehow I managed to mention that to my doc and she was surprised; said staying up fights the effectiveness of the med.

I wake up feeling like I've had restful sleep. My health improved a lot when I started taking Ambien. My sleep patterns are a total mess without it. My days were never 24 hours before; often my wake cycles alone were 36 hours long. I couldn't function in a regular workplace. Now I can.

[liberalnurse]

8. Maybe we should just bring back

barbiturates as the main stay hypnotic? At least we know how to use them.....their action is predictable.:shrug:

[smirkymonkey]

25. Why aren't they on the market any more?

[Oak2004]

28. Because its very easy to OD on them

intentionally or accidentally. And they are both easily abused and deadly to withdraw from if the withdrawal is not carefully supervised.

Compared to barbituates, Ambien at its worst is very safe.

[liberalnurse]

32. I think they were rendered off limits

due to the dependency and abuse of them. That said, oxycontin is just as bad.... and these weird hypnotics they use today are very unpredictable. They still make the seconal, tuinal and nebutal...you just never see them used. Could it be that there is more profit for the new designer hypnotics?

[undergroundpanther]

9. I wonder

If kennedy was set up by his doctors who were less than honest(given the political backstabbing one sees on the hill it's plausible)so the media could use Kennedy's addiction to distract the public,especially the conservative leaning public who depend on scapegoats to feel secure in the world, from another Bush Scandal?
Any doc who knows Kennedy's history of addiction SHOULD know better than to prescribe certain drugs to him, right? I mean think about it some of those doctors these rich politicians have attending them know them very well because they HAVE to.They get health care better than the rest of us ever will.

So I find this whole thing suspicious in timing.
Bush has no moral character nor does any of his neocon buddies they will kill their own kids for getting some "full spectrum domination"

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

10. Ambien IS NOT Very Addictive, And There Is No Real Ambien Rehab.

This whole thread is so misleading and ridiculous it isn't even funny.

For one, your first link is a generic statement that fills in the medicine name with whatever medicine you clicked on. The text is the same for any of them.

Ambien can cause some dependance, as with any sleep aid, and may have withdrawls lasting for a few days in which insomnia can re-occur. But it is nothing more severe than any other sleep aid and in fact is far less than many.

This witch hunt on Ambien is scary in its ignorance. The amount of people jumping on the ambien is evil bandwagon is staggering, when in reality it is an amazingly safe and effective medication used by millions.

Ambien WAS NOT Kennedy's main problem. It also IS NOT related whatsoever to why he went to rehab. It's enough of this ambien is evil shit already. The accusations some are making towards it are pathetic.

[AndreaCG]

12. Have YOU ever taken it?

If so, with no negative side effects, you are lucky. MANY people are not so lucky. If you haven't taken it you need to STFU about something you are ignorant of.

Fortunately for me, eyebrows grow back.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

16. First Of All Don't Tell Me To STFU. What Is This 5th Grade?

Have youuuuuuu taken it? poke poke. Have you? huh? poke poke If not then STFU poke poke. :rofl:

Give me a goddamn break.

Yes, I've taken it. Just last night in fact. Bottle's right in fuckin front of me. And your statement of consider yourself lucky is ABSURD. Millions of people take ambien without any severe side effects. Fucking Millions. The number of people who have had side effects of any severity are MINISCULE. You act as if they are in the majority and I should thank my lucky stars I was one of the rare ones. What a load of malarky.

Ambien is one of the safest medications out there, period. These witch hunts and slander towards it by close minded zealots are really getting out of hand.

Topics like these make DU look so foolish to me. That's why I defend the cause so readily. When foolishness of this level pops up it can be seen readily by anyone who stumbles across this site. When people stumble across this site, it is my hope that they find threads filled with facts and rational logic that entice them to stay and explore. But if they see these alarmist ambien is evil or other melodramatic threads, it makes us look foolish in my opinion ( yes, my opinion, I'm entitled to it). So that's why I defend. To speak out with some friggin sanity in insane topic sentiments. (Special Ambien rehab LOL LOL what a load of garbage. Find me anyone in rehab for ambien for gods sake.)

[Psephos]

29. You said what needed to be said. Good post. n/t

[sandnsea]

31. Alcohol too

Fucking millions who use alcohol on a daily basis without any severe side effects.

If we had all the answers on addiction, it wouldn't be so difficult to treat. In addition, a lot of treatment centers, even some of the best, are so full of psychobabble bullshit, that they do more harm than good. For the addict, it's simple. Don't put anything in your body unless it's a medical emergency. I would bet Patrick Kennedy didn't get that info in treatment because they were busy healing his "inner child" or some such stupidity. Or at least stupidity if anybody thinks that's going to cure addiction.

If a person gets addicted to alcohol, or ambien, or crack, they're susceptible to ALL addictions. If not, then not. So it isn't the ambien, it's the person. The people who warn about its side affects are right, the people who say don't throw the baby out with the bath water are right. People just need to educate themselves before they put this stuff in their bodies, that's all.

[LiberalHeart]

35. I'm with you for the most part, but...

We don't really know how many people are having or have had problems with Ambien. When I had my bizarre reactions to the higher dose (10 milligram), I tried to get it entered as an adverse effect at the company. They listened to me recite my experiences. They even chuckled. They also told me many people had such problems (something they told me to comfort me, and let me know I wasn't alone). They also told me the drug went through the body in a matter of hours so I didn't need to worry about lingering effects. Then, to get my experiences recorded as an adverse reaction, I was told I'd have to submit to them all my medical records for the previous ten years. WTF? Who would go along with that over a recent Rx? I refused, so I'm not counted. And I also have to wonder how many people would go to the trouble I did to report it. Nothing like putting hurdles in the way of someone who wants to send out a warning to others. But I wasn't warning people away from it entirely because I find a low dose to work just fine.

[la la]

19. I've taken it

for about 4 years. So, I feel that I can honestly comment on Ambien. It's been a godsend for me and I also agree that the Ambien witch hunt needs to stop.

I also just read a comment on another thread here stating that Kennedy just started taking it April 28 --if that is true, there is absolutly no way he could be 'addicted' to it --

The 'addiction' is the need for sleep and if it helps without side effects - it should be a non-issue.

[Pavulon]

21. I have, my wife is a neurosurgeon

She has prescribed it. (not to me of course) I take it when I fly to asia or europe. I have taken it with no side effects. The drug is a sleep aid. If you personally have a problem reaction to the drug, talk to your doctor. If you dont RTFM and wake up after six hours and drive you are dui.

Sonata and Ambien work. Like any drug, aspirin, tylenol, and prednisone, all have side effects.

It is a drug, not chewing gum.

[hiaasenrocks]

36. I have.

Never had a problem with it, nor have any of my family members (one uncle, two aunts and one cousin). Before I took this drug I specifically asked my doctor and my pharmacist if this drug was addictive. Both gave me an emphatic no.

I'm making no comment on Patrick Kennedy's case, for the record.

[alfredo]

15. But it was prescribed to him when they knew he had a

dependency problem. Someone was not paying attention, and that person was the prescribing doctor. Addiction is a crap shoot. You never know who will get hooked, but if the person has a history of drug dependency, then there's a chance he will get addicted. All addictive drugs are dangerous. What might be mildly addictive to one, could be very addictive to another. Maybe Ambien should only be used in a controlled environment.


I have been using Lorazepam for years. It is addictive too, but I do not have an addictive personality. I have had this one prescription for 7 months and it is not even half used. My doctor told me that if I was eating them like candy he would have stopped prescribing them to me. Why didn't Kennedy's doctor do the same for him?

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

18. Ambien Is Not Addictive Like That At All. And Furthermore, Why The Hell

are there so many posts in GD about ambien being addictive anyway???? Who the hell ever said Patrick was addicted to Ambien? To my knowledge he isn't addicted to Ambien AT ALL. So why even the discussion on it? Why are people trying to turn this whole damn event into an attack on ambien and how addictive it is? Do you not realize that NOWHERE is addiction to Ambien related to this event at all?

People have friggin lost it here. I swear to god.

[la la]

20. yeah, I agree -

OperationMindCrime ---maybe they need some Ambien and can't get a script- they're getting mighty cranky! ;>)

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

22. LOL

It just drives me absolutely NUTS how some here take the slightest thing and run with it like the gospel. You would think we're talking about Heroin for gods sake. It's not, it's just ambien.

(I mean, I'm still shaking my head in disbelief that this thread is spreading the notion that addiction to Ambien is a severe problem, and there are rehabs dedicated to helping that cause. It has to be in the top 3 most inaccurate sentiments I've seen on DU ever.)

[Texasgal]

27. I agree with you OMC.

These threads regarding ambien are ridiculous!

FACT: Ambien is WILDLY prescribed, MILLIONS take the drug without issue.

FACT: Other drugs, when not taken properly can cause crazy side effects, take Vicodin for example... it is WILDLY prescribed to help people in pain, it can also cause people to vomit, pass out, hurt themselves...etc, that's why it states on the package INSERT not to DRINK, DRIVE or operate HEAVY MACHINERY!!

For those of you who do take Ambien and you have strange or un-wanted side effects, TELL YOUR DOCTOR!!!

GOOD GRIEF!

[alfredo]

26. It doesn't have to be physically addictive to be addictive.

[tedzbear]

34. ahahahahahahaha!

You go ahead and take it every night for longer than 2 weeks and then tell me how good you fall asleep the next couple of nights after you stop taking it.
Take it every night for longer than 6 months and then tell me how you feel when you stop taking it.

:rofl:

[LiberalHeart]

37. I think it's a matter of sloppy listening to news reports.

Patrick talked about his problems with addiction for which he had treatment about Christmas time. And he listed the two meds he took the night he went out in his car and had the accident. One was Ambien, and given recent news reports about Ambien, that whole thing took on a life of its own: addiction and Ambien merged into the same topic. But it's not what Patrick said.

But I have to wonder if he knows his reaction could very well be what many of us have experienced with Ambien-taking resulting in strange behavior that we don't recall afterward. Maybe even he is thinking addiction when it's not about that.

[Catherine Vincent]

24. Tylenol PM works for me.

[emdee]

30. I believe I'm right about this....

I think that the normal dosage, now, is not one a day. Insurance companies will not pay for 30 as a month's supply but only 15 (I think 15).

My mother has taken it and I think I'm remembering this correctly.

emdee

[LiberalHeart]

38. My insurance pays for 35 days (dunno why that extra 5)

And I can fill it every month. But my Rx lasts longer because I get the 10mg generic and break it in half, taking only 5mg per night.