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I've been taking Ambien since 1989, every night. I used to do a lot of international travel when I needed to go to sleep on the local time wherever I found myself. Am I addicted? I don't care if I am because I have a good night sleep most every night, and my doctor doesn't worry about it either as he is the one prescribing me the pills. I am aware that the strength of the medicine has decreased, but it still helps. I'm in my late 70s, so I don't really care about what other people happen to think about my medications, or most anything else for that matter.
Sleep to me is essential so I do what I have to do. Perhaps you could do the same. Or not.
Be careful with Ambien. My wife took it for a while but I insisted she stop before she set the house on fire in her sleep. She would get up and try and "cook" something during the night and have no recollection of it later. I'd come into the kitchen in the morning and it would be a wreck and sometimes something in the oven burned to a crisp. It was scary.
If sleep apnea has been ruled out, I find good round of exercise each day really helps among all the other things typically recommended, no caffeine, no alcohol, dark shades, no screens before bed.
Dare I hope? The taurine seems to be making a difference. I'm still working out the dosage and timing. I've cut back on the bedtime dose. Then it wears off about 4 hours later and I get up and take the second half.
Sleep is still intermittent, an hour at a time, sometimes a bit less, but all told I ended up with about 4 1/2 hours total last night. I still hope someday to get 4 or 5 hours straight, but for now 4 1/2 hours of sleep even broken up over 9 or 10 hours is better than nothing at all except 20 minutes of sleep right before it's time to get up.
BP is still okay, not dropped too scary low. And this morning I notice a slight mood improvement. I feel a lightness of spirit that I don't usually feel on work mornings. Usually it's just deep dread.
I never heard of taurine. Please post back how it's working. Where do you buy it?
Well I know about taurine mainly because I've been feeding homemade raw to my cats for years, and taurine is very important to a cat's diet because their bodies don't manufacture it. It is essential that they get it in their diet. (Dogs and humans are a bit different)
Anyway I learned about it as potential sleep aid right here in C-D. Before I started this thread I was searching out other sleep issue threads, and there was someone talking about how much taurine helped them, so I looked into it.
Taurine is an amino acid, and essential nutrient that we get in meat and eggs. It apparently has other benefits, lowers blood pressure (which I don't need), calming, and increases melatonin production.
I chose this over the other herbals recommended to me because it has no known side effects, and I am so prone to side effects, I've tried so many herbal remedies over the years.
I really really do not want to take Ambien, or any of the other drugs, including and especially the anti-anxiety drugs, that people have recommended in this thread. I just don't do well on drugs like that and I have a great fear of addiction, coming from a family tree with alcoholics on every branch.
Marijuana was always my savoir with sleep but it was difficult to get, so I only had good sleep when I could get some, and no sleep when I used it up, until it went legal in my state.
Actually, when I wasn't holding, I was using Delta 9 with some success, but wasn't happy about the potential side effects for that either, and the cost was prohibitive. I was very happy about the legalization, and enjoyed being able to walk into a store and pick and choose, for 5 months. I was feeling calm and sleeping okay ever since a store came to our area.
Until all this anxiety started after I had stress induced heart failure at the beginning of February. Now I'm in therapy, and struggling to learn to cope with this terrible anxiety, which the pot that had always helped me sleep and feel happy and calm, suddenly turned on me and started making the anxiety worse.
The taurine, so far, is the closest I've come to finding something that is helping. The sleep is still broken, but at least I'm getting 3 or 4 hours a night (an hour at a time), instead of only 20 minutes right before the alarm goes off.
I'm still experimenting with the dosage and timing.
^^I'm willing to try anything, Ambien is the only thing that works for me, other than lorazepam, which I'll never be able to get again.
I would love to not have to be dependent on a prescription drug & be at the mercy of a PCP who may or may not prescribe it, depending on their mood. Marijuana made me very paranoid, almost psychotic, & definitely did not help me to sleep at all. Really, it was a nightmare. So, if this works for you, I'd love to have to hear about it. I wish you luck, because chronic insomnia is like living death, at least for me.
^^I'm willing to try anything, Ambien is the only thing that works for me, other than lorazepam, which I'll never be able to get again.
I would love to not have to be dependent on a prescription drug & be at the mercy of a PCP who may or may not prescribe it, depending on their mood. Marijuana made me very paranoid, almost psychotic, & definitely did not help me to sleep at all. Really, it was a nightmare. So, if this works for you, I'd love to have to hear about it. I wish you luck, because chronic insomnia is like living death, at least for me.
I know what you mean. My new doctor doesn't like to prescribe anything either. Which is fine usually, because I don't like to take anything. But sometimes I would prefer a little more flexibility!
Back in the day, in my 40s and early 50s I had a doc that had me on all kinds of pills. He was the one who prescribed amitriptyline (Elavil) for sleep, after I rejected sleeping pills, and things like ativan, and valium and xanax. As I said it helped for about 3 years, in fact it was heaven. I'd never felt so rested in my life.
I was getting 6 straight hours of sleep a night, something I'd never experienced before. Just about the time it stopped working, there was information being published about long term use of certain meds and their risks of memory loss, and amitriptyline was way up there, level 4 I think it was. So I went to my doc and said "This med isn't working any more and I am concerned about the memory loss of long term use". he dismissed my concerns and told me to double the dose. So I went off it instead. I did a very slow taper.
He also had me on hydrocodone for back pain, degenerative arthritis, bulging discs, you know the drill. I was taking one every night, and more often if I had a flare up. I had muscle relaxers for it too. Metaxalone. I worried all the time about addiction but he dismissed my worries.
After going off the amitriptyline, I decided I wanted to get off the hydrocodone too. So without telling him, I started to wean myself off it. I didn't believe him, that I wasn't addicted, but it turns out he was right about that, anyway. I had absolutely no trouble going off it. No cravings or withdrawal side effects at all, much to my relief.
He retired soon after, much to my delight and I found a lovely doctor to replace him and she was wonderful and we were working together to find the best ways, without drugs, to help me with my ever increasing MCS/sensory intolerance disorder, and how it all affected the fibromyalgia and the insomnia.
Then the practice closed up shop and I lost her. Then things at work, which were already bad, got worse. Then I had heart failure and the anxiety kicked in and the insomnia went to a whole new level. All that, with a new doctor who doesn't know me nor I her. Well we're getting to know each other pretty quickly now lol, but still, she doesn't have the understanding about my issues as my other doc. At least not yet. Since that practice closed and so many people are still scrambling to find primary care, I feel stuck with her for the time being.
Anyway I think I'm just rambling now. Bottom line, the sleeping pills didn't work and I am reluctant to try anything else, and my doctor is reluctant to prescribe anything else anyway.
I am still doing all the other newly learned things that, while they have not made any difference to the insomnia, may be helping more than I know so I keep at it, the meditation, the yoga poses, the cognitive therapy where I am learning skills to cope with this horrible horrible horrible anxiety. These are all relatively new, since the heart failure. Oh yeah and I've started those mouth exercises, doing them faithfully 2-3 times a day. They are designed to strengthen the tongue and soft palate, in about 3 months, to help with any snoring or mild to moderate sleep apnea I may be experiencing. I read about them in one of the other sleep threads too.
I've always had a fairly decent diet, avoiding processed sugar and caffeine, adequate exercise by way of 3-4 miles walking a day outside, those are my normal lifestyle, but have never made any difference to the insomnia.
I really do think the taurine is helping. The sleep is still broken, but I am getting 3-4 hours a night. And no hangover or worry about addiction, or side effects. BP is still okay- 100/60
Dare I hope? The taurine seems to be making a difference. I'm still working out the dosage and timing. I've cut back on the bedtime dose. Then it wears off about 4 hours later and I get up and take the second half.
Interesting.
Interesting indeed. I rarely drink "energy" drinks but occasionally, usually driving, where I really need to stay alert, I'll buy one. I've found the ones with taurine in them work better at keeping me awake than ones without.
^^I'm willing to try anything, Ambien is the only thing that works for me, other than lorazepam, which I'll never be able to get again.
I would love to not have to be dependent on a prescription drug & be at the mercy of a PCP who may or may not prescribe it, depending on their mood. Marijuana made me very paranoid, almost psychotic, & definitely did not help me to sleep at all. Really, it was a nightmare. So, if this works for you, I'd love to have to hear about it. I wish you luck, because chronic insomnia is like living death, at least for me.
I've found something that REALLY works for me. and that is Encore RSO gummies, 10 mg. These gummies are the best thing I have found that helps me sleep without the side effects commonly known about marijuana. I still take Ambien.
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