My Week Two Experiment With Ambien For Sleep Problems

Brenda Johnson
Sep 6, 2018 · 5 min read

My Ambien experience: The Good, The Bad, and The WTF

Week 2: My Ambien Experience

Hello again. Just in case this is your first time reading one of my blogs, let me give you a recap: My name is Brenda, I’m 34 years old, I have two adorable children and a wonderful husband. I’m also a third grade teacher. I’ve had trouble getting good sleep almost all my life, and I’ve finally decided to do something about it.

So here’s the deal: every week, I’m going to try a different product or method which comes highly recommended by friends, family, co-workers, or people who have some sort of medical expertise in the subject. I will try that specific thing for the whole week, and then I will publish my results here for anyone who is interested. With any luck, I will find something that can help me fix my sleep problems for good.

The reason I’m posting this all online is my way of paying it forward in case I experienced any success. I know I’m not the only one who struggles to get good sleep. And I know firsthand how miserable the experience can be. So if I do find a solution, and other people can benefit from it, I feel like it would be selfish of me to keep it to myself. So without further ado, let me cut to the chase and tell you about everything that happened to me in the past week.

Almost all of the sleep products on my list are brand new to me. This week, however, is a little bit different. I’m going to be talking about Ambien. Much to my regret, I’m no stranger to this drug. Thankfully, though, I have decided that it will be my last. But I think I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.

I first tried Ambien during my sophomore year of college when I was getting stressed out over final exams. I had completed most of my prerequisite classes the semester before and was finally taking on some coursework that was relevant to my major. It was the first time my final exams actually felt like they mattered to me. I couldn’t afford to just pass — I had to do well, or else my very future could be in jeopardy. That’s what my brain was telling me at the time, anyway. The emotional stress which naturally followed that line of thinking had such a negative impact on my sleep that I went to the university health center. After discussing my sleep problems with a doctor, I walked out with an Ambien prescription.

I filled my script on a Friday morning, I had an important final that afternoon, and went out to celebrate surviving the exam with some classmates that evening. I didn’t get sloppy drunk, but we did have fun. I had an early study session the next morning for a final I had on monday, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get to sleep on my own that night, so I took an Ambien. It did not end well.

Apparently, in the middle of the night, I tried to crawl into bed with my roommate (I went to college long ago when it was common to share a bedroom with another person) and snuggle up with her, “big spoon” style. She was startled, and had a brief conversation with me before helping me back into my own bed. She told me I seemed out of it and that I was babbling nonsense. The scariest part is that I remember absolutely none of this. I was completely blacked out. After my roommate filled me in on what had happened the night before, I threw the pills in the trash and never thought about them again.

I had another close call with Ambien shortly after my first child was born. My doctor wrote me a prescription for the generic version of Ambien. But I knew almost nothing about prescription drugs back then, so I really had no idea what I was taking. When I went and asked my friends on my favorite mommy blog whether or not the drug was safe to take while breastfeeding, they all threw a fit and told me not to take the pills! I followed up with my doctor, and he told me that it was probably safe to take while breastfeeding, but that if I was uneasy about it I should just take it back to the pharmacy. And that’s exactly what I did.

This past week was my third and final attempt to give Ambien a chance. My children are well beyond the breastfeeding age now, so I didn’t think there would be any direct consequences for anyone but myself. The first couple of nights weren’t too bad. As I was drifting off to sleep after taking the recommended dose, I was having very vivid dreams with cute animals speaking foreign languages to me which I could somehow mysteriously understand. I felt like I was asleep and that they were just dreams, but my husband said I looked wide awake and that I was having strange conversations with him. The next morning, it felt like I had slept better, but it wasn’t a major improvement. For all I know, it could have been a placebo effect. I’m still not really sure.

On night 4, the recommended dose didn’t work as well as the previous nights. I tossed and turned and it didn’t fall asleep until a little after midnight. The next day, I felt tired and groggy. I had a serious case of brain fog. I didn’t want to take the risk of repeating the same pattern on night 5, so I took a slightly larger dose. Things started to take a turn for the worse from there.

The next morning, my husband told me that I had woken him up in the middle of the night because I was thrashing around. He tried to gently wake me up, and when I appeared to be awake, he told me I had mumbled something about having a nightmare and then almost immediately went back to sleep. Again, just like in college, I remembered none of this.

I would have written it off as a one-time incident and kept taking the Ambien if it hadn’t happened again on night six. Unfortunately, my husband became a casualty of my war with sleep that night. I was thrashing around so wildly that I accidentally hit him in the face. I even gave him a fat lip! He took the liberty of throwing out my pills for me, and I thanked him sincerely the next morning for taking the initiative.

My final conclusion for the Ambien experiment this week: total failure. It was unclear to me whether it worked, or whether I was experiencing the benefits of a placebo effect. I developed a tolerance very quickly which forced me to take a larger dose than I should have. And when I took that larger dose I accidentally assaulted my husband while I was unconscious! I’m never trying Ambien again. As a matter of fact, I think I may be done with prescriptions all together. Next week, I’m going to try something that’s safe enough to get over the counter. Check back next week for an update!

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