A side effect of Ambien -- hallucinations!

I've had sleep troubles from time to time in my life, and have resorted to meds on rare occasions. NEVER had problems with any of these drugs (like Halcyion)

I've had a bad bout with bad insomnia, so finally asked Dr for something. He prescribed Ambien. You know, the one they advertise all the time like Viagra and Nexium.

I took one, started reading a magazine before sleep, and had the weird perception that the people in the magazine were looking back at me! I knew as it was happening that I was having a uncharacteristic perceptual disorientation, and that it was caused by the drug. I never had an experience like this before. Well, now I know what people are talking about when they talk about hallucinations! Now I understand all those movies from the 60s better.

I did a little Google on the subject, and found out that, yes Virginia, you *can* have hallucinations on Ambien. Someone attributed them to a hypnogogic state brought on by the drug's effects. But I sure wasn't expecting it. Imagine -- dear sweet little prescription Ambien, the one with the terrier in the commercial -- causing hallucinations.

Well, maybe I'll take one tonight while watching "Yellow Submarine" and see if it happens again tonight. Ha ha.

Oddly enough, it doesn't affect me very much, and I'm hypersensitive to most medications.

Yeah -- I always thought of myself as Ms No-Med-Side-Effects incarnate, and NEVER expected this.

And you say you often have problems, but not with this drug. Wow -- what variability.

From what I have read, it seems the way to use it most effectively -- that is -- to SLEEP -- is to simply fall asleep after taking it. Staying awake after one has taken it opens the consciousness to these types of hypnogogic-like experiences. Gee -- given that the inability to fall asleep was the reason I took the darn thing in the first place, no wonder I had a problem with it.

I don't remember if I waited for it to kick in to fall asleep, though.

as a standing order for those patients who want something to sleep. None of us experienced nurses EVER give it to someone over 70 who doesn't normally take it!!! We have people who go looney for 3 days on it sometimes! One old guy thought he was in a house of ill repute, it was around Halloween and I had a uniform on with big jacko-lantern pumkins with a black background and he swore I was performing satanic rituals and sacrifices that night!!! He was out of it for 3 days but when he came out of it, he told us he knew he wasn't "right" but couldn't do anything about it. He swears these things he saw! He apologized for the rest of his stay--so did we! I am REALLY conservative with giving Ambien to inpatients!

One lady thought we were holding her hostage in her own house and kept calling 911 to get help! She got combative and hit me. Thankfully she wasn't that strong. She kept wanting to walk off the floor. She said we were going to be arrested for breaking and entering! Pulled her IV out and everything!

My late Mum had Alzheimer's, and I know well of the agitation and combativeness of which you speak. Geez -- on a good day these things are horrid.

To induce them in people with this medication -- my heavens, that is a frightening thought.

BTW -- thanks for all you do, all the care and comfort you provide to people in need. I love nurses. They're the tops.

I'm sorry your mother had Alzheimer's. That is a saddening and dreadful disease! I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. As much as I never liked President Reagan, I hate it that he is afflicted with the disease. We nurses who deal with Alzheimers patients are very aware of our own forgetfulness and are always in fear of developing it.

Sometimes, if the older patient gets combative or agitated after a drug for a long period of time, they often wonder if Alheimers or dementia is present or the drug effects. Most of the time it's the drug but the disease often mimmicks side effects like this especially when those afflicted with the disease are taken out of their own surroundings. I'm sure you know how they cycle into a day or so of no sleep and agitation and then a day or so of solid sleep and you wonder if they're okay. Then they come out of it and things get better especially once they return to their usual surroundings and routine.

No, I don't like that disease at all. I don't like the Ambien either!

My mother probably had it for a long time, but it is such an incidious illness that some of its symptoms might be passed off as eccentricities, personality problems, or mood swings. She had so many other health problems that the Alzheimer's got lost in all of the others. It wasn't until she was in Stage 3 that it became clear that she was afflcited with it.

I think that is what happened with President Reagan too -- he probably had it a long time, and it began to surface while he was president. Boy -- that was a tough one to call.... In hindsight, I think Mrs Reagan handled the situation well, and that others, which will not be named here but are now operating out in the open of the Bush 2 administration, took advantage of his illness and ran their black ops out from behind his chair. I feel deep compassion for President Reagan and his family -- my horror of this illness transcends politics.

You sound like a highly skilled nurse, and you are certainly an angel of mercy to the tragic people in your care. I have a sense of what you work with, and I am full of admiration and respect for you.

Your clinical experiences with this drug are very interesting, troubling, and are duly noted. I have a feeling that Ambien is going to be making the headlines one of these days....

tend to go bonkers for a day or two is because their metabolism is slower than a younger person and it takes longer for the drug to get out of the system. An older person's absorption in the stomach is slower and it takes a longer time to build up and then break down in the body and then get rid of through waste! Imagine if an older person had kidney insufficiency or failure and if the drug given is wasted through the kidneys....it would take even longer. That's just an example of why it takes longer for older people to get over medication side effects like Ambien.

Bzzzzzz... Felt like I was flying.

There was nothing scary about my experience, it was actually kind of fascinating and a window onto a concept I knew of but had never experienced. I also never lost overall judgement, and knew while it was happening that it was the drug.

Still, this insomnia has had such a trashing effect on my mind that I have not been functioning all that well overall, that I am (perhaps overly) cautious about opening my already very tired brain to such experiences.

But maybe it's just like dreaming while still awake, and nothing to worry about.

From what I have read on the subject, this experience of Ambien is not uncommon. Now, if I were one in a million, that would be one thing, but it sounds as though I am one in quite a few. Interesting that a drug with this high of a rate of "side effects" would be marketed so agressively.

But I floated around my dorm room and saw pretty colors. :-)

That it's like dreaming while still awake.

I would be afraid to try it myself after what I see, but I see many younger people take it without any problems. They sleep like babies. It just depends on the person and their chemistry, I think. I've seen some where it seems as if they never took anything and they don't sleep at all. One doctor gave it to my mom and she says it works for her and the doctor told her it doesn't give you the groggy effect in the morning like other sleeping pills???:shrug:

For those of you who want to try it, I would advise you not to mix it with alcohol!!! NEVER NEVER NEVER! Just like many other drugs! You may not wake up!

I'll definitely pick some up tomorrow.

:headbang:

I was given Darvon for pain and was amazed at how that affected me. MAJOR personality shifts and some "visions" that just blew me away.

My personal favorite was the conversation I was having with Satan where I was explaining to him that he had no influence with me, that I just felt he was a terrible waste of my time and not worth the energy to acknowledge...

While it was going on, I remember being acutely aware that it wasn't REAL--but I was totally unable to stop it or escape from it. Maybe a history of hallucinogen use offered some sort of ability to cope with it, but it is most certainly not something I wanted a repeat performance of.

I've told the doc NEVER to give me that stuff again under any circumstances.


Laura

What -- little Darvon? The thing I took when I had my appendix out? Sure as heck didn't effect me that way! I wonder how typical your experience was.

Weird. Gee -- maybe sometimes its the idiosyncrasies of our personal brain chemistry that causes this to happen with some compounds but not with others.

I remember as a child my mother reported "tripping" while in the hospital on a pain med. It scared her as it happened, but she later said she would like to experience it again, and just sit back and enjoy it. We always wondered what the HECK they had her on, but your story makes me think they could have had her on something like, well, Darvon -- and had this experience

I've been on propoxyphene -- Darvon -- for intractable pain from ear operations I had in the 1970s. I'd say I haven't been Darvon-free for more than three weeks since 1980.

It's a great pain-control drug. It never had much of a psychotropic effect on me, which is why I favored it over Percocet. And I am able to stop taking it periodically without a withdrawl syndrome.

But I also found LSD to be a rather mild experience. Everybody's different.

--bkl

It must be interesting, having such perceptual distortions, while simultaneously retaining cognitive ability to analyse what's going on.

You have to keep bringing them back to reality and keep reminding them what is going on and what is happening to them constantly to keep them calm. If you keep letting them know that they aren't the only ones who know what's going on with them then they seem to go with it until it subsides. It takes alot of reorienting though! Then they gain trust in you (most of the time) and then when they come out of it they like thank you up and down for helping them and not thinking they are some looneytune!

because I read somewhere a while ago that most of the bush cabinet is on this drug. Seriously. I've been googling it, but there's so many ads for ambien it's hard to find. This is from a blog:

Powell lets a big one slip:


"So do you use sleeping tablets to organize yourself?" Al-Rashed asked.

"Yes. Well, I wouldn't call them that," Powell said. "They're a wonderful medication -- not medication. How would you call it? They're called Ambien, which is very good. You don't use Ambien? Everybody here uses Ambien."

Really? Some folks across the river may conclude that explains a lot.

From
http://www.benfrank.net/nuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=180

I imagine they take a pretty heavy dosage. Probly Prozac'd up during the day too.

Luckily, when I had this hallucination, I had a "context" that made me understand that it was an anomaly.

Maybe George W sees burning bushes and the painting of Jesus talking to him, and thinks it's real. Bases his policies on what the pattern on the bedspread tells him to.

If this turns up in Woodward's next book -- I will NOT be surprised.

And all the characters on Deputy Dogg were in my living room… like wow! I didn't even own a television at time.

Walking blackouts, delusions, wild mood swings. No fun to be around.

wouldn't you just be zzzzzzzzzzzzz......

and someone is attempting to use it as a tranquilizer rather than a sleep inducing hypnotic

He thinks sleeping pills and tranquilizers are the same thing? Ooops.

Does he just talk to his doctor about the pills he sees advertised on tv, and try to improvise? Oh my!

Aw come on -- you CAN'T be serious. Come on.

Really? He takes a hypnotic sedative during the DAY?

He holds a job despite walking blackouts, delusions, mood swings? May I inquire as to what professional capacity he occupies? (Hey -- are you really Colin Powell?)

What the heck is his rationalization for taking sleeping pills during the day? Even the notorious Keith Moon didn't start the sleeping pills until very late at night....

What do you think is wrong with the guy? Seriously. I've never heard of such a case.

but I had a similar experience after I got a meningitis vaccination. A few hours after the shot, I was exhausted but couldn't quite fall asleep so I started watching Red Dwarf DVDs which became extremely 3D. And it looked like the characters were moving around to avoid the dust mites in the air.

My dad's a doctor, and I used to work at his office after hours and, ahem, poke through the plethora of samples the pharma companies would drop off.

Anyway, he had a bunch of Ambien and I've always struggled with insomnia, so I brought home a pack and...wow! Awesome sleep, and no fuzzy feeling the next day. But no hallucinations. Too bad! LOL

I've since told him, of course, and while he didn't mind, he said they were too strong for someone who only experiences insomnia once in a while.

I dunno...I really liked 'em! Now I just take Tylenol PM, which I despise. Maybe I need to go to my regular GP and see if I can get a prescription for Ambien. I just don't want to become addicted to it.

I don't have much to tell. They produce a surprising amount of amnesia for me. The first time I took one, I lost all recall of the preceding day and a half.

The pharmaceutical companies are idiotic. They test drugs for one set of effects only, and then act like nothing happened when the real side-effects start piling up.

--bkl

:silly:

to get me back on a normal sleep cycle. It has made a real difference in the quality of my sleep. I have been waking up tired for so long I'd forgotten what a good night's sleep felt like.

I suggest you talk to your doctor about Remeron; it has been a miracle drug for me.

When I was in high school, I had a difficult time sleeping. I had horrible insomnia. A psychiatrist instructed me to take L-Tryptophan, which was available over the counter at that time. My god, I hallucinated every time I took the tablets. The experience was horrendous. It was as though I had waking dreams, or shall I call them waking nightmares, all night long. Let me tell you, it was not that pleasant "post thanksgiving dinner" drowsiness, it was awful.

if the latter, send them to me!