Posted by paxvox2000 on April 19, 2002, at 18:09:36
In reply to Ambien or Sonata ???, posted by Optimistic on April 19, 2002, at 10:11:29
I have used both Ambien (still) and Sonata. Both have VERY short half-lives, so as the others have said, the don't last long. Sonata made me very anxious, and may have triggered panic attacks in me. I had taken Ambien for a few years from my GP, had my Pdoc get me off of it as soon as I started seeing him about 4 years ago. Finally, got on it again about 6 months ago, and use 15mg of Tranzene (very weak benzo) along with it. I saw a post the other day, which I tried, to try and deal with the short time of sleep from Ambien, and that was to take another 5 mg if I woke up and still had at least 4 hours of "bed" time. That worked for me, but I don't know if my GP will change my dose to do that. I could try 5 and 5 and see what that does. Anyway, w/o a benzo supplement, you are only going to get a few hours of straight sleep with either Ambien or Sonata. There is some discussion whether or not these meds are addictive, personally, I believe they clearly CAN be. But I took Ambien for at least 2 years at one point w/o increasing dose. It may lose its efficacy after awhile, but that too is not objectively true across the board for all.
My advice? If you can tolerate Ambien, it is the better of the two, but try to get the benzo booster to maintain your sleep.PAX
poster:paxvox2000
thread:103523
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020416/msgs/103591.html