Posted by yxibow on February 10, 2009, at 2:44:28
In reply to How often can Ambien be taken??, posted by AdamCanada2 on February 10, 2009, at 2:18:52
> I cannot bare an average of 2 and a half hours of sleep a day as I have in the previous week or longer on parnate (initially it would not give insomnia only later on).
>
> Today magically was the one day in a while I been able to sleep more than 5 hours. A miracle surely but I cannot be sure one day will mean this will continue.... because if that trend of 0 hours one day and 4-5 another, then 0, then 4-5, continues then I will resort to screaming at people in the emergency room if I am not prescribed a proper sleep aid.
>
> My life is on the line here. My health.
>
> Please inform me a bit about the risks of taking Ambien on a regular basis or if the risks are extremely minimal.
There are always "unknown risks" of any sleep agent, especially after the FDA basically did some *ss protection and labelled the entire list of them as having possible effects from sleep walking and doing entire tasks in the middle of the night without knowing it. These are rare effects. Any rare effect can happen.
The greater risk though really here, is habituation. Ambien is generally labelled for about a week's use -- possibly up to four weeks.
Lunesta, whether it was a longer term trial, or for other reasons, has been marketed and approved as a longer term sleep aid.
Both of them are pseudo-benzodiazepines. They do carry a risk of habituation, when that happens is unclear and varies by person, genetics, and weight and metabolism among other things.
I would say taking Ambien beyond a month or two could be a risk for habituation.I understand sleep problems, I have a probable sleep disorder myself.
It is fairly rare to die of a lack of sleep because sooner or later the human body will adjust to some sleep cycle -- however sleep deprivation (under 5 hours or so of sleep) ultimately of course is extremely unhealthy. I didn't say it was easy and I didn't say people haven't died of other reasons because of sleep deprivation.
I have been through soporific and sleep medications, including Restoril (weak, considering I am not benzodiazepine naive) doxepin (odd chills), amitriptyline (worked but I can't take it because I take clomipramine, Anafranil), and finally doxylamine succinate (Unisom).You can take doxylamine with Parnate. You cannot take TCAs such as amitriptyline or doxepin, among others.
The diphenhydramine (Benadryl) formulation of Unisom and other similar brands potentially may have more anticholinergic effects and is believed by some to be a moderate interaction but probably not too much more than doxylamine.
I personally don't like Benadryl because it leaves me more depressed and groggy the next day than doxylamine. But this may be different for others.
-- I hope that helps
-- Jay
poster:yxibow
thread:879201
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090203/msgs/879202.html