More On The Dangers of Ambien

I recently posted a topic on the dangers of Ambien, as reported by Fox News.  I have been reading of more people who have become “Ambien statistics” and you will be amazed at what this drug is doing to people.  I found this information on a CFIDS and FM message board that is very popular.  Judge for yourself whether you want to risk taking this drug.   

• One woman was taking Ambien with Lexapro with no complications for about 3 1/2 weeks.   One Monday morning as she was driving to work (a 10 mile drive) and was half way there, she began seeing double and that’s the last thing she remembered.  She said she vaguely remembers hitting the guardrails and wiping out the side of her car.  She remembers nothing after that until a short time after she arrived at work.  Fortunately, she did not hit any other cars or people.  She states that she does not remember the last five miles of the drive or unloading equipment from her car.  A while later she states she “woke up so to speak” and wondered if she had dreamed about crashing her car.  SHe wnet out to check and saw that it had truly happened.  Of course, she reported the incident to her doctor who appeared shocked and was very hesitant to blame this on Ambien.  She says that she felt as though she was in a trance.   

• Another Ambien user says that she would “sleep eat” and was gaining weight because she had no recollection of doing so.

• This Ambien user would get up out of bed, cook whole dinners, bake cookies at 3 a.m., eat it all then go back to bed.  Of course, she would find dirty dishes the next morning and realize what had happened.

• This user would shop and order stuff online and never knows what will show up at her door that she purchased!

• Another Ambien user becamse severely depressed, suicidally depressed which she explains she did not have previously.  After stoppping Ambien, the depression went away.

• This Ambien user would take Ambien, go directly to bed and not be able to fall asleep.  Their doctor upped the dosage and this user would still not fall asleep for a while after taking it.  States they would wake up three to four times a night being really hungry.

There were also a few who posted that said they were not having any side effects with Ambien.  The consensus among the Ambien users who were stating they did not have any side effects said they would go directly to bed after taking it.  Also, users do need to give themselves eight hours of sleep on this medication as well. 

Here is my problem, I also took Ambien and followed the above directions.  However, I was not able to fall asleep with this drug and I, like many others, would wake up “sleep eating”.  I also had hallucinations and would have full conversations with my husband that I did not remember. 

The other problem I have is that apparently this drug has been doing more harm than good, especially when people are not staying asleep, are getting up in the middle of the night and driving around technically in a trance state.  Where is the FDA in all of this and WHY for God’s sake is this drug still on the market? 

The FDA has no concern for our welfare and safety as far as I’m concerned and they know when these drugs are put out on the market what side effects the medications will cause.