With insomnia being one of the symptoms of CFS and FM, I have tried practically every sleeping aid so far I believe! My body tends to build up a tolerance to meds rather quickly, so the doctor has to keep switching my meds so that I can get some sleep.
I was prescribed Ambien a couple of years ago by the rheumatologist, who was treating me for CFIDS/FM at that time. He started me on 10 mg. to be taken an hour before bedtime. At first, I did not have any problems with the drug. I was able to fall asleep okay rather quickly. However, I did not stay asleep all night and I would get up in the middle of the night rather frequently and start eating. Then once I began to build up a tolerance to Ambien, I would be awake for hours even after I took the pill. I would be “awake”, but I would have full conversations with my husband and do other things that I would not remember the next day. I shared my concerns with my doctor about this and he just kind of blew me off and increased the dosage to 20 mg. at night. Later, after I did some research, I found out that this was way too dangerous to be taking that much. So, I began taking the 20 mg. at night and I started having hallucinations, and the other symptoms persisted. I refused to take Ambien any longer and started on another prescription for sleep.
Just recently, FOX News did a segment on accidents being on the rise due to Ambien. People are taking the drug and then getting in their vehicles and driving, and they do not realize what they are doing. They also reported on the amount of people taking the drug “sleep eating” and having hallucinations.
See article here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,188040,00.html
Here is another example of the FDA knowing that a drug is this dangerous, but because the pharmaceutical companies can make tons of money off of it, these side effects and dangers are kept silent when a new drug is first marketed. Then after a couple of years and several statistics, the truth comes out. This is why I have been slowly getting myself off all prescriptions.
The prescriptions we are taking are slowly killing us and the FDA knows it; the pharmaceutical companies know it too. Each prescription we take causes side effects and other diseases. The sick will just keep getting sicker unless we research and find alternatives. That is what I am in the process of doing now.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to find natural alternatives yet that help me sleep effectively, but I haven’t had any prescriptions that do that either. This might be one area where using both together might be my only recourse.
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