Strange behavior symptoms and conditions

It seems most people on here are blaming their "side effects" on the medicine. Could you quite possibly have health issues anyway? what about those people that don't take Singulair and have the exact same symptoms? Is it because they are THINKING about it?
It's one thing to be informed about medication. It's another to go overboard.

Hey. Just a disclaimer, before I list my experience. Keep in mind that everybody is going to react to a new drug differently. All drugs, especially drugs like Ambien CR, come with warnings in bold print and all caps saying that if you experience ANYTHING...ANYTHING abnormal after you start a new medication, to immediately call your doctor or pharmacist. Don't let it get to the point where your loved ones are driving. If you notice things have happened and you have no recollection...CALL YOUR DOCTOR! It takes maybe ten minutes to call your doctor or pharmacist. This ten minutes could potentially save your life and others. This goes for ALL medications, even ones like Tylenol PM.

Okay. Here is my observations of my mother (55 yrs. old) while on Ambien CR.

Ever since she’s been on the medication, I’ve encountered strange behavior on her part. These are the most common:

1. Phone calls, with no particular purpose or intent. She sounds like she is very lonely and just wants to chat, but her speech is slurred and her thoughts impaired. Most of what she says is not in coherent sentences, just mixed up phrases. Sometimes she starts off sounding somewhat normal and then fades into the slurred speech. I usually terminate the conversation once she starts repeating herself, asking questions she had either asked earlier that day or even just minutes before in the same conversation.

2. Eccentric “projects.” She recently said, “I’ve found that after I take my medicine, I get very creative.” This particular comment was after I found her in the kitchen putting Hot Tamales (the candy) in her ice water, after she had taken her medicine. Another time, she was standing on a trunk, trying to put up shades in her window.

3. Binge Eating. Just the other night she baked an entire batch of cookies...and ate them ALL within 30 minutes of them coming out of the oven. This is just one of the many times I've seen her eat like this after taking her medicine.

Overall, she seemingly "stays up" until she either crashes from exhaustion or only after repeated commands to turn off everything and go to sleep. I recently, after researching further, have found out that she actually is asleep, but medications such as Ambien CR can induce a complex form of sleep-walking and talking, as well as sleep-driving (though my mother has never done this.) It looks, to an observer, like the person is aware of their surroundings because they can carry on complex conversations, or complete a complex task, even though, they are really asleep.

The most concerning thing to me is that she walks up and down the stairs (or gets up on things, like the trunk in her bedroom) even though she is consciously aware that she gets dizzy and has little control over her balance. Most of the time she is living alone, so if she happened to trip and fall, it could turn into a very dangerous situation very quickly.

Another note: She only seems to remember her strange actions once she is reminded of them. Sometimes she will remember them accurately, and sometimes she has a distorted memory of the events, but almost always must be reminded of her actions before she has any memory of doing it.

Since me and our family have taken time to talk to my mother about this, she (an RN for over 30 years) is calling her doctor tomorrow to talk about alternative solutions to her insomnia.

I have been on Singulair since I was in the 5th grade and no one could figure out my strange behavior, and now it all makes sense. When I was younger every time I took Singulair I had reactions similar to ADHD, but my mother just thought of it as a normal thing for a child to have extra energy. After these ADHD episodes I would be completely wiped out. I kept to myself in middle school and became obsessed with death. Many would say I was anti-social. The ADHD episodes lasted well into my early high school years until my dosage was doubled to 10MG from 5MG. then it seemed as though everything fell apart I became extremely anti-social, isolating myself from everyone including my family. There were many days where I simply did not speak a word, until the point where my voice was so weak it croaked. I wanted to run away from everyone, I wanted to be alone. I would cry myself to sleep many times, I even started to cut myself, and developed an eating disorder. I hid everything because I didn't know why I felt the way I did. I was afraid that because I didn't know people would think I was crazy. In my junior year I started having suicidal thoughts, planning how I would commit such an act. Luckily for me I started to rebel to what my mother desired for my life. To continue my rebellion there were periods when I stopped taking Singulair. The suicide thoughts slowly diminished but were still present. I started to take Singulair again during my senior year and close to graduation I was about to commit suicide. I felt like I was about to explode. I started to skip dosages until my mother realized I stopped taking my medication again, and she monitored my intake of the medication. Starting college was hard for me not academically but socially and emotionally. I hated going to school. There were times where I would sit in class and wanted to burst out crying. It got so bad that I started to hand papers in late and not hand in any at all, to skipping classes and walking around town until it was time to go home. No one really paid attention to how I felt because they just said that I felt that way because I was a freshmen in college. But I felt that it wasn't so that what I was feeling was getting worst. I couldn't concentrate in class and I was not sleeping well, often only sleeping 2 hours before going to school and starting my day. This semester I have rarely taken Singulair and my emotional well being has increased. I don't know if this is all just some kind of coincidence or if Singulair really does have those effects on people. I hope that the FDA is able to figure it out, but at the same time we should ask ourselves if they would really remove something from the market that is bringing in over 4 billion dollars a year???

I have a 8 year old daughter that has been on Singulair since she was 2 years old. When she first started Singulair, she was also put on Flovent (an inhaled steroid), along with Albuterol for what the doctors call reactive airway disease (similar to asthma). Her triggers were allergies and having a cold. Her first flare up of mood swings alerted me to take my daughter off the Flovent. She seemed to improve a little, but still had behavior/moody issues. I had chalked them up to the "terrible twos", and not really thought much of it. As time went on, I became accustomed to the behavior that my daughter was showing. When the few complaints of stomach pains, headaches, and leg pain came along, I managed to explain them away with reasonable explanations (example: growing pains, eating too much, not enough sleep, etc.). As my daughter went off to school, I heard numerous complaints from her teachers that she lacks focus, cannot complete a task in a timely manner, easily gets distracted, and at times (more than not) is a disruption to the class. At home, I noticed a strange "tick" going on with her blinking, the constant need to repeat herself, and the battles with bursts of crying to get her to do ANYTHING. SOMETHING IS REALLY WRONG!!! I was on the edge of having a full work-up of mental tests. I have her see the school social worker weekly and I keep a constant communication with her teacher regarding her behavior. I decided to look up side effects regarding this medication. I first looked at the website for the manufacturer and saw nothing alarming, nothing about behavior affected side effects. I looked into mental disabilities (autism, aspergers, ADD, ADHD, etc.) and saw no common link to her behavior. Then I came to this site and MY JAW DROPPED!! Everything that my daughter has experienced, TO THE LETTER, has been experienced by other children. The weight gain, the occasional pains, the strange behavior. I decided that NOW is the time to act. I have seen my daughter's doctor and discussed my concerns. We are going to wean her off this stuff starting TODAY! Fear of a serious relapse of breathing problems is making us very cautious. I am kicking myself for not making the connection sooner. Wish us luck that this drug has not destroyed her chances of getting better and that this "asthma" can be controlled another way without such serious side effects.

I had two injections in two weeks last June. Since then I have also noticed an indentation and irregular bleeding. How long does it take before the irregular bleeding subsides and returns to my normal cycle? It is a huge relief to at least realize the source of my body's strange behavior lately, though also a disappointment. Thanks!

I think my eight year old son is having behavioral side effects from taking Singulair. He has become extremely emotional and cries at everything! My husband and I were sorting through our old clothes to give to Hurricane Katrina victims and our son started crying about it. He said, "Aren't you going to miss your old clothes?" He also cried hysterically when we wanted to throw his old sandals away because they were not fitting him properly. He is now afraid to grow anymore because he doesn't want to part with his things. Our household hasn't changed in the least, there doesn't seem to be any reason for this strange behavior. He was a very happy-go-lucky kid before he started taking Singulair. I'm taking him off it now and I'll see if his behavior changes.