After just one dose of Ambien I experienced my 1st panic attack. ...

After just one dose of Ambien I experienced my 1st panic attack. I was 38 weeks pregnant and my physician prescribed it since I was not sleeping for more than 30 min at a time because of the urge to urinate as the baby was compressing my bladder. I took it again thinking that maybe it wasn't the Ambien and I began having daily panic attacks. These episodes didn't last minutes as do regular panic attacks they lasted 4 and 5 hours. My husband, a physician, noticed that my heart was not beating rapidly as it usually would during a regular panic attack, I was actually having bradycardia (low heart rate). He still didn't put the side effects I was having and the Ambien together. After being seen by multiple physicians I was admitted to the hospital for these severe attacks and after having an echocardiogram, a CT of my brain, and multiple lab draws a psychiatrist finally examined me and took my history realizing these panic attacks had never happen prior to my taking the Ambien. He took me off the drug and within 48 hrs this awful hell started to lift. It took me a year to get over the post traumatic shock from this horrible 4 weeks of my life. I gave birth to my newborn and was unable to care for her or even myself while experiencing the side effects caused by this hellish drug. Meg in Sugar Land