Ambien CR side effects

Responding to chap56:
If you have a problem with Ambien CR, then don't take it. Wanting to take it off the market for other people is totally over reacting and rather selfish though on the surface it would appear well-meaning. We don't need you to act like a nanny for other people, for whom Ambien is a wonder drug, like myself. And no, I don't work for the makers of Ambien, I've just had insomnia for many years.

Started taking Ambien CR about 2 1/2 months ago- started at 6.25 mg, then increase to 12.5 (double the dose). I have always had thick luxurious hair and within the past 3 weeks have noticed significant hair loss, almost as if I was on Chemo. The first day I noticed I was in the shower washing my hair and I heard someone screaming, only to realize that the screams were coming from me. My hair was falling out in pelts! Thick plugs of hair were all over my tub, so much so you could have made a wig from it. Now my hair has thinned so much and continues to fill my bathroom waste basket and brushes, that I have been looking into wigs! I am a 45 yr old female and have never had this happen. My MD says it could be stress related, I told him it must be now because there isn't a morning that goes by that this isn't stressing me out and is putting me in tears constantly. Has anyone ever had this side effect before?
DRC

Sadly, I too have had a series of horrific experiences while "on" Ambien... though, at the time, I had no idea what I was doing and only found out after the fact that I had made a total fool of myself. I shut down a pool party at a neighbor's house one evening after apparently calling to complain about the noise they were making. Two hours prior, I was attending the same party. I went home, took an Ambien, crawled into bed, and was apparently up and around and making crazy phone calls with absolutely no recall of the events. Before I stopped taking it completely, my husband would just take the phones and the car keys away from me as soon as I took the medication and then had to put up with my insanity until I would just pass out. I have suffered major depression, confusion, poor impulse control, poor judgment, and have basically been an embarrassment and an impossible person to deal with when I have been on Ambien. I have tingling in my lips and tongue, tremendous lethargy, extreme mood swings and exhibit totally irrational and insane behavior... all without the faintest idea of what I am doing, and absolutely no memory of it after the fact; only the humiliating reports of family, friends and neighbors of my psychotic behavior. Ambien is an extremely dangerous drug and if I could mount an effort to get it taken off the market, I would. Where do we start?

My experience with Ambien CR is from a family member point of view. My father-in-law has only been taking it for 2 weeks and I was unaware of any side effects, until last night. My husband & I live directly across the street from my father-in-law - so at about 9:30 pm we received a call from his dad saying he had fell (he is not an elderly man either - 44 yrs. old) walking to his door & needed help up. He told my husband he had taken 2 - 5mg of Ambien about 40 minutes ago so he was tired & going to bed- so my husband walked him into the house. Everything seemed okay so he came home. An hour later I went out on our porch and noticed his dad was lying at the end of the drive way face up not moving. I yelled for my husband and he went over and woke his dad up - my husband & brother-in-law helped him in the house. He got undressed and got into bed.
About 20 minutes later (I was still on the porch at this point) I saw him walk out of the house AGAIN and get a beer out of the cooler and start walking down the street in his underwear. I again yelled for my husband and when he caught up to him he was talking to the shrubs and telling my husband our neighbors cat was out (which it wasn't) and he was trying to catch it. Again we put him in his room and told him to lay down - which he did. We went home and were watching a movie in the living room and all of sudden we hear his dad's truck start up! My husband ran out the door - thankfully in time to catch him. His dad proceeded to tell him he needed to go get ice for the cooler (which BTW - was full of ice) and he is still just in his underwear. We convince him to come inside and lay down (at this point very argumentative). This time my husband stays there for a long time. An hour later he came out again ate half a gallon of ice cream and went to bed. This morning he got up went to work and has no memory of anything that I just described.
This medication seems horrible. My husband caught him the other night eating a pack of 20 cupcakes and didn't realize he was sleepwalking/eating. The more I read about this medication it seems like our trouble is just beginning. I just fear that one night we won't be home and something will happen to him or someone else. Please consider all the risks before taking it - it not only effects you, it puts your family at risk also.

Ambien CR is the only prescription that will allow me to sleep in a hotel, but it is a double edged sword. After about 2 days of using I get migraine headaches. Last week we took our family vacation and I took it for 7 nights in a row. Our timing of our vacation was bad because the day after we got back my husband went out of town (another thing that causes me not to sleep). For the last 4 nights I have taken 1mg of Lunesta. The headaches presisit but I see a light at the end of the tunnel. Tonight I am back to what works best for me Melatonin

For me extended use of Ambien CR causes Migraines. It has time and time again. I know it will happen and in extreme cases (vacation, death in the family) I will choose getting sleep over having the migraine.

Occasional 1 time use of Ambien CR does not cause me to have a migraine the following day.

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.

hi I take ambien CR 12.5 mg as needed, and have for about the last two months. recently is worked fine, but in the past if I've taken a nap that day or drank a little caffeine I think it didn't work as well. But more recently on the days it's worked, I can remember waking up after about 8 hours but not 'jumping out of bed' um more somber? Like I went to get a haircut one morning and just remember feelings kind of like depressed mood. um maybe not all because of the ambien!

I have taken Ambien CR for several years. I experience many of the side effects others are, but now I find I have chewed my fingernails off. I wake up in the morning with fingernails in the bed, but I do not remember doing this and would never do it during the day.

My wife started on 6.25 dosage for her inability to sleep properly. It helped her sleep. However, the 6.25 stopped being responsive and her MD prescribed her a higher dosage. Once she started taking the higher dosage, her thought process was impaired and had extreme pressure headaches along the head, face and neck. Her mind was so screwed up that she started to have suicidal thoughts and intense feelings of fear that she would start to have panic attacks. I do not know how these drugs get FDA approved. Went to a naturopath who did a hormone test and found that her hormones were unbalanced. Went on bio-identical hormone replacement therapy and she is herself again. She is also able to sleep properly.

My mother started taking Ambien CR around a year ago about this time last summer. Almost immediately I noticed a severe change in her mood and demeanor. She started experiencing tremendous mood swings, delusions, paranoid and aggressive thoughts, sleepwalking, eating and others activities while asleep and waking up not remembering a thing. In a matter of 4 months she had totally lost the ability to think or care for herself. Her house was about to be foreclosed on because she hadn't paid any of her bills in 4 months! Not only that she had been throwing away all of he mail and business information so even when I tried to take over the finances I couldn't because there was no paper work left to find anywhere in the house. To top it all off she was going through the process of preparing for a surgery on her back that she had been waiting for almost a year.
The surgery was supposed to last a few hours and then she would have to stay in the hospital for 1 week for recovery and then do a couple more weeks of rehabilitation. By this point though she had been taking the Ambien every night for about 5 months and at 2am about twelve hours after surgery I received a call from the hospital saying that my mother was catching a cab home from the hospital and had signed herself out against doctors advice. They also told me that she was having paranoid delusions that people were watching her from the parking lot of the hospital and that the hospital was trying to overly drug her up. My mother confirmed these statements as the security guard handed her the phone to try to have me persuade her to stay.
She couldn't remember anything or do anything and her delusions were getting worse. One evening it got to the point where the delusions combined with her back pain sent her by ambulance into the emergency room. While going thru intake she couldn't even answer basic questions like her name and age with out prompting from me to have her answer. This brought up a huge response from the intake nurse who asked if the only reason for the visit was back pain or if something else was wrong. She was then transported to a crisis center for an evalutation, which made her mood severely extreme she became verbally aggressive defensive and paranoid. Before the crisis center could even complete an evaluation they had to come and ask me about her basic medical history because she couldn't even correctly give them that information.
After they finished the evaluation they came to the conclusion that my 49 year old mother either had schizophrenia or dementia! These two mental disabilities do not just manifest themselves in people who them and their families have no history. The interviewer, staff, and doctors were at a complete loss and had no idea what was going on or creating my mother’s mood swings and bizarre behavior. They tried to threaten her to get her to sign herself inpatient saying that if she had come back again she would not have a choice but that didn't work. State law requires that only a person that is harm to himself or herself or someone else can be admitted into an impatient crisis ward and since she had made no such threat nothing could be done.
I started to talk to her doctors finding out that they were noticing the came bizarre behaviors that were not present before and accumulating a list of medications that she was on. After fully investigating the possibility of a drug interaction between the medications and the possibility that she was experiencing psychosis and finding out that that again was not the cause I became even more discouraged and frantic. Then I started to talk to some of the students at my college and found out that they were also experiencing the same problems either in their own lives or with their loved ones the only commonality between the collections of people I talked to that were experiencing the same problems was the drug Ambien. I immediately called my mothers doctor and he advised me that must be source of the problem and for her to stop taking the medicine. It took about 2months for my mothers’ mental state to return to normal but it has taken over a year and a bankruptcy to clear away the damage that Ambien had created in her life.

I was taking Ambien for about a year not knowing about any side effects I was having. I'd wake up in the morning and wonder who had the mid-night meals, there would be missing laundry (found washed and folded). But what made me stand up and take notice was that one night I apparently drank, got into my vehical had drove to the store, not getting anything and not making it back home either. I got into an accident hitting a block wall, and not being awake during any of it. I totalled my vehicle and by the grace of God I didn't hurt anyone. I am now fighting a DUI all because I had taken Ambien and was alsleep during everything. I know realize the mid-night meals and laundry bandit must have been me..

My husband took Ambien for about 4 months when he was experiencing severe insomnia. (He would go days without being able to sleep!) The Ambien majorly messed with his head!! The best way to describe it is that it made him STUPID! Its so sad, but true. He couldnt think!! his head was foggy. Do not confuse this with him being sleepy. It was NOT sleepyness, or drowsiness. It was his thought process. the brain itself! Simple things became hard to do. He'd forget EVERYTHING!!

The straw that broke the camels back was when he almost got in 2 SERIOUS car accidents. One day on his way to work he was pulling out of a gas station right into traffic. He said he didnt even look! he just drove without thinking!!! By the grace of GOD alone did he not kill someone or get killed himself!! Then the last time, where I put my foot down... My husband went to make a left turn into a store parking lot... but he was in the right hand lane!!! So he turned right into the left lane of traffic and we got t-boned by another woman. THANK GOD it was at slow speeds. Both lanes just started off from a red light, so we were all going less than 20 mph. But the accident was almost hard to believe! If i wasnt there I would have never believed he would do such a STUPID thing!!!!!! Both incidents were within the same week!!

At work that week too he locked himself out of the one office and had to call his boss to come let him in.... (thought there was a problem with his key) the problem was he had the deadbolt locked! It never even dawned on him to unlock that part too!! Now mind you he's been employed here for 3 years! He's been in and out of this door a million times!

My husband is a brilliant man!!! Went to college for Civil Engineering, is a math wizard, among many other things! He has a squeaky clean driving record! This isnt a case of him just being an idiot on his own merits. This medicine was seriously messing with his head!!!!! he said he felt like he had no control over his mind. He had no "quick" thinking!

I called his doctor to ask if it was the Ambien CR or possibly another medication (he takes meds for blood pressure) and the doctor said to stop the Ambien because that was the newest medication. Within a week of stopping it, my husband got his mind back!! It was night and day!!!

This is the worst medication and I will not be surprised if its pulled from the market! Its one thing to give someone a headache, or maybe make them gain a little weight. These things arent dangerous. But when it messes with critical thinking and thought processes....this is DANGEROUS!! I have no doubt in my mind my husband would have ended up killing himself in a car accident if he didnt stop that medication when he did!

I was taking Ambien CR for almost a year. Until I stopped taking it I didn't realize all the side effects I was suffering. I was taking almost every night. I started getting yeast infections about a month after I started taking it. They continued every single month for the next 7 months, sometimes twice in one month. It got to the point that OTC meds were not curing it. The doctor prescribed a med for it and it still didn't help. I have been trying to figure out excatly what behavior (eg:diet, laundry soap) I had changed in the last year when it dawned on me. They started around the time I started taking Ambien CR. I started researching side effects of Ambien CR and in the very very fine print it lists Vaginitis. There it is. Somewhere I read that only .01% of women suffer this side effect, figures it would be me. I stopped taking Ambien immediately, the yeast infection that I was getting started to go away on its own. I bought an OTC med to help it go away and I feel great! Haven't had another one since.

Other side effects that I noticed after I stopped taking it were headaches, short tempered, confusion, short-term memory loss, hair loss. I haven't had a headache since the last day I took Ambien CR. I had absolutely no patience while I was taking it. I would lose my temper in a flash. I haven't felt as angry since I stopped taking it. I didn't realize how crappy I was feeling every day until I stopped taking it.

I think Ambien might be okay for occasional use but not every night like I was taking it.

obsessive thinking, suicidal thoughts, delusional thinking, confused thinking