I have been taking 10 mg of Ambien for the last ten years. I have tried melatonin but it did not work for me. I understand that it is important to be under a doctor's supervision when you cut back on Ambien. Anyone here who has been successful in terms of cutting back/quitting Ambien?
My sleep issues continue since weaning myself off an Ambien-equivalent a few years ago. At the time my worst side effect was a deep, strong, unpleasant, debilitating, short lived vibration in my head that came frequently then occurred infrequently for several years. Oddly, I get that same nasty zap when I am awakened at night, presumably because of low blood oxygen levels since I have to gulp for air and I feel I was on the edge of death. So I am left wondering whether there is a connection between the drug and the low oxygen levels. So much for anti-anxiety and sleep-promoting meds.
I felt forced into trying Ambien at the time because of single parenthood and work demands, not that my sleep was even helped so I could function better. I only use cannabis now to calm my busy and fretful mind, and I accept bad patches of insomnia as best I can. Oh, and can’t work anymore, needless to say. Nobody wants a brainy, bitchy zombie in the workplace.
You might want to post this as a new separate question, because people who have the answer may not find your question buried in this one -- just a thought.
For me, it boils down to this: If you are worried about dementia, so are a lot of us, so, fair -- just like cancer or heart disease or shingles, it's worth deciding what we are willing to do to make it less likely we will get sick. If you are especially worried about dementia and ambien, and you would feel better if you stopped using it, how hard would it be to stop -- what would you do instead? Are there other changes you could make that reduce the risk of dementia? There's a whole suite of behaviors we can work on that have been shown to reduce the risk of dementia, and living your life worried is reason enough to try them.
I have not taken ambien as long as you have, but my husband has been taking it for decades, and he's a sharp guy. If he stopped taking it, his life would be awful, which would not be worth the small chance that he might get dementia earlier than he otherwise would, if he gets dementia at all.
In the interests of having the facts, here are two recent studies of insomnia and drugs that are kind of technical, but useful. This study (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34955792/) found benzodiazepines correlate with cognitive impairment, but found that the z-drugs (including zolpidem, which is ambien) did not. This study (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40108057/) found that both zolpidem and benzodiazepine use correlated with Alzheimers and dementia.
How to make sense of this? First, depending on how you do the analysis and the data you use, ambien may or may not correlate with dementia, so the relationship isn't very strong. Second, this is statistical, meaning that it's going to be true for some people, not true for other people, and no one can tell which is which. Therefore, even if some people who take ambien are more likely to get dementia (or people who get dementia are more likely to have insomnia first, because that's another way to read the data), that might or might not be you or me.
I can say that there are a ton of things that statistically make it more or less likely that we will get dementia, and more studies are being done all the time that find more of them. Some of them are really clear and you can test for, like having the APOE4 gene. Most of them are just playing the odds. There are so many that I've kind of stopped letting them run my life, even though I have a strong family history of dementia, which both my parents had for years. I went through a couple of years of freaking out after my mother died, but now I just casually keep on top of what's going on in that world, in case I run into something useful. I have a family history of colon cancer, too, and make sure I get tested. I care, but I no longer worry all the time -- I'm just kind of past that.
But as I say, I spent a couple of years in that head space, so I get it.
For me, it boils down to this: If you are worried about dementia, so are a lot of us, so, fair -- just like cancer or heart disease or shingles, it's worth deciding what we are willing to do to make it less likely we will get sick. If you are especially worried about dementia and ambien, and you would feel better if you stopped using it, how hard would it be to stop -- what would you do instead? Are there other changes you could make that reduce the risk of dementia? There's a whole suite of behaviors we can work on that have been shown to reduce the risk of dementia, and living your life worried is reason enough to try them.
I have not taken ambien as long as you have, but my husband has been taking it for decades, and he's a sharp guy. If he stopped taking it, his life would be awful, which would not be worth the small chance that he might get dementia earlier than he otherwise would, if he gets dementia at all.
In the interests of having the facts, here are two recent studies of insomnia and drugs that are kind of technical, but useful. This study (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34955792/) found benzodiazepines correlate with cognitive impairment, but found that the z-drugs (including zolpidem, which is ambien) did not. This study (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40108057/) found that both zolpidem and benzodiazepine use correlated with Alzheimers and dementia.
How to make sense of this? First, depending on how you do the analysis and the data you use, ambien may or may not correlate with dementia, so the relationship isn't very strong. Second, this is statistical, meaning that it's going to be true for some people, not true for other people, and no one can tell which is which. Therefore, even if some people who take ambien are more likely to get dementia (or people who get dementia are more likely to have insomnia first, because that's another way to read the data), that might or might not be you or me.
I can say that there are a ton of things that statistically make it more or less likely that we will get dementia, and more studies are being done all the time that find more of them. Some of them are really clear and you can test for, like having the APOE4 gene. Most of them are just playing the odds. There are so many that I've kind of stopped letting them run my life, even though I have a strong family history of dementia, which both my parents had for years. I went through a couple of years of freaking out after my mother died, but now I just casually keep on top of what's going on in that world, in case I run into something useful. I have a family history of colon cancer, too, and make sure I get tested. I care, but I no longer worry all the time -- I'm just kind of past that.
But as I say, I spent a couple of years in that head space, so I get it.
Have been taking Ambien for 25 years thanks to a reaction to chemo!
Once my old doctor retired I was given a new PCP, whom I don't think she was far from coming out of residency! She said it was "ADICTIVE"!
She put me on a new better drug.
I started taking it without backing off the Ambien slowly, she was new!
Within a week ai had MONSTOR HEADACHES! I stopped it, called her and she said to stop also.
When I got home from my trip I felt ok!
That next night I got up from bed "SLEEPWALKING" which i have never done and fell down 20' 0f stairs and did a face plant on the tile floors.
They diagnosed me with a TBI. Took me 6 months to recover! NEEDLESS TO SAY I FIRED HER THE NEXT TIME I AWOKE FROM THE COMA!
I have been taking Ambien ever sense!
A hard lesson I learned is to not drink alcohol taking it!
I'm aware of dementia! But I am 78, so when it happens, it happens! Not worried!
Do what feels best to you! Let your body lead you, not the medical industry!
Sundance, aka RB
Hi Jim,
Not sure what is meant by "excludes " REM, but I don't believe zolpidem or other sedative hypnotic medications exclude or eliminate REM.
That said, sleep medications, including zolpidem, usually have some effects on sleep stages, including REM, and are usually not recommended for long term use.
Hopefully you can discuss with your provider, med strategies, cognitive therapy, and what may help your situation.
Ambien is associated with memory loss and there is lots of evidence of that. One does not remember what they have sometimes done when they are sleeping via Ambien, or Lunesta for that matter.
Elderly can take both, as long as their kidneys are in tip top shape, otherwise the dose needs to be modified to match kidney function, just like all drugs.
There is no such thing as dementia, either. That is an ageist term that should NEVER be used when referencing people age 55+ and anyone over 55 should be highly offended if the word is used in reference to anyone you love and care about.
There is however, loss of presence of mind and that loss comes in degrees. There is no such thing as loss of memory, there is however, loss of brain cells related to being able to recall thought due to brain surgery or tumor invasion but that isn't exclusive to those over 55+.
When a person 25 yo who has had brain surgery and can't "recall" their mother's name, no one calls it "dementia".
What an ageist word, rather in the same classification as the
a disgusting word used for black persons.
I have been on the generic Ambien for the last 27 years. I have a cortisol issue where I can't go to sleep until late into the night and early morning. MY body clock is flipped. That is why I take it to have a normal life. I get plenty of REM stage sleep. I track my stages of sleep with a Fitbit watch. I get almost 21% of my sleep in the REM stage. I have problems getting deep sleep and have been working on that. I have found that if I go to bed between 10:30 and 11:00 PM I can get deep sleep. I have had to train myself to take my pill within 30 minutes of wanting to go to sleep. If I am not sleepy and stay up, then I get less deep sleep. If I go to bed even though I don't feel sleepy, I drop off. I get good sleep,p so I have accepted that this is just the way it is. I have no side effects except fighting that cortisol if I wake up earlier than 7:oo AM. I usually get on average 7 to 8 hours of good sleep.
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My sleep issues continue since weaning myself off an Ambien-equivalent a few years ago. At the time my worst side effect was a deep, strong, unpleasant, debilitating, short lived vibration in my head that came frequently then occurred infrequently for several years. Oddly, I get that same nasty zap when I am awakened at night, presumably because of low blood oxygen levels since I have to gulp for air and I feel I was on the edge of death. So I am left wondering whether there is a connection between the drug and the low oxygen levels. So much for anti-anxiety and sleep-promoting meds.
I felt forced into trying Ambien at the time because of single parenthood and work demands, not that my sleep was even helped so I could function better. I only use cannabis now to calm my busy and fretful mind, and I accept bad patches of insomnia as best I can. Oh, and can’t work anymore, needless to say. Nobody wants a brainy, bitchy zombie in the workplace.
Hi
I’ve been taking ambien for little over 10 years.
I’m scared of getting dementia. Is it ok to take it so worried,
Thank you
Is it true that Ambien sleep excludes the REM stage?
Anyone have the facts?
Thanks.
You might want to post this as a new separate question, because people who have the answer may not find your question buried in this one -- just a thought.
For me, it boils down to this: If you are worried about dementia, so are a lot of us, so, fair -- just like cancer or heart disease or shingles, it's worth deciding what we are willing to do to make it less likely we will get sick. If you are especially worried about dementia and ambien, and you would feel better if you stopped using it, how hard would it be to stop -- what would you do instead? Are there other changes you could make that reduce the risk of dementia? There's a whole suite of behaviors we can work on that have been shown to reduce the risk of dementia, and living your life worried is reason enough to try them.
I have not taken ambien as long as you have, but my husband has been taking it for decades, and he's a sharp guy. If he stopped taking it, his life would be awful, which would not be worth the small chance that he might get dementia earlier than he otherwise would, if he gets dementia at all.
In the interests of having the facts, here are two recent studies of insomnia and drugs that are kind of technical, but useful. This study (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34955792/) found benzodiazepines correlate with cognitive impairment, but found that the z-drugs (including zolpidem, which is ambien) did not. This study (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40108057/) found that both zolpidem and benzodiazepine use correlated with Alzheimers and dementia.
How to make sense of this? First, depending on how you do the analysis and the data you use, ambien may or may not correlate with dementia, so the relationship isn't very strong. Second, this is statistical, meaning that it's going to be true for some people, not true for other people, and no one can tell which is which. Therefore, even if some people who take ambien are more likely to get dementia (or people who get dementia are more likely to have insomnia first, because that's another way to read the data), that might or might not be you or me.
I can say that there are a ton of things that statistically make it more or less likely that we will get dementia, and more studies are being done all the time that find more of them. Some of them are really clear and you can test for, like having the APOE4 gene. Most of them are just playing the odds. There are so many that I've kind of stopped letting them run my life, even though I have a strong family history of dementia, which both my parents had for years. I went through a couple of years of freaking out after my mother died, but now I just casually keep on top of what's going on in that world, in case I run into something useful. I have a family history of colon cancer, too, and make sure I get tested. I care, but I no longer worry all the time -- I'm just kind of past that.
But as I say, I spent a couple of years in that head space, so I get it.
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2 ReactionsHave been taking Ambien for 25 years thanks to a reaction to chemo!
Once my old doctor retired I was given a new PCP, whom I don't think she was far from coming out of residency! She said it was "ADICTIVE"!
She put me on a new better drug.
I started taking it without backing off the Ambien slowly, she was new!
Within a week ai had MONSTOR HEADACHES! I stopped it, called her and she said to stop also.
When I got home from my trip I felt ok!
That next night I got up from bed "SLEEPWALKING" which i have never done and fell down 20' 0f stairs and did a face plant on the tile floors.
They diagnosed me with a TBI. Took me 6 months to recover! NEEDLESS TO SAY I FIRED HER THE NEXT TIME I AWOKE FROM THE COMA!
I have been taking Ambien ever sense!
A hard lesson I learned is to not drink alcohol taking it!
I'm aware of dementia! But I am 78, so when it happens, it happens! Not worried!
Do what feels best to you! Let your body lead you, not the medical industry!
Sundance, aka RB
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
1 ReactionHi Jim,
Not sure what is meant by "excludes " REM, but I don't believe zolpidem or other sedative hypnotic medications exclude or eliminate REM.
That said, sleep medications, including zolpidem, usually have some effects on sleep stages, including REM, and are usually not recommended for long term use.
Hopefully you can discuss with your provider, med strategies, cognitive therapy, and what may help your situation.
Ambien is associated with memory loss and there is lots of evidence of that. One does not remember what they have sometimes done when they are sleeping via Ambien, or Lunesta for that matter.
Elderly can take both, as long as their kidneys are in tip top shape, otherwise the dose needs to be modified to match kidney function, just like all drugs.
There is no such thing as dementia, either. That is an ageist term that should NEVER be used when referencing people age 55+ and anyone over 55 should be highly offended if the word is used in reference to anyone you love and care about.
There is however, loss of presence of mind and that loss comes in degrees. There is no such thing as loss of memory, there is however, loss of brain cells related to being able to recall thought due to brain surgery or tumor invasion but that isn't exclusive to those over 55+.
When a person 25 yo who has had brain surgery and can't "recall" their mother's name, no one calls it "dementia".
What an ageist word, rather in the same classification as the
a disgusting word used for black persons.
I have been on the generic Ambien for the last 27 years. I have a cortisol issue where I can't go to sleep until late into the night and early morning. MY body clock is flipped. That is why I take it to have a normal life. I get plenty of REM stage sleep. I track my stages of sleep with a Fitbit watch. I get almost 21% of my sleep in the REM stage. I have problems getting deep sleep and have been working on that. I have found that if I go to bed between 10:30 and 11:00 PM I can get deep sleep. I have had to train myself to take my pill within 30 minutes of wanting to go to sleep. If I am not sleepy and stay up, then I get less deep sleep. If I go to bed even though I don't feel sleepy, I drop off. I get good sleep,p so I have accepted that this is just the way it is. I have no side effects except fighting that cortisol if I wake up earlier than 7:oo AM. I usually get on average 7 to 8 hours of good sleep.