Can you tell me your experience with the sleeping pill called Ambien… was it addictive for you or did you have side effects from it? anything else? A friend of mine is using it… it’s helping but she’s feeling tentative about how long she can continue with it. I told her you had some experience with it and you might be able to share something that would be helpful.
thank you for the question – it’s a predominant and reasonable concern all across the board of chronic and critical illness
what i most remember about about ambien is that pretty soon i needed the next more-potent sleeping pill (restaril) and then double amounts of it, and then i was taking triple the geriatric-recommended dosage
they say ambien is not addictive but i don’t believe that
i used lots and lots of very concentrated YOGI TEA CALMING TEA (4 bags in 1 cup of water that my caregivers prepared for me in a thermos to keep by my bed) and repetition of mantras (positive affirmations) when i woke up in the nites to wean off those sleeping pills – an awful period, as i recall, grueling work!
so, it IS possible to do so
my advice is to do whatever it takes to get through crisis periods and work to re-install your body’s natural patterns LATER
MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE and simply BLESS THE DRUGS – suffering is not an option!
i believe it doesn’t really serve the patient’s highest good to hold onto yet another contraction in the space of that crisis which is already on their plate, by resisting the drugs (in any way, shape or form) they are taking which are helping them be comfortable and move through their healing process
on the same note, i congratulate anyone who is being so very conscious and questioning their drugs in the first place
i remember one of my doctors told me he had never seen anyone make the choices i made (to wean off all my drugs). he was used to patients who are ‘pill-happy’ and go for the drugs without reservation
i know by my experience of it that the body CAN bring itself back into balance even in the most serious case of throwing it off its natural cycles (like mine)
it just takes TIME and EFFORT and PATIENCE, experimentation, determination
…and support during the periods when you feel like you can’t ‘keep up’ and do it anymore