Posted by Sunnely on June 29, 2001, at 23:16:55
In reply to Ambien+ memory loss, posted by PaulB on June 29, 2001, at 18:55:33
A sort of "morning-after amnesia" cases have been reported in the literature with the use of zolpidem (Ambien).
Aside from the above, there have been several case reports of perceptual disturbances and psychosis with the use of Ambien. A case of Ambien-induced delirium was also reported in the literature.
It appears that women may be at an increased risk for mental status changes related to use of Ambien. This may be explained by the fact that women achieve an almost 50% higher blood level of Ambien compared with men with a given dose.
FYI, Ambien is metabolized by the liver enzyme CYP3A4. Therefore, taking Ambien with another drug that markedly inhibits the action of this liver enzyme (e.g., Serzone, Erythromycin, Tagamet, some of the protease inhibitor for HIV, and even grapefruit juice) could raise the blood level of Ambien, leading to an exaggerated pharmacological effects.
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> I have read quite a lot around the net and in a magazine article about the problem of memory loss associated with Ambien. It seems to unnerve a lot of people. I take this medicine to help me sleep and I find it unnerving too as I have done things on the drug that I had NO recollection of AT ALL after. Such incidents as waking up in the morning to find something is different, conversations that cannot be recalled and even more worrying cases i.e. a teenage boy who under the influence of ambien ran up a $650 phone bill on sex lines are not uncommon.
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> For me with Ambien it is difficult to lower the dose and still get the desired effect(20mg works, 10mg+15mg-1+1/2tab) dont, and thats that. What else can you do other than stop taking the drug. Any similar experiences here, tips to tackle these problems would be interesting to here?
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> Part of the problem lies, I think, with the fact that Ambien has does not bring about sleep naturally like Melatonin therefore you may well get up in the night and do stuff you may not remember later.
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> The only thing I could think of is to make sure someone you trust is present, your partner probably being the most obvious person, but other ways people deal with this problem I would like to know.
poster:Sunnely
thread:68388
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010625/msgs/68432.html