Posted by musil on April 18, 2005, at 4:51:23
In reply to Re: Lunesta v. Ambien, not a clean swap » musil, posted by Phillipa on April 17, 2005, at 21:20:42
NO. Maybe. As long as Lunesta isn't a substitute for an existing med like Ambien or triazolem (Halcyon). If you are taking Ambien, I do NOT recommend replacing your Ambien with Lunesta, nor do I recommend combining Ambien with Lunesta. Perhaps this is a personal and one-time experience, but I could only think of thalidomide when I finally came out of the dream state I relate below. Forgive the graphic nature of the state description below, but it's important for you to know that I have never been diagnosed with a psychosis or schizophrenia, /merely/ severe chronic depression with early waking, coupled with chronic pain. I have never had an experience like this and my first thought was to relate it to fellow anonymous PsychoBabblers in warning of some sort. I don't know what it means or the psychopharmacologic significance of this one sample, but please be warned if you are thinking about replacing Ambien with Lunesta.
I have just had the most disconcerting night I have ever had on 10mg diazepam (valium) and 2mg Lunesta, the Lunesta in place of 10mg Ambien.
Nightmares unceasing of the cataclysmic and inescapable kind. I took diazepam and Lunesta at 9:30PM. By 10:30PM I was in a nightmare state that I couldn't shake until 1:20AM, an eternal state that hardly resembled sleep and was full of the most personally disturbing imagery. I could not "awaken" though my wife tried to shake me awake.I would have rather stayed up all night. I am close to psychotic at the moment and have just taken 10mg diazepam and .25mg triazolem and an Alieve plus my usual 10mg Lexapro, hoping to chill from this very disabling experience. I was stumbling around the house and outside like a very disturbed schizophrenic after I "awoke" and I could not coordinate my body. I was unable to escape from the partial-dream state while in my nightmares, which roiled and foamed from my past to include multiple world catastrophes announced from the mouth of our current president on a huge TV with a closely packed crowd of people I craved to be part of but could not be part of; I was the observer -- I ran and struggled through a mob of US celebrities who were in an orgy of violence as our American way of life came to a complete and violent shuddering conclusion, over and over again. I followed a black man (I am white, no racism felt or intended, just out of character as I live in a rural place where there is no diversity -- where did I pull him from? I loved him and he showed me how the world really worked...and horrified me with his kindness). I took him to be my personal God as he led me through a governmental institution where everyone there participated in the necessities of life in a multi-level building with ceilings only 4' high. I followed my God through the making of a simple plastic cup to visit a friend in a 4' high apartment who was a war veteran, and watched videos of this veteran as he survived plane crash after plane crash, I followed him down as he fell and expected to die leaving his children without a father, only he was sent up again and again to crash repeatedly until he became too old to crash any more, and I followed my black God and this "hero" into a moiling mass of people watching a huge screen, a webcam of a deranged person cleaning his 4' bathroom after which this person on the cam then moved into his kitchen to eat but he was slathered with some sort of white-red cream like a new-born baby, and he took his hands and spread it over the screen until the crowd watching screamed in horror and pleasure and began to chant a complicated ritualistic scream of horror. My eyes were open as my wife tried to wake me, but I would not awaken -- I was moaning and screaming.
I have purple circles under my eyes and it is now the time of this post. I can feel the benzos trying to stem the panic and bile that I feel as I am not sure that I have really escaped the dream state, though the cigarette smoke is acrid and I should not have smoked.
Man, watch out and don't mess with what's working for the Latest Thing to come out of the pharmacologist -- there hasn't been a sincerely new drug of any true worth in many years, just patents and modifications and isomers of old tried and true medications. Just be careful, all of you -- in my current state, you'd be calling in sick right now if you had a job. Which I don't, and I'm glad of that at least for today.
> I sleep with l0mg of valium. Do you think lunesta would help me to sleep without waking during the night. I've been having bad dreams also, but I've also just had surgery [cosmetic] with complications. Thanks, Phillipa
poster:musil
thread:482377
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050418/msgs/485753.html