Ambien

[[Ni...]]

Hi everyone! I made the jump off of valium 2 weeks and 2 days ago.

Overall the symptoms have been pretty manageable. Anxiety and overall crappy feeling for a

few days in the beginning, but now I am fully functional other then dealing with these painful muscle spasms in the left side of my neck along with tension headaches  anyways my question is about ambien. I have continued taking five mg nightly for sleep. My question is do I need to stop? Will it hurt my recovery if stay on it? Has anyone tapered or withdrawn from ambien before and have some words of advice? Thanks!

 

Nikki

[[me...]]

Yes, you do need to get off the Ambien, it affects the GABA receptors also, and can have some bad side effects (the ones you have now sound very suspect).

 

If you weren't already off the Valium, I would have said to drop the Ambien first (counter-intuitive, but much easier, as the Valium covers for the Ambien). It is really impossible to taper Ambien. What you will find, is that below a certain effective dose, you won't be able to get any sleep. The Ambien will keep you awake rather than put you to sleep. You will drive yourself crazy trying to taper it.

 

Your best bet from that dose is to just cold-turkey. This is also what Ashton recommends. You will likely have 2-3 days of very poor sleep, perhaps even none, and it will be very tempting to give in and take a pill. So I would make them very hard if not impossible to get to.

 

Fortunately after a few days, things should rapidly improve and your sleep will start to normalize. It may take quite a while to get back to the same sleep you would expect before (7-8 hours?), so don't get too discouraged.

[[El...]]

I've used only ambien, 5 mg for 5-6 years, and I've been in tolerance for nearly to years. I'm in w/d because of ambien now, I tapered in two weeks, and it's not been funny. And I say as meowie, u should have tapered of ambien first. I don't know how long you've been using ambien?

If it isn't long I think u will be fine

And since you're feeling quite ok, I suspect the ambien is masking your w/d symptoms.

We're all different, and it works in various ways for each individual. But I would get of the ambien soon as possible in order to maintain the road towards full healing.

[[Ni...]]

Wow!!! I had no idea ambien could be that bad. I have used it for 11 months, only one pill as well. I now realize that when I do take the ambien I feel sooo much better and my neck doesn't feel so sore. It's the only thing that helps but the feeling doesn't last long. I must be only hurting myself by doing this though. I don't want to delay the inevitable. I am scared to go cold turkey maybe I could take half a pill for a week or so then make the jump.