I’ve been taking Zolpidem for about 13 years now and suffer from addiction. I’ve sought treatment for this but it doesn’t work as now I cannot sleep without taking something. If you haven’t taken Z-type sleeping aids, I would definitely suggest not to start, as from experience the consequences outweigh the benefits. I’ve lost a considerable amount of friends/reputation/etc. from the abuse. Every experience that you hear about from sleeping aids, I’ve been through it (from the loopy fun to binge eating to weird sex to psychosis to crashing my car)
To the people in this thread advocating antipsychotic medication for anything other than treating psychosis and as an adjunct for severe depression, don't. These medications are serious things for serious situations and can have unexpected effects on you mentally.<p>I went on them in my early twenties due to a nervous breakdown, and while they stopped the endless loops of thought and insomnia (I ended up sleeping ten hours a night without breaking a sweat), they reduced my libido, made me gain weight, and worst of all, robbed me of my natural sharpness and creativity. It was as if my brain had been wrapped in a layer of bubble wrap, and my ability to come up with those sparks of inspiration that you need to do intellectual work was almost extinguished. I'm 100% now, fully recovered, but it took me about 3-4 years to get back where I was before it all happened. If your doctor thinks you're right for them, go for it, but only as a last resort.<p>They do work, but they're the last tool in the box that you only want to use when everything else has failed.
Excerpt:<p><i>A man, 29-year old, with a history of alcohol abuse suffered from hypoxic-ischemic brain injury after choking on a piece of meat. After an initial, though slow neurological recovery, spontaneous movement and speech disappeared. The patient developed such a severe impairment of arousal that he required intensive auditory and tactile stimulation to maintain a wakeful state. No structural lesions were found using a computerized tomography (CT) scan to explain this secondary deterioration, and conventional EEG-recordings showed no evidence of epilepsy. After a stay in the ICU and neurology department, the patient was transferred to a nursing home without a formal diagnosis explaining his hyporesponsive state. A structural MRI at follow-up showed signs of diffuse atrophy without hydrocephalus.<p>Eight years passed without any further improvement and neurological follow-up. Eventually, a new nursing home physician with experience in hyporesponsive disorders took over the patient's treatment and performed a new neurological examination to find directions to improve his care. Upon clinical assessment, the now 37-year old patient seemed awake, but showed a complete lack of voluntary movement (akinesia) and absence of speech (mutism). More specifically, the patient showed no affective reactions, initiation of eating or drinking, and remained incontinent. Although the patient showed no signs of spontaneous speech or vocalization on request, he was able to respond to questions or commands with movements with a significant delay (usually a couple of seconds) and with evident ataxia and muscle rigidity. Despite his intact awareness, the patient's initiative was so severely impaired that he remained wheelchair-bound and entirely dependent on nursing care for all daily activities, including the need for enteral tube feeding.</i><p>It's incredible how little we still know about some things. They couldn't pin down a cause and this is apparently a significant detail as to why this patient was basically warehoused in a nursing home with no real treatment for literally years until they tried this new thing, which had some short-lived effects.
Zolpidem is famous for this, although it’s raised more questions than answers. This particular phenomenon has been known since the early 2000s; NYT has a good write up about it: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/can-ambien-wake-minimally-conscious.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/can-ambien-wake-...</a>
Ah, the video at the bottom of the paper is really emotional! I hope they can figure out how to prolong the effects. Still, an hour of lucidity and verbal communication and a stroll every few weeks and a visit with the family is infinitely better than nothing at all.
My sister suffered severe TBI from a car accident for 15 years before she eventually passed last year. It was pretty shocking to witness the lack of knowledge in regards to how the human brain works, and more specifically lacking in how to heal/treat an injured brain.<p>Immediately following the accident, we saw other patients in the same condition as her and tracked their progress for comparison sake. The common theme was that patients either made significant progress (with motor skills, talking, etc) within the first 0-3 weeks, or not really at all. It seemed like once scar-tissue started forming in the brain, critical brain connectivity began to get <i>blocked</i> (not necessarily <i>broken</i>). If we can better understand the underlying mechanism behind the "signal blocking" vs "signal un-blocking" aspect seen using this drug in TBI patients, it would be a huge win for all brain related conditions.
Things like these makes me realize how little we know about the functioning of brain. Manipulating brain digitally would be perhaps one of the biggest technological revolution after industrial revolution.
Reading the HN title, I was immediately reminded of the Oliver Sacks book Awakenings[1]. He discovered that the drug L-DOPA could temporarily awaken encephalitis patients from a coma-like state. I wonder if the article's title "Awakening after a sleeping pill" is a reference to that book.<p>1. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awakenings_(book)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awakenings_(book)</a>
Out of curiosity, I brought this up to a professor in 2009. Examples were circulating online back then regarding Ambien and lock-in syndrome with similar temporary reversal effect.<p>Got basically told off with denial and laughs.<p>Experts often get stuck on this point where their ego supercedes any notion of new science, exploration and potentially disruptive information.
Found out promethazine (over the counter antihistamine) can make me sleepy after trying to use it to help with virtual reality sickness.<p>I've recently started taking it a few times a month to help out when I am having poor sleep, in an attempt to kick me back into a decent rhythm.<p>Reading the experiences in this thread of people using Seroquel or Zolpidem and their negative reactions - I am feeling a little sketchy about my crutch.
Different drug and underlying affliction, but the film "Awakenings" is worth watching if this story piques your interest. It's a true (though highly dramatized) story. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099077/" rel="nofollow">https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099077/</a>
This reminded me of the treatment of Encephalitis lethargica [i] and the temporary effect of L-dopa (as made famous in the movie <i>Awakenings</i>).<p>[i] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis_lethargica" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis_lethargica</a>
What happens when the sleeping pill wears off? Does the patient revert to his previous state until administered another dose, or does a single dose permanently change the patient?
sleeping pills are going to be our next pandemic. these drugs need to be reclassified as “fucking dangerous”<p>here is just a list of shit to be prepared for when you take them for more than a few short weeks:<p><a href="https://youtu.be/IKNzL-eU650" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/IKNzL-eU650</a><p>please be VERY careful. ive been on then for years and it is a nasty and very long detox process.
Zolpidem, I use this pill to sleep and works fantastic for me. My MD told me that regular use could lead to dementia and the risk for addiction is considerable. I've tried antidepressants to sleep but always wake up with a headache, the feeling of it it's not great either. But with this one, never had an issue.
Here's a human-interest story on this same medication: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9XeeVSRlYs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9XeeVSRlYs</a>
A really fascinating book is just waiting to be written taking into account the brain wave pattern understanding from research that's occurred over the last few years.
My guess is the damage was primarily on the conscious parts of the head, my guess is the sleeping pill (I'd wager canibus may also work) allows the more unconscious "dream-like" side of the brian to temporarily fill-in on executive functions.
So at least some people who have been declared “brain-dead” and had their organs harvested could have been brought back (albeit temporarily) with a shot of Ambien? That’s... disturbing.