So, psychiatrist gave me ambien: day 2Follow

But Chuck, have you ever smelled valerian root?

This stuff is good. I'd go with Katie's advice, as she maybe works in a pharmacy, I assume she has a Pharmacist's Asst. degree from her past posts and she actually knows more about the effects of medicine than you or Yanari. I wouldn't start abusing a drug like Ambien, because you're not really solving the problem. Like TStephens (doing my bit for your searchability) said, you need healthy sleep.



Edited for clarification.



Edited, Sat Oct 1 12:17:54 2005 by Atomicflea

Working in a pharmacy now bestows a pharmacist degree on one?

Who knew?

Assumption is the mother of all fuc'k ups.


Katie has no qualifications.

Tee hee.Because I'm Ms. Smarty-pants, obviously! And if you'll read our posts, you'll notice nobody disagreeing with her advice, merely the claim that she's a pharmacist. I actually find her posts about pharmaceutical matters to sound rather reasonable.

So just settle down, little missy, and read before you post!

Pharmacy assistants don't know ****, I have my master degree in O-Chem and all pharmacy assistants know it what a benzene molecule looks like and how to answer phones. Oh, they can put labels on and work a cash register too. Anyways, Tylenol w/ codiene ISNT ******* TYLENOL PM DUMB ***! Codiene is in the oxycodone family and is very habbit forming, I didn't suggest it I just said what I took. Codiene is the only drug that forces sleep instead of making you feel like you want to. Tylenol PM is just some acetametaphine with a very low dose of diphenhydramine.

Now, there's a reason doctors will never tell you to take benadryl, because if he's going to a phychaitrist there's a very good ******* chance he's on anti-depressants and benadryl has some nasty side affect when combined with them. Not to mention Benadryl's pre-existing side affects, it causes headaches and dry mouth in most people. You just don't notice cause when you need to take benadryl you already have a headache and dry mouth.

You shouldn't take Benadrly because Benadryl doesn't cure Insomnia... Especially chronic insomnia. Doctors, not pharmacy assitants, prescribe things like Ambien because they cure insomnia. Benadryl is a one night fix, and definitely shouldn't be taken on occasion. If ambien doens't work try go back to your doctor and talk to him about it. He knows which drugs cause which side affects and he'll prescribe something that has a lower occurence of the side affects you dont like. Most insomnia medcations act like anti-depressants and take time to build in your system before taking full affect. Whatever you do, don't take ambien and benadryl because you'll feel like ****.

If you're going to split hairs, and it appears you are, this is incorrect. Ambien and meds like it do not "cure" insomnia; they treat the symptom while (presumably) the doctor and patient work together to identify the underlying problem.

So as far as that goes, both meds taken appropriately will treat the symptom.

I do agree that mixing OTC and prescription meds without consulting your doc is a bad idea.

Hmm, it seems I am splitting hairs in the matter so I'll define my use of cure to this:

A drug used to specifically treat symptoms, that was approved by the FDA to treat those symptoms.

Benadryl, no matter what it was designed for, turned out to be a histamine blocker. So it wasn't approved by the FDA to treat sleeplessness. We've all used Benadryl to fall asleep, I won't deny that. It's even incredibly effective in doing so, but I was trying to make the point that using Benadryl to treat <i> insmonia </i> is a very bad idea. Using it to fall asleep in the back seat of a car on a long road trip, although bad, isn't very bad.



You're right, it is in the same family but how companies get these drugs is completely different. You seem to know your stuff so I'll leave the chem lecture for another day. It boils down to person bio-chem.

For everyone else, these drugs function the same way a methamphetamines do. The difference between crack and cocaine is crack is synthesised and cocaine is taken from a plant. This is a basic principle is most drugs.

I have, and I've been advised to do so by my doctor.

Oddly, I'm inclined to take his word over Ezekio's, whoever he is.

Don't feed the socks, Katarine. If we starve them long enough they wither.

Just a little bit of extra info on Ambien to help out:

Most sleep-aids, while they put you to sleep, won't get you into the deep stage of sleep where your body/mind really recovers and you get a good night's rest. That's why they make you feel groggy and not all that rested when you wake up (think DayQuil for a good example, puts you out but you still wake up groggy..partly from being sick though, yes ^^). Difference with Ambien is that it doesn't just "conk" you out per se. It actually allows you to get into that deep stage of sleep necessary for a good night's rest, without many side effects when waking (though yes, some will have side effects, all drugs do, regardless, to some part of the population).

Have I taken Ambien? No. Have I seen it at work? Yes. My father happens to work for the company that sells Ambien so he likes to fill me in on a lot of the drugs (being a bio major I like to know ^^). Also, he takes it when he can't sleep, and it will keep him out for a good 8-10 hours, and he WON'T wake up...he slept through 3 ambulances, 2 police cars, and 3 fire trucks RIGHT outside the house and didn't wake up.

So...if you do take it (or any other sleep-aid or anything you know will knock you out), don't make plans to wake up after a short nap or to go anywhere. Of course, talk to your doctor (duh! smartypants).