Thursday, April 26, 2012

Sleepless in SLC

I want to kill my doctor.  I want to buy a gun, get in my car, take the elevator up to the second floor, huff and puff past the receptionist, past the nurse, into an examination room where he'll be looking at the computer rather than the patient, see his surprised face and shoot him in the chest.  "Bam, you're dead.  All the good that exercise and eating green vegetables did you, you smug S.O.B."


Whoa, Louise.  Just last week you were thinking how you could never kill anyone.  How you've never been angry enough.  How you're too good for that.  How good you are, Louise.


How delusional.

A few nights without Ambien and I'm a raging homicidal maniac.  The last time I went in to see Dr. Misogyny, he told me how he had gotten off Ambien and he thought I should too.

A couple of years ago he said I could take Ambien "for the rest of your life."

Liar, pants on fire.

Then there's this:

new study has linked popular sleeping pills such as Ambien and Restoril with a nearly five-fold increased risk of early death.

Researchers at Scripps Health, a nonprofit health system in San Diego, estimate that in 2010, sleeping pill use may have contributed to up to 500,000 "excess deaths" in the United States. Heavy users aren't the only ones at risk—even people who took fewer than two pills monthly are three times more likely to die than non-users, researchers say.
"We were pretty startled by the findings," says Robert Langer, one of the authors of the study, which was published in BMJ, a British medical journal owned by the British Medical Association. "Since we started trying to qualify the results of this analysis about a year ago, I'll tell you, my prescription bottle for Ambien has sat on the shelf unopened."
The study followed 10,000 sleeping pill users and 23,500 non-users in Pennsylvania between 2002 and 2006. About 1 percent of non-users died during that time, compared to 6 percent of sleeping pill users. Since the medical records available for the study didn't include the cause of death, it's unclear how sleeping pill use contributed to the higher death rate.
Maybe people slug them down with a little brandy?
Combine them with Ativan?
Combine them with painkillers?
Plug their noses with them?
Sleep-walk off the balcony?
Or perhaps, the prescription lapsed and covering one's head with a plastic bag was the only alternative.
I know I'm finding the plastic bag an attractive substitute for Ambien.
There are worse things than dying in your sleep.  There's not sleeping at all.  




10 comments:

  1. I hear ya!

    (I'd get another doctor. Dude.)

    (and, yeah, without COD, that 6% number means nothing. my guess is the same as yours: people drink a lot. and ambien+booze=death.)

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  2. Good luck sleeping without Ambien and killing your doctor. One might make the other easier.
    I stopped Ambien because I was afraid of what would happen to me. I found out from roommates in college that I went on Ambien Adventures. The last time I took it, I woke up in the morning on a perfectly made bed (which I never do), sleeping on top of a towel. Why a towel, you ask? So that all of the dark orange self tanning lotion I had rubbed all over wouldn't get my sheets dirty. Yeah, I did NOT rub that in well, thanks to Ambien. Using pumice stone ALL OVER your body doesn't feel very good, but does get some of the orange off of your skin. The end.
    P.S. I did have a little bit of success taking melatonin and pantothenic acid instead. At least on those, I didn't get up in the middle of the night to read my journal to a roommate or go sit in the closet of the next door neighbor's. Embarrassment.

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  3. I am laughing hard at Lauren's comment. I have a friend who takes Ambien nightly. It's a chaser to her wine, and I think that's a lousy mix. She ordered $300 boots from Nieman Marcus one evening, and did not recall the purchase.

    But we have not heard any Ambien tales from you. You must follow the Ambien rules? All but that silly bugaboo about not gunning down your physician...

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  4. Lose the Ambien. 6 oz. of Pinot Noir will ease you into deep peaceful sleep. I am not suggesting your drink yourself to death, but there are healthy benefits to a red wine in moderation. Given the choice of breaking the Word of Wisdom or becoming a homicidal maniac, I think you can justify the wine.

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  5. Check your adrenals they are firing at wrong time. You can fix this. Really. Or do what I do bi stay up until 3 regularly and sleep until 9. Best six hours of uninterrupted sleep.

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  6. To hell with the doctor! Effective drugs are what keep me from killing anyone.
    Do you need me to kill to get more Ambien? I'd do that for you Louise!
    A Japanese hot bath while we got hunt down the good stuff?

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  7. As a lifelong insomniac, all I can say is: preach it sister!

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  8. As one who falls asleep instantly as soon as her head hits the pillow, I can't exactly relate.
    BUT, surely there has to be something else out there that won't kill you.

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  9. I'm sure no jury of your peers would convict.

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  10. I received my Ambien today and cut it to a half. This means I go to sleep and wake up at about three, but it's so much better than not going to sleep at all. I have heard the "Ambien stories," but haven't experienced them myself. The rule is don't take it until you are actually in bed and don't take it with other mind-bending drugs or alcohol.

    I'm not feeling homicidal anymore.

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