Friday, May 05, 2006

Ambien - Try This First!

As mentioned in our last blog post, we just posted an article at www.LookingForClues.com about Insomnia and how you can get a good night's sleep. In the post, I advocated using sleeping pills as a last resort and suggested that you try some of the "Sleep Hygiene" tips in our article. To quote myself, "All drugs have side effects. Some are worse than others." Today we read in the news about a case where Ambien might have caused "sleepwalking", or in this case sleep driving, resulting in a car accident.

The incident involves U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, son of Senator Ted Kennedy, who had a late-night car crash possibly caused by Ambien's side effects. To quote a Reuter's news story:



Sanofi-Aventis says Ambien, used by millions of people since its introduction in 1993, has lulled patients to sleep for 12 billion nights. It says sleepwalking is a rare side effect and it stands by the drug's safety.



But researchers at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minnesota have
identified more than two dozen cases of dangerous sleepwalking among people who took Ambien, and they believe the phenomenon is more common than the company says.




No one knows for sure if Ambien caused this crash. But it is still my opinion that you might want to try other methods to get a good night's sleep, instead of drugs. Please read our article on Insomnia and learn how to sleep well at night. It will improve your life!

(May 5th follow up story on Kennedy from Reuters, here.)

1 Comments:

At Fri Sep 26, 06:06:00 AM EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said...

My name is Catherine Snow and i would like to show you my personal experience with Ambien.

I have taken for 1 years. I am 57 years old. Works great if I take it on an empty stomach, and get right into bed. If you take it and try to keep yourself awake, you can override the pill and be up all night.

Side Effects :
None.

I hope this information will be useful to others,
Catherine Snow

 

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