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Hi NorCal - I was using up to 15 mg Ambien for a time until tolerance hit and needed to taper.  I used to take it in 5mg divided doses over the course of the night.  Do you take your all at once?

 

I felt I could go directly to 5mg once a night and I tapered from there over 5 weeks total.  It was fast yes.  I noticed the interdose withdrawal was much better so I felt I could do it this quickly.  Once I was off acute withdrawal hit and the rest is history as they say. 

 

I agree that you are right to taper and rid yourself of the Ambien first - the short half-life makes things so rough.  You may find it ok to go in 5mg chucks at first but as you get to 5mg and below, I'd go slower then.

 

Keep us updated and good luck!

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Hi NorCal - I was using up to 15 mg Ambien for a time until tolerance hit and needed to taper.  I used to take it in 5mg divided doses over the course of the night.  Do you take your all at once?

 

I felt I could go directly to 5mg once a night and I tapered from there over 5 weeks total.  It was fast yes.  I noticed the interdose withdrawal was much better so I felt I could do it this quickly.  Once I was off acute withdrawal hit and the rest is history as they say. 

 

I agree that you are right to taper and rid yourself of the Ambien first - the short half-life makes things so rough.  You may find it ok to go in 5mg chucks at first but as you get to 5mg and below, I'd go slower then.

 

Keep us updated and good luck!

 

Thanks Deanna! Yes, once at bedtime while reading a book. Just waiting for my pill cutter to arrive. I’ll keep you guys updated once I start (should be Friday or Saturday)

 

Rite-Aid and Walgreens are all out of pill cutters. Supply chain issues? I did read that during the pandemic more people were prescribed Benzos and Z-drugs. Ugh. Not good.

 

I’ll keep you updated.

 

One love.

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I bought some plastic pill splitters from Rite-Aid and they break if your pills are huge.  The metal pill splitters are the best, but they don't sell them in stores.  I use a box cutter blade now to cut down my magnesium pills.
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I bought some plastic pill splitters from Rite-Aid and they break if your pills are huge.  The metal pill splitters are the best, but they don't sell them in stores.  I use a box cutter blade now to cut down my magnesium pills.

 

Yep. I was just scrolling through this site and someone recommended “EqualSplit Pill Splitter, Double Blades, Cleanly Split or Quarter Any Pill”

 

All metal. Amazon.

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Ambien is intended for sleeping and it has a short half-life.

Don't take it during the day. Expecially if you have to drive or doing something else.

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Hey Team Z! Love you all bunches.

 

Nor, I’m going to weigh in.

Firstly I agree with you tapering the Ambien first. Because of the short half life as the others have said.

Secondly I also agree that your taper plan is too fast. The equivalent of Valium should be considered when making a taper plan IMO. An ideal plan is one that would give your brain adequate time to adjust the reductions. You certainly don’t want to “ shock “ your brain by doing big reductions too fast. Not trying to scare you, but there’s a risk of seizures especially if you’ve hit tolerance or having interdose WD. At this point, your brain is “ dependent “. So you can ideally reduce without a scale easily. I’ve found this to be true that this is the one good thing about Ambien compared to longer acting benzos. It can be easily dry cut with a razor, sharp thin knife, fingernail file or pill cutter. If I were you, I’d do a 1mg reduction every 10-14 days. The way I achieved this was I made a paper model of my pill ( mine was oblong also ). I drew a very close replica of the front and back of the pill. On the paper model, I marked the middle of the pill as 2.5 mg - my tablets were Zolpidem 5mg. I was originally on the 12.5 CR. I switched to 10mg regular to start my taper because the manufacturer and pharmacist explained the danger of cutting the CR tablets. To make it even easier, I used the two 5 mg tablets.

Once I made the paper model and marked where 1mg would be ( yes it isn’t exact but that’s ok) I just cut the 1mg off and took my night dose as usual. Every 14 days, I reduced again by cutting off 1 mg. If you do well, you can reduce every 10 days instead of 14. I usually felt my cuts 3-4 days later. But it was noticeable yet very doable because I didn’t reduce big chunks. I strongly believe this is the best and most successful way.

Thirdly you can do this! I wish you well on becoming Ambien free. We are here to support you. Please keep us posted.

 

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Hey Team Z! Love you all bunches.

 

Nor, I’m going to weigh in.

Firstly I agree with you tapering the Ambien first. Because of the short half life as the others have said.

Secondly I also agree that your taper plan is too fast. The equivalent of Valium should be considered when making a taper plan IMO. An ideal plan is one that would give your brain adequate time to adjust the reductions. You certainly don’t want to “ shock “ your brain by doing big reductions too fast. Not trying to scare you, but there’s a risk of seizures especially if you’ve hit tolerance or having interdose WD. At this point, your brain is “ dependent “. So you can ideally reduce without a scale easily. I’ve found this to be true that this is the one good thing about Ambien compared to longer acting benzos. It can be easily dry cut with a razor, sharp thin knife, fingernail file or pill cutter. If I were you, I’d do a 1mg reduction every 10-14 days. The way I achieved this was I made a paper model of my pill ( mine was oblong also ). I drew a very close replica of the front and back of the pill. On the paper model, I marked the middle of the pill as 2.5 mg - my tablets were Zolpidem 5mg. I was originally on the 12.5 CR. I switched to 10mg regular to start my taper because the manufacturer and pharmacist explained the danger of cutting the CR tablets. To make it even easier, I used the two 5 mg tablets.

Once I made the paper model and marked where 1mg would be ( yes it isn’t exact but that’s ok) I just cut the 1mg off and took my night dose as usual. Every 14 days, I reduced again by cutting off 1 mg. If you do well, you can reduce every 10 days instead of 14. I usually felt my cuts 3-4 days later. But it was noticeable yet very doable because I didn’t reduce big chunks. I strongly believe this is the best and most successful way.

Thirdly you can do this! I wish you well on becoming Ambien free. We are here to support you. Please keep us posted.

 

The tracing is a heck of an idea- kind of a template. Fantastic. I will take your approach after I get through this first cut - took 15MG last night instead of 20  :-[ I don’t feel any different and I slept, although woke up 45 min early. I also took an organic “sleepy time” gummie 5MG an hour before bed. I’d rather get a natural drowsiness than a chemical one.

 

I also have the Klonopin in me so that, anecdotally, might help he with the Amb. I’ll try it again tonight (15MG) and see how it goes — then do the micro cuts and tracing once I get my pill cutter.

 

Right on!

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I don’t have any tolerance WD that I can tell. I also don’t seem to have intedose WD either, BUT, I will proceed with caution. I have a wonderful wife and kids that rely on me. I’ll play it smart.

 

Looking down the road, I also think it’s incumbent upon myself to take it easy and give myself some time after the Ambien before I tackle the K. I’m not doing back-to-back with what is basically two different Benzos.

 

 

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Ambien is intended for sleeping and it has a short half-life.

Don't take it during the day. Expecially if you have to drive or doing something else.

 

I hear you. There’s no way I can take this stuff during the day but I do understand those who had to do it. Poor folks just trying to get their life back and be free but also fending off symptoms at the same time. What a cluster ****

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In my experience moving up and down with doses, trying several drugs one after another etc. just stressed my brain.

No matter what I was taking I could score 3h at best. Maybe 5 taking something again when I woke up in the middle of the night. I reinstated benzos, albeit at a lower dosage. I weaned off seroquel and lowered trazodone from 150 to 75mg. Basically I accepted my shitty nights (and shitty days too) and I started to hold stopping to feel guilty for my benzos. Self blaming is quite normal but it makes everything more difficult. Holding at a regular dosage helped my brain. Slowly I went from 3h to 5h per night. Yes it's a fucked chemical sleep but I can work and some days are OK. Then I started a symptoms based tapering. Small cuts only when and if I felt I could try it. I went from 8mg to 6.8mg zolpidem in 3-4 months and from 105mg weekly to 90mg weekly of flurazepam in the same period. Also from 75mg to 50mg trazodone. Btw I halse changed my "philosophy": I decided my war against benzos is lost and every small and sustainable cut is an unexpected success that deserve a triumph. No more timetables. Just cutting a little when I feel it. This kind of approach is helping me now.

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In my experience moving up and down with doses, trying several drugs one after another etc. just stressed my brain.

No matter what I was taking I could score 3h at best. Maybe 5 taking something again when I woke up in the middle of the night. I reinstated benzos, albeit at a lower dosage. I weaned off seroquel and lowered trazodone from 150 to 75mg. Basically I accepted my shitty nights (and shitty days too) and I started to hold stopping to feel guilty for my benzos. Self blaming is quite normal but it makes everything more difficult. Holding at a regular dosage helped my brain. Slowly I went from 3h to 5h per night. Yes it's a fucked chemical sleep but I can work and some days are OK. Then I started a symptoms based tapering. Small cuts only when and if I felt I could try it. I went from 8mg to 6.8mg zolpidem in 3-4 months and from 105mg weekly to 90mg weekly of flurazepam in the same period. Also from 75mg to 50mg trazodone. Btw I halse changed my "philosophy": I decided my war against benzos is lost and every small and sustainable cut is an unexpected success that deserve a triumph. No more timetables. Just cutting a little when I feel it. This kind of approach is helping me now.

 

That is my way of cutting too, just very small steps, and without scheme. Only just when I feel ready for it….

Jerry

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Hello SpeakZarathrusta,

 

So so very sorry to hear about the hell your friend is in. I know people on here have had much harder tapers than me, I did mine in a straightforward way: tapering .50 mg every 2 weeks for 9 months, coming off 10mg of ambien. My horrible symptoms came while on the full dose and I had them for many years prior to my taper. His body is very sensitive. I too had bad reactions with something a naturopath suggested. I just want to welcome you both here, but others will give their input.

 

I think it would be helpful for the group to know all meds he is taking now and how many weeks he took to go from 9mg at 3 weeks to 5.75mg now, as you stated. LadyDen has been bedridden during her taper and she is a great cheerleader.

 

Welcome,

Kachina

 

 

 

Hi all.

 

I’m writing on behalf of another user on the boards, who is struggling so terribly he cannot express himself and has asked me to help him write this.

Hoping to get any ideas, thoughts, advice, etc. that will help him get through this. Writing as it’s being dictated to me:

 

Up until October of 2021, had been taking 5mg of Ambien as prescribed every night for insomnia. In October of 2021, his physician who had prescribed him Ambien retired and he was assigned a new doctor by insurance. This doctor didn’t agree with him taking Ambien, make horrible accusations of drug abuse even though it was taken exactly as prescribed, and took him off and refused refills.

 

He left the doctor’s office and felt a lot of shame and guilt from the words the doctor used. He had about 2 weeks left of Ambien but stopped taking it due to confusion over the doctors’ words. A week later, he ended up in the ER due to total lack of sleep, hallucinations and w/d symptoms. The ER reinstated him immediately, telling him he needed to or would risk having seizures, and sent him home with Trazadone. When he got home, he reinstated the previous Ambient dosage of 5mg, but his sleep didn’t feel the same after that, so he doubled the dosage, not knowing what was going on. He then went to an addiction specialist the ER referred him to, where the psychologist put him on an erratic and odd tapering schedule alternating between Amitriptyline and Ambien every couple days, few days, etc. This didn’t go well, and he had a lot of side effects and weird, scary sensations.

 

Went back to her and the next week was given Hydroxyzine, which did nothing, and then Seroquel a week later. Had horrible reaction to Seroquel with side effects. Went back to addiction psychologist who stated she didn’t know why he was trying to get off Ambien because people “stay on them for 20 years” and then referred him to a friend of hers who could prescribe meds. He didn’t go to this referral but found a doctor closer who agreed to taper him off Ambien and wrote him a script for 10mg of Ambien. At this point, he also saw a naturopath who put him on a huge regiment of vitamins and IVS (B vitamins, tryptophan, etc.) to which had a negative reaction to and didn’t sleep for 3 days straight.

 

In December of 2020 he found doctor Jennifer Lee online and learned about tapering benzos He also learned about the Ashton method and various other things he found on Benzo Buddies. He didn't know how to taper correctly and started erratically doing cuts and eyeballing the amounts. He started doing the taper coming down from 10 milligrams of Ambien. About two weeks after the tapering, he started getting his first withdrawal symptoms, the worst being noise and light sensitivity along with auditory hallucinations at night that were continuously waking him up. This also included noises like beeps pops auditory voices in his head, etc. The withdrawal symptoms continued and got worse in the third week even when he was only down to 9 milligrams of Ambien. The Ambien stopped working around this time and even though he would take it at 10:00 PM he was continuously waking up at 3:00 AM and has every night for the last five months. Now at 5 months old he's continuously getting sicker weaker tired fatigued and is bed bound. The symptoms are now debilitating where he cannot live a normal life and recently found on the Ashton manual that tapering off Ambien is fruitless as it has such a short half-life which is creating more confusion on what to do now. The fatigue and insomnia has gotten so bad that he's having full blown episodes of delirium, and is awakened every time he falls asleep by myoclonic jerks and loud auditory sounds.

 

He's now down to 5.75 milligrams of Ambien and developing new symptoms like heavy tinnitus burning limbs in each cut is bringing new symptoms with it.

 

At this point we're looking for help on what to do next period the Ashton manual makes reference to slow tapering Ambien being ultimately fruitless but wanting to get stories of other people and how they did this with the least amount of pain possible. And the safest obviously. There's a lot of contradicting information online and in the forums, which is making the process more confusing and difficult, as many of you know.

 

Would it be better for him to just come off the Ambien at this point? Does he continue with the slow taper? How can we address those fears of not sleeping and going into delirium or psychosis or the other scary things that happen the first time he cold-turkeyed at 5mg due to tolerance, which is coming up? How do you get past the concept that our bodies are running out of reserves to heal themselves?

 

Looking for any stories or advice you guys have to share, as finding the correct way to do this is proving difficult. If anyone has any advice on how to get through the scary feelings of insomnia and fear of death because of it please feel free to share how you got through this and any encouragement.

 

Thank you to all that contribute to this.

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Hey NorCal

I LOVE NorCal!!

Welcome, just saying, I had my docs support on a taper, even though I never told him how slow I did it. So I started with 2 5mg pills, which would total 10/10, and I just eyeballed my oblong pill, took a little jack knife and sawed off 1/10 of one pill, then threw cut in the trash with great joy and took the rest of the pill and the 2nd 5mg pill = 9.5mg and cut accordingly as the weeks went by.

 

Glad you're here, so sorry for your trauma. Life is better off ambien.

Cheers,

Kachina

 

 

 

Thanks BBs. I think I’m going to try 17.5 tonight and see how that goes and give it time. If that goes well, another 2.5, etc. (eyeballed)

 

The problem is they are Aurobindo 10MG tablets with E-79 stamped on them so they’re shaped kind of like an oblong oval. I ordered a really good pill cutter but I’m not sure if I can quarter this tablet but the cutter wont get here until Fri or Sat. Hopefully I can quarter them to get lower dosages and do some math, which I’m horrible at.

 

I don’t have a scale (small condo with three children) and don’t want the kitchen to turn into a lab lol. I figured I can do it by cutting.

 

I’m also on Klonopin so maybe that will lessen withdrawals during the day and I am definitely not keen on taking any Ambien during the day even though of its short half-life. I just take it at night in bed while reading a book. This sucks.

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Super happy to hear from you Twbd1ila!!! I am back to work now after my taper, since jan. I always felt for you working while tapering. So here's to us!!!!

 

I did check out NA also before I found this site. Support means so much to all of us here.

 

Cheers,

Kachina

 

I have not shared in a few months.

Was struggling with getting to zero and staying there.

 

I found an old prescription and thought I could use successfully. Well the short answer is I can not use occasionally.

 

Been going to NA and so far so good.

I finally made it past 30 days and the miracle is I'm sleeping better than ever being 100 percent off of Ambien.

My back / muscle pains are gone. The pain was due to interdose withdrawals.

 

My routine that is working after 20 + years on ambien is

I take magnesium and tryptophan a few hours before bedtime. It helps me wind down. I do take melatonin, over the counter pm, Hydroxyzine (prescribed by doctor), and play sleep music. It sounds like a lot, but my sleep is lovely and have a some nights actually enjoyed the getting into bed and sleeping. I'm slowly starting to trust I will sleep with out ambien.

 

I have some nights where I have the urge for ambien, but just lay my head down and breath and fall asleep before I know it.

LadyDen helped me a lot (happened to see your name). I am miracle and feel very grateful to be off of the wicked wicked wicked wicked drug. 

34 nights and counting with out ambien. That is the longest I've gone is 20 years.

 

For all the new comers, this was one of the most difficult drugs to come off of. I really doubted for month that I could do.

For me, I had to do it extremely slow and not beat myself up if had set-backs. just get back up and keep moving forward.

 

Dont do it alone, share the good and difficult.

sleeping is possible with out ambien

 

 

.

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Hi all.

 

I’m writing on behalf of another user on the boards, who is struggling so terribly he cannot express himself and has asked me to help him write this.

Hoping to get any ideas, thoughts, advice, etc. that will help him get through this. Writing as it’s being dictated to me:

 

Up until October of 2021, had been taking 5mg of Ambien as prescribed every night for insomnia. In October of 2021, his physician who had prescribed him Ambien retired and he was assigned a new doctor by insurance. This doctor didn’t agree with him taking Ambien, make horrible accusations of drug abuse even though it was taken exactly as prescribed, and took him off and refused refills.

 

He left the doctor’s office and felt a lot of shame and guilt from the words the doctor used. He had about 2 weeks left of Ambien but stopped taking it due to confusion over the doctors’ words. A week later, he ended up in the ER due to total lack of sleep, hallucinations and w/d symptoms. The ER reinstated him immediately, telling him he needed to or would risk having seizures, and sent him home with Trazadone. When he got home, he reinstated the previous Ambient dosage of 5mg, but his sleep didn’t feel the same after that, so he doubled the dosage, not knowing what was going on. He then went to an addiction specialist the ER referred him to, where the psychologist put him on an erratic and odd tapering schedule alternating between Amitriptyline and Ambien every couple days, few days, etc. This didn’t go well, and he had a lot of side effects and weird, scary sensations.

 

Went back to her and the next week was given Hydroxyzine, which did nothing, and then Seroquel a week later. Had horrible reaction to Seroquel with side effects. Went back to addiction psychologist who stated she didn’t know why he was trying to get off Ambien because people “stay on them for 20 years” and then referred him to a friend of hers who could prescribe meds. He didn’t go to this referral but found a doctor closer who agreed to taper him off Ambien and wrote him a script for 10mg of Ambien. At this point, he also saw a naturopath who put him on a huge regiment of vitamins and IVS (B vitamins, tryptophan, etc.) to which had a negative reaction to and didn’t sleep for 3 days straight.

 

In December of 2020 he found doctor Jennifer Lee online and learned about tapering benzos He also learned about the Ashton method and various other things he found on Benzo Buddies. He didn't know how to taper correctly and started erratically doing cuts and eyeballing the amounts. He started doing the taper coming down from 10 milligrams of Ambien. About two weeks after the tapering, he started getting his first withdrawal symptoms, the worst being noise and light sensitivity along with auditory hallucinations at night that were continuously waking him up. This also included noises like beeps pops auditory voices in his head, etc. The withdrawal symptoms continued and got worse in the third week even when he was only down to 9 milligrams of Ambien. The Ambien stopped working around this time and even though he would take it at 10:00 PM he was continuously waking up at 3:00 AM and has every night for the last five months. Now at 5 months old he's continuously getting sicker weaker tired fatigued and is bed bound. The symptoms are now debilitating where he cannot live a normal life and recently found on the Ashton manual that tapering off Ambien is fruitless as it has such a short half-life which is creating more confusion on what to do now. The fatigue and insomnia has gotten so bad that he's having full blown episodes of delirium, and is awakened every time he falls asleep by myoclonic jerks and loud auditory sounds.

 

He's now down to 5.75 milligrams of Ambien and developing new symptoms like heavy tinnitus burning limbs in each cut is bringing new symptoms with it.

 

At this point we're looking for help on what to do next period the Ashton manual makes reference to slow tapering Ambien being ultimately fruitless but wanting to get stories of other people and how they did this with the least amount of pain possible. And the safest obviously. There's a lot of contradicting information online and in the forums, which is making the process more confusing and difficult, as many of you know.

 

Would it be better for him to just come off the Ambien at this point? Does he continue with the slow taper? How can we address those fears of not sleeping and going into delirium or psychosis or the other scary things that happen the first time he cold-turkeyed at 5mg due to tolerance, which is coming up? How do you get past the concept that our bodies are running out of reserves to heal themselves?

 

Looking for any stories or advice you guys have to share, as finding the correct way to do this is proving difficult. If anyone has any advice on how to get through the scary feelings of insomnia and fear of death because of it please feel free to share how you got through this and any encouragement.

 

Thank you to all that contribute to this.

 

This story breaks my heart! Sounds like multiple cases of HCP malpractice.  But now that the damage is done, I fear that the situation is no longer a simple case of coming off the Ambien.  The short half-life is always an issue for tapering, but with all the other machinations of starting and stopping psychoactive agents has definitely complicated matters.

 

My only thought now is whether it would be better to cross over to a longer acting benzo (valium?) to stabilize and only then restart the taper (?)....

 

Perhaps you should post this in the general boards so the moderators to also chime in.

 

Good Luck and Godspeed!

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norcalbob, my tablets (10 mgs Ambien) were the Auribindo also. Very inconvenient to cut up. I asked my doc for 5mg tablets (also oblong shape) to taper. Then I cut them in quarters with a razor blade, then just took 25% less for 2 weeks, then 25% less again and so on until I was done. Not a very scientific taper, but it worked!

 

Best of luck to you,

 

Katz

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Super happy to hear from you Twbd1ila!!! I am back to work now after my taper, since jan. I always felt for you working while tapering. So here's to us!!!!

 

I did check out NA also before I found this site. Support means so much to all of us here.

 

Cheers,

Kachina

 

I have not shared in a few months.

Was struggling with getting to zero and staying there.

 

I found an old prescription and thought I could use successfully. Well the short answer is I can not use occasionally.

 

Been going to NA and so far so good.

I finally made it past 30 days and the miracle is I'm sleeping better than ever being 100 percent off of Ambien.

My back / muscle pains are gone. The pain was due to interdose withdrawals.

 

My routine that is working after 20 + years on ambien is

I take magnesium and tryptophan a few hours before bedtime. It helps me wind down. I do take melatonin, over the counter pm, Hydroxyzine (prescribed by doctor), and play sleep music. It sounds like a lot, but my sleep is lovely and have a some nights actually enjoyed the getting into bed and sleeping. I'm slowly starting to trust I will sleep with out ambien.

 

I have some nights where I have the urge for ambien, but just lay my head down and breath and fall asleep before I know it.

LadyDen helped me a lot (happened to see your name). I am miracle and feel very grateful to be off of the wicked wicked wicked wicked drug. 

34 nights and counting with out ambien. That is the longest I've gone is 20 years.

 

For all the new comers, this was one of the most difficult drugs to come off of. I really doubted for month that I could do.

For me, I had to do it extremely slow and not beat myself up if had set-backs. just get back up and keep moving forward.

 

Dont do it alone, share the good and difficult.

sleeping is possible with out ambien

 

 

.

TWD heyyyyyy!  :) I’ve been wondering what happened to you, my friend! Glad to see you post an update. Even more happy to read that it’s a good one! Wooohooo! Wow I’m so proud of you. And I don’t mind helping you or anyone. Others certainly helped me. This is a give and receive forum. Love it! What would we do without it? It brings my heart such joy that I was able to help you. Your sleep routine and hygiene sounds great. Wonderful that it’s working for you. Keep up the good work. Even after you’re completely healed, it’s a great routine to have. It definitely gives the brain a cue to start getting ready to sleep.  :thumbsup:

NA is also not a bad thing to attend. There’s life changing tools they give. If that’s working for you, then go for it! It certainly won’t do any harm. I’m so proud of you, TWD! Way to go.

Big hugs and keep in touch please.

🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗 Team Z!

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Warm loving healing hugs to Team Z! I pray you all are progressing nicely. Enjoying things again. Staying stress free and eating healthy. Oh yeah….don’t forget to take walks when you can then rest.  :thumbsup:

As we feel better we tend to overdo it. So please be careful. It’s beginning of summer. Better keep plenty of water handy especially if you’re outside  :thumbsup:

Ve got a feeling this year will be a scorcher! I’ve gathered this prediction from the crazy rare record breaking weather we’ve been having. This is the middle of may and I saw the weather predictions for this week….some days will be 90 already! Wow! That’s so very hot!

So how’s everyone doing? Any good news?

 

 

 

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norcalbob, my tablets (10 mgs Ambien) were the Auribindo also. Very inconvenient to cut up. I asked my doc for 5mg tablets (also oblong shape) to taper. Then I cut them in quarters with a razor blade, then just took 25% less for 2 weeks, then 25% less again and so on until I was done. Not a very scientific taper, but it worked!

 

Best of luck to you,

 

Katz

 

Thank you Katz. I’m down to 10MG from 20MG. Sleep is still fine. I’m neither promoting nor advocating other supplements, but those 5MG sleepy time gummies are a game changer.

 

From here on out I’ll do the 10 or 25% method until off.

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Ha Z people, I have a tough morning. This weekend I measured the oxygen in my blood because of possible apnea. Coming friday or monday I will hear the result. Today is swimming and saxlesson day. Hugs from me, Jerry  :thumbsup:

 

P.s. I just got home from a very nice lesson about chords on my wonderful alto sax….the weather is humid here and warm…

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Way to go NorCal  :thumbsup:

 

Hugs Team Z! Good to see you all posting. I love reading all of our happenings. You all are a super group and I’m so glad to have known you! Hope today will be a joyous less symptoms day.

🤗🤗🤗❤️🙏

 

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My GP DR and I are trying to sort out and taper away from Ambien CR

after a prior psy dr's solutions of ambien/benzodiazepine

 

 

Ambien CR question (this seems to be yes?)

Is it common to have inter-dose withdrawal from Ambien CR 12.5 mg after

I had been taking it daily for 3-4 years ?

 

About 3 months ago I began to have anxiety / tremors / panic etc. - mostly in the afternoons

from posts and help here it appears tolerance / inter-dose withdrawal shows different effects

 

 

Lunesta question ( have not seen comments on this )

Has anyone had continued inter-dose symptoms after change of medication ?

Is it difficult to fall asleep with Lunesta 3 mg?

 

- we changed to this - i can sleep a few hours eventually but it does not act as fast as the ambien

- is there a transition time between Ambien and Lunesta with symptoms often?

    - I still have a lot of anxiety etc episodes in the day ?

 

 

My gp doctor has changed

- Ambien CR 12.5 mg to Lunesta 3mg/d

- a short 5mg/d taper of diazepam going to 0 mg for 4-5 weeks to address the anxiety/tremor

 

 

After we stabilize on the Lunesta the plan is to taper that also.

 

 

I did not realize the issues from the z-meds

This thread and BB are very helpful

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I fell asleep and slept a lot better taking Lunesta.  Ambien gave me a less deep sleep and the interdose symptoms were really bad.  Ambien gave me very bad anxiety the next day, while Lunesta didn't so much.  I liked Lunesta a lot better than Ambien, although I didn't take the CR.
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Lunesta question ( have not seen comments on this )

Has anyone had continued inter-dose symptoms after change of medication ?

Is it difficult to fall asleep with Lunesta 3 mg?

 

My gp doctor has changed

- Ambien CR 12.5 mg to Lunesta 3mg/d

- a short 5mg/d taper of diazepam going to 0 mg for 4-5 weeks to address the anxiety/tremor

 

 

After we stabilize on the Lunesta the plan is to taper that also.

 

 

I did not realize the issues from the z-meds

This thread and BB are very helpful

 

Well, I can't say I understand what your doc is doing exactly.  Is he/she adding diazepam?  Why?

 

They seem to want to tinker with one Z drug for another.  This is really common with docs. I get that the Ambien is CR but you don't want to take regular Ambien and taper off that?  It's a bit like jumping from one frying pan to another frying pan going from ambien to luniest.

 

If you are already on some diazepam, I think you could stabilize -- if possible  -- on that alone and reduce 5% every 10 to 14 days and consider a liquid micro taper off  the diazepam.  Ask for help on here on BB about how to do this by starting a tapering question thread.

 

Lunesta is just another Z drug.  3mg is the maximum recommended dose.  I tapered off mine with a jeweler's scale.  But one dose a day is tough since it hits like a hammer and then you are in withdrawal. 

 

Personally, I would not start on 3mgs Lunesta from Ambien.  There will just more drug to get off of.  Maybe 2mgs or 2.5 and see how you feel. 

 

We are all insomniacs here - but you'll see that you will be able to sleep without the drug eventually.  Take as long as needed. 

 

Hang on you'll get there

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