need opinion

[luvmyfam]

18 months ago my husband downed alot of alcohol and a bottle of ambien (sleeping pills).
At the time he was taking lexapro. They believed he was depressed due to severe tmj. So bad he could hardly talk.
he was also drinking terribly.

He has come a long ways since then. He had surgery and a lot of therapy and his tmj is doing much much better.

But lately he has been having a lot of stress at work and not sleeping well. His psych prescribed abiem.

I am so mad at them I feel like I could hit them. Why would they prescribe him a medicine he took an entire bottle of?

I do trust my husband, but the fact was that I swore I would never have it in my house again. The thought of him having it just brings back horrible memories and I cannot relax. Why would they prescribe that to someone who downed a bottle of it not even 2 years ago? I feel like going down there and screaming at them but I wouldn’t do that to my husband.
My husband says to trust him and he is not the same as he was back then. I truly believe that. I do trust him. But I just can’t get over it.

Please give me your thoughts on this as I am really bothered by this.

[MarkSichelCSW]

I think your thoughts are completely reasonable and someone with a history of suicide attempts needs to have their medications closely monitored and supervised and substances like sleeping pills need to be prescribed with the utmost of caution.

You can't die from lack of sleep but you can die from ambien. I think your husband could benefit from a 2nd opinion on his sleep problem. Again, your thoughts are both reasonable but also loving.

[bahookie]

Originally Posted by MarkSichelCSW

You can't die from lack of sleep but you can die from ambien. I think your husband could benefit from a 2nd opinion on his sleep problem. Again, your thoughts are both reasonable but also loving.

Actually, I hate to be a nit-picker, but you can die of lack of sleep; that's not to say that there aren't alternatives to medicine, but sometimes it's the only way to save someone's sanity (see below).

Sleep or Die

No one knows all the purposes of sleeping and dreaming, although lack of sleep can be lethal. Sleep controls heat regulation and appetite. If you're cold and hungry, you won't dream much, if at all.

Sleep-deprived rats do okay for a week or two, then their appetites increase dramatically. Even when they get all they want to eat, their weights decrease, their body temperatures become unstable, and they die. Humans deprived of sleep hallucinate and behave abnormally.

Harvard Gazette, 1996

Jane the pedant

[Ten Chips Down]

That is not citing death from death-deprivation in humans, however.

Also, to correct Mark, there may be an LD-50 of zolpidem in rats, but no you cannot die from Ambien alone. Imidazopyridines like benzos are all but impossible to OD on (resulting in death) by themselves.

[Ten Chips Down]

Acck. What, there's no edit function on this board? I have to bring this all the way up?

"That is not citing death from death-deprivation in humans, however"

should have been "That is not citing death from sleep-deprivation in humans."