ruinedbrain

Ambien woes are familiar, doctors say

BY PATRICIA ANSTETT
FREE PRESS MEDICAL WRITER August 19, 2005

They call them Ambien stories.

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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- AG_END -->Addiction to the sleep drug, a medicine with $1.4 billion in yearly sales, is well-known to the doctors who prescribe it and users who take to the Internet to share their stories.

Take it too long, as hip-hop star Eminem apparently did, and it can spiral into days of anxiety, memory loss and worsening sleep problems.

There is no way to estimate addiction and dependency associated with the drug. The most common problems cited in medical studies done to obtain federal approval included amnesia, dizziness, headache and nausea.

Introduced 12 years ago as a gentler sleeping aid, Ambien is a cousin to better-known sedative and so-called hypnotic drugs. The best known are Xanax, a tranquilizer that is the most-abused drug in its class, and Valium, said Dr. Michael Boyle, medical director of the Henry Ford Health System's Maplegrove Center, a Birmingham addiction treatment program.

Ambien takes the edge off people and helps them sleep, leading some to use it during the daytime, at higher doses, causing depression and addiction. A typical dose is 5 to10 milligrams daily for two weeks.

Abrupt withdrawal can cause severe anxiety and worsening sleep problems, known as rebound insomnia.

Contact PATRICIA ANSTETT at [email protected].




Source Link: http://www.freep.com/news/health/emi...e_20050819.htm


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