The bioavailability of Zolpidem should also be noted: "The reported aqueous solubility of zolpidem tartrate is 23 mg/ml (Merck Index)." Also, due to the high intranasal bioavailability, numerous delivery methods have been patented for methods other than insomnia, as noted in the following patent,
https://patents.google.com/patent/US8034371B2/en. It also lists numerous ways to increase the aqueous extraction using multiple methods ranging from changing the PH balance to simply adding additional compounds.
From personal experience, I have also noted that long term use of Benzodiazepines also affects the tolerance level to Zolpidem, if not all imidazopyridine class with nonbenzodiazepine properties, although it also reacts on the GABAa receptors on the same area as benzodazepines do, which would support my theory that tolerance to benzodizepines would indeed lessen the effect of Zolpidem. I have also taken thirty 10mg Zolpidem at one time and noticed no different in effect from five. This is a medication I was prescribed for multiple years as an adolescent when it was only recommended for short (10-14 day) prescriptions for insomnia. I have a personal friend who has a been on Zolpidem 10mg 1 x nightly for over 12 years and psychologically believes she cannot sleep without it. As a military veteran with panic disorder and agoraphobia, I've often noticed more efficient relief of panic attack symptoms from Zolpidem, possibly due to it's quicker onset, which is as little as five minutes when taken on an empty stomach.
A danger that is noted in the side effects can be the insomnia and well documented D.U.I.s, uncontrollable eating during the night, etc... while this has never been an issue, even with extremely high doses and methods of use such as intranasal, no side effect ever occurred, with the exception of mild withdrawal accompanied with increased anxiety. Even when mixed with alcohol, no negative side effects ever occurred, except mood stabilization, especially anger became more prevalent and easier to trigger.
One new years, an ex-friend attempting to isolate me from my fiance while I played pool started buying me drinks and placing Alprazolam and Zolpidem in these drinks. As I already had a high tolerance to benzodazepines due to my own prescription of Alprazolam. While I was not currently prescribed Zolpidem, I had been for years in the past. After hours of drinks continually provided with an unknown official dosage amount (the jail didn't perform the blood test in time to catch the maximum levels of Zolpidem), the ex-friend then started telling me about these other men at the club talking very negatively about me. (This was false as security tapes later proved.) I became extremely agitated beyond control and started yelling racial words I have never even thought of calling anyone in entire life. My ex-friend got what he wanted, which was a me against everybody brawl that ended quite quickly when a cop grabbed me from behind. Myself in fight or flight mode, not knowing this was an officer and of course military trained with additional MMA training quickly threw an elbow to my assailant attacking from the rear, rendering the FEMALE police officer unconscious. Now please, remember, I had no idea who I had hit. I was attempting to fight these three men, not a female police officer. I didn't regain mental consciousness (my actual mind and logical reasoning returning to my body) until approximately 5 hours later, where I learned I was in the drunk tank at the city jail with two charges, felony assault II against a police officer and misdemeanor resisting arrest. Now, needless to say, police don't treat people who attack their own very well. Myself, a first time offender, never arrested as an adult, was on a 72 hour solitary confinement hold with no knowledge of what I did or what had happened. During this time, I try to to inform the nurse of my absolute positivity that I had been drugged and needed a substance level detection performed as soon as possible. I was only provided a basic panel blood toxicology showing 2.1 alcohol along with "critical levels of benzodiazepines" which I knew my own dose could cause and would be useless in course. I then tried to inform the nurse of my impending health concerns, including my benzodazepine withdrawal. She informed me this was not a cause of seizures and that Phenobarbital or Lorazepam wasn't warranted for an Alprazolam dose of 8mg daily. She gave me a Celexa and told me this would prevent my seizures, lol. I later learned my fiance and mother were calling and trying to inform them of the same issue at hand.
When my 72 hours of solitary had ended, I was transferred to the county prison and placed in the violent offenders population, wearing the same color as my cellmate who had murdered his wife "by mistake while they were fighting over his handgun he left out after going to the gun range earlier that day during an argument." Minutes before being placed in my cell, I had received my first phone call 96 hours after my initial arrest. The nurse also was not concerned with my benzodiazepine withdrawal, which my fiance had done what she was told and brought them a copy of the prescription, but I was reminded that I "assaulted a police officer." Luckily, being less than 25% of ethnic divide in a prison for a city consistently ranked top eight nationwide for murder and a very severe civic rights past that our generation had long put behind us, but being in Birmingham, Alabama, you get people that lived in some places where they didn't have or know how to read a book to begin with. Luckily, my cellmate, who had informed me he was servicing 25 to life at only 28 years old, showed me who to avoid (child molesters or child murderers) who were apparently already marked for death by the overwhelming Gangster's Disciple gang presence, accompanied by a presence of the Crips, who actually get along with G.D.'s because of their combined hate for the bloods and Aryan Brotherhood. He always knew why I was here before I asked, "You the former Navy SEAL that knocked that cop out while fighting over 10 people, right?" This sounded like nothing I wanted to try to correct or explain my behavior for, plus, all I knew was what I had been told. The one thing I knew for sure was I was a Navy veteran, but I was not a SEAL. I had no reason to correct that detail and was thankful the corrections officer must have mistaken my Navy Rescue Swimmer emblem pinned in my wallet (which is spec ops, but not as badass as a SEAL by; any means...), "Yeah, those drugs and liquor don't mix with assholes.", I weakly answered. He then noticed I was looking awfully sick. "You coming off dope?" I informed him of my Alprazolam withdrawal, but my more obvious Methadone withdrawal that had finally hit it's peak. He then showed me how he used our pathetic excuse for sheets/blankets to make a pretty decent sleeping bag. I got there right when they closed the common area, which I was thankful. He explained to me how it worked in the morning, I was lucky I was in there for hurting a cop and everyone had heard I was a SEAL, so I would be OK for a couple days until someone tried to actually size me up. I told him I was waiting on my bail and girl so I could get out of there hopefully within the hour. As I started out the tiny window, he said, "Don't keep looking, if your family said they're coming, they're coming." My intercom went off two hours later saying grab my shit and follow whatever color line on the floor. I got my clothes back. Got in the car at 4 A.M., then had my fiance and my mother confirm the worse thing I could imagine. I really did hit a cop and it really was a female cop who was hospitalized with broken jaw.
By the time I could get a toxicology for Zolpidem, was out of my system. With the baseline of my regular doctor visits used with the baseline of the benzodiazepine levels from the city jail, as well as the knowledge of the person's prescriptions (90 1mg Alprazalam, 30 10mg Zolpidem), it was estimated I ingested 250-280mg of Zolpidem and including my own 2mg Alprazolam I took before I began drinking that night, 40-60mg of Alprazolam. The reports were useful in course, along with the security footage of the accused "drugger" pulling out prescription bottles repeatedly at both bars attended each time he got up to bring me a drink. He quickly moved to Atlanta, GA right before that and disappeared. Due to the security footage showing I had no way to know it was a police officer who grabbed me from behind and the super expensive lawyer I paid for his connections just to be safe, I ended up having my charges knocked down to misdemeanor assault and one year unsupervised probation. For those who care, this guy thought if he kept me away all night and showed my fiance I was a complete drug addicted slobbering idiot, she would leave me for him. Thankfully, she knew my normal behavior, even when I had drank too much and acted like a normal asshole on Alprazolam and liquor.
TL;DR - The reported water solubility of zolpidem tartrate is 23 mg/ml (Merck Index). There are numerous ways to manipulate the water solubility using PH balance and other substances Zolpidem tolerance appears to be directly related to benzodiazepine tolerance, although it's a drug with nonbenzo properties residing in the imidazopyridine class due to it's reaction on the GABAa receptors. This has been observed by others who watched me ingest 260mg of Zolpidem orally and 40mg nasally, 4mg Alprazolam, 1.5 Liter of Moscatto Wine (11% Alcohol by volume). My theory to this dangerous usage was due to my panic disorder I felt an overwhelming desperation to achieve the anxiety calming effects associated with Zolpidem, however tolerance had been achieved and I was unwilling to increase alcohol intake due to previous experience.
High doses with alcohol cause extreme inability to control emotions such as anger, much more so than normal alcohol use with large doses of Alprazolam and other benzodiazepines (I have drank until blackout in the Navy many times and as well as binge drinking while on high doses of multiple benzodiazepines, including while mixing different benzodiazepines and never experienced loss of control with zero memory due to the over 10 years of prescribed use of extremely high doses of Alprazolam, Clonazepam, Diazempam, Midazolam, Temazepam, Lorazepam, including recreational usage of Flunitrazepam without ever suffering compete memory loss. This often occurred mixed with other families of drugs as well.) Zolpidem has a high water solubility, meaning it is more effective when insufflated. The coating must be removed with light moisture and a paper towel or shirt. It burns briefly, but quickly subsides as well as the near instant onset quickly makes your attention of the pain dissipate and you will do more without hesitation. Zolpidem based nasal mist medications have many pending patents for nasal sprays for numerous uses besides insomnia including Parkinson's disease, stroke, and numerous other brain traumas. Source:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US8034371B2/en
Alcohol increases the common insomnia side effect as so with benzodiazepines, however it is almost as if Alcohol and Zolpidem deactivates common sense and moral reasoning based on my experience as well as the multiple reports of wrecks and D.U.I.s reported while under the influence of Zolpidem. I once heard someone refer to Alcohol and Zolpidem as a truth serum due to the power of suggestion the user becomes susceptible to under these conditions.