Opioids Does ambien ease withdrawals for a while?

[johnloperamide]

I'm about to finish day 6th of PST withdrawal and last night I took ambien to sleep, 10mg, as I was desperate to sleep well, so I took it and went straight to bed but could not sleep so after maybe 30 minutes I started hallucinating hahah which was a ton of fun, I would look at stuff in my room and see it move and talk to it.. I knew I was hallucinating but for some reason I felt the need to talk to it... anyhow, I ended up sleeping very well and woke up the next morning thinking withdrawal was over and after 2 hours of being awake the fever came back and general shitiness which lasted all day... Was it the ambien helping or withdrawals coming and going?.. This was the first night I did not wake up feeling miserable and wanting to die, I had been terrified of nights because of that

 

[d1ahp]

Ambien can definitely help you sleep but no, it wasn't the reason why you felt good in the morning. Your body took a good beating in the first couple of days. So when you finally have a sleep resembling anything close to a normal cycle, your body thanks you for it. I always wake up(if I manage to fall asleep) feeling great on day 4 and after, but within an hour I'm back to feeling sick again.

I don't know if you notice, but unless you only dose strictly in the morning, your sleep gets kind of messed with PST use. I do it several times throughout the day, my last dose being 2-4 hours before bed. My sleep is constantly interrupted with random awakenings every hour on the dot and very vivid dreams. But if I only dose in the morning, I sleep like I would if I was sober. I believe I've developed several health issues because of constistent lack of normal sleep for 3 years now.

 

[johnloperamide]

Ambien can definitely help you sleep but no, it wasn't the reason why you felt good in the morning. Your body took a good beating in the first couple of days. So when you finally have a sleep resembling anything close to a normal cycle, your body thanks you for it. I always wake up(if I manage to fall asleep) feeling great on day 4 and after, but within an hour I'm back to feeling sick again.

I don't know if you notice, but unless you only dose strictly in the morning, your sleep gets kind of messed with PST use. I do it several times throughout the day, my last dose being 2-4 hours before bed. My sleep is constantly interrupted with random awakenings every hour on the dot and very vivid dreams. But if I only dose in the morning, I sleep like I would if I was sober. I believe I've developed several health issues because of constistent lack of normal sleep for 3 years now.

Yes I noticed that, when I dosed at night, it would take me hours to sleep and then wake up every hour but it was very enjoyable, not the toss and turning I'm going through now....

See, I thought it relieved the symptoms or something cause for example tonight, now 5:30 am, I took benadryl and slept 2 hours and woke up feeling like shit, I'm scared of nights now.. I'm going to try to get ambien for tomorrow.. I'm now on day 7

 

[d1ahp]

It is very enjoyable, but eventually you stop feeling all the euphoria and just lay there awake.

Ambien has a half life of 1.5-4hrs, so by the time the morning comes it's pretty much gone out of your system. You will feel better throughout the night, since Ambien is a hypnotic.

In about 3-5 days you should start feeling significantly better.

 

[Methacodone]

It will absolutely 'help' any withdrawal you're in....but not like you might expect.

it will 100% hell you sleep, as that's what ambien is Rx'd for, but you will probably have to wake up a couple of times throughout the night as its half life is very minimal, as stated above it lasts for only 2-4 hours.

its not going to help you as much as a benzodiazepine, such as Xanax or Valium, but if there's nothing else around, I would def. use it to calm me down as best as it could.

 

[johnloperamide]

=

In about 3-5 days you should start feeling significantly better.

I sure hope so, I really thought it'd be over by now... I remember being naive and thinking it'd only last 3-4 days

 

[johnloperamide]

its not going to help you as much as a benzodiazepine, such as Xanax or Valium, but if there's nothing else around, I would def. use it to calm me down as best as it could.

I tried 1mg of Xanax and it made it worse.. it made me super tired but couldn't sleep.. When I'm sober I love Xanax to sleep but clearly not now

I have 10mg more of ambien tonight so I bet I'll sleep, maybe hallucinate but I'll try to skip that and go to sleep right away

 

[smackydowners]

yeah, dude. don't give up now! you're definitely over the worst. try and look at how you're feeling now as a lesson not to fuck with opiates!

 

[Keif' Richards]

It will certainly help you get to sleep, but zolidem (Ambien) is definitely not anything like a benzodiazepine. It's a pretty short acting drug, which is why the controlled release tablets were released. In short, zolpidem is good for putting you to sleep, but not necessarily for keeping you asleep. I'm sure it's helpful.

 

[Psych_Major]

Well it certainly helps in the sense that your body and mind need sleep. When your detoxing it's very hard to sleep, and believe it or not a lot of problems that people have during withdrawal are results of being un healthy because your withdrawing. If that makes sense. See, if you can sleep well, eat right (healthy foods and proper portions), exercise, enduldge in hobbies, and have healthy and happy relationships with friends and family during your detoxification... well you would feel a hell of a lot better! But since the feeling of detox makes most of this impossible, or very undesirable at least it in turn makes detox as fun and comfortable as it is for most of us. So yes, it helped you but only because it helped you fall asleep and you need decent sleep that you've probably been lacking for quite a while. Try other sleep aids if that is one of your big detox hurtles. It's my husband's biggest detox problem as well and he takes melatonin, advil PM, Zzquil, etc. and come to think of it our dude gave him an ambien the other day he hasn't needed to try it yet though because subs are fantastic! ;-) Lol. But I'm definitely gonna give him your perspective on it if ya don't mind. Any don't forget to ware yourself out... your a guy so chances aRe (no offense) reading pay put you out... try that. It's all about trial and error my friend!

 

[emjay]

Ambien can definitely help you sleep but no, it wasn't the reason why you felt good in the morning. Your body took a good beating in the first couple of days. So when you finally have a sleep resembling anything close to a normal cycle, your body thanks you for it. I always wake up(if I manage to fall asleep) feeling great on day 4 and after, but within an hour I'm back to feeling sick again.

I don't know if you notice, but unless you only dose strictly in the morning, your sleep gets kind of messed with PST use. I do it several times throughout the day, my last dose being 2-4 hours before bed. My sleep is constantly interrupted with random awakenings every hour on the dot and very vivid dreams. But if I only dose in the morning, I sleep like I would if I was sober. I believe I've developed several health issues because of constistent lack of normal sleep for 3 years now.

Yeah it's bizzare but I always feel much better in the mornings and then start to feel worse throughout the day, even though you'd think it would slowly get better the further along you are into withdrawals.

 

[emjay]

It depends what you were taking, and how much for how long. Even though it was on a very short-acting drug, the fact that I was on hydromorphone for 5 years at a high dose meant I really only got past the acute part of withdrawals on day 10.

 

[Psych_Major]

The reason that withdrawal gets worse as time progresses is because there are still traces of the drug in your body holding on sort of. So when it is all actually gone is when the real fun begins. They say "the first day is the hardest" Hell no, I mean depending on the drug it differs slightly but generally days 2-4 are the absolute worst and most definitely the most painful.

 

[johnloperamide]

I feel like mine has been almost like a perfect bell curve.. Peaking at day 4 progressively getting worse each day and now getting better the same way... So on day 7 it should be almost over, God I hope tomorrow it's over since I got ambien again I should be able to sleep again after a night of zero sleep

I think that you get worn out by the end too so you feel worse... If I felt like this on day 1,2,3 I would probably thought it's not that bad but since I'm sick of it it just makes it seem unbearable

 

[Psych_Major]

You are almost there. I've quit.multiple times and trust me if u stick to it (oh and drink lots of water) you will feel good in no time. This is the testing time right here, don't give up! If u make it this far and cave in, it makes all the pain u have been going thru all for nothing. And wouldn't that suck? It always made me feel like a guilty scumbag. But that's just me...

 

[johnloperamide]

You are almost there. I've quit.multiple times and trust me if u stick to it (oh and drink lots of water) you will feel good in no time. This is the testing time right here, don't give up! If u make it this far and cave in, it makes all the pain u have been going thru all for nothing. And wouldn't that suck? It always made me feel like a guilty scumbag. But that's just me...

Oh If one thing I've been 100% certain from the beginning is that I would not touch PST again until I was 100% done with withdrawals, so there is no caving in... I refuse to be dependent on something... No more withdrawals for me thank you very much... Last year after I quit hydro I probably bought hydro like 5 more times... I'd buy 40-20 pills at a time (10mg ones) but what I changed was that I would just take them damn fast so I'd always be done with them in a week or so, and then I'd crave them till the next month when I know I could get them, maybe 2 times I got a day of feeling crappy but that's all the withdrawals I ever went through again... Now that I think about it I was a junkie, wow... It has now been 6 months since I've touched hydro ))))), just this crap, simply cause I didn't realize how dangerous it was.. Wait that's a lie, I took 20mg of hydro twice in march when someone in my family broke their arm, but it didn't cause problems obviously

I'm on the night of day 7 being clean and I still feel like shit!!! fuckkk, I'm about to pop the ambien I have, and half I want to do it for sleep and half for the hallucination.. I'm a fucking idiot.. Last time I tried to go to sleep right away so I would not trip and then want to do it again... About 2-3 months ago I took ambien twice I think and I took 20mg the first time and it fucked me up bad and then I took 30mg and I ended up driving on that cause I wanted to be in a public place for some fucking reason and ended up seeing double while I was driving and was smart enough to quickly come back home, it scares me so much now that I think about it, it was around 7 pm or so, I could have run over a kid or something, there's always kids playing on my street, WTF is wrong with me... I was still in control though, I had no idea I was seeing double till I started driving and came back real quick but still WTF!

 

[Psych_Major]

It depends what you were taking, and how much for how long. Even though it was on a very short-acting drug, the fact that I was on hydromorphone for 5 years at a high dose meant I really only got past the acute part of withdrawals on day 10.

Really? 5 years on a high does of hydromorphone and you were where by day 10 of withdraw?? ?

 

[Psych_Major]

That'a actually a VERY good way to look at it. Refusing to be dependent on anything if you stay true to that it will certainly save your ass! I never believed that withdraws are worth the high... it's just that it pulls you in and before you know it you can't take (or don't want) the withdraws so bad you don't stop. Congrats on the hydro... great job! And hell no one time out of the blue isn't going to make or break ya! And you can get through this PST just like you got through that man... for sure. Like I keep saying your just about there anyway.
That experience on ambien and driving is scary... super scared to think about but the fact that you realized what was going on and turned right the fuck around and refused to take the risk is good. Your obvious remorse is a good sign and I would like to think you would never drive on it again! But use all that you have available to you to get through withdraw man. I think it has made me addicted to BC powders and Advil, but shit I can accept that!