Ambien Leads to Midnight Snacking?
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Could a popular prescription sleep aid prove detrimental to your diet? The New York Times reports that “the sleeping pill Ambien seems to unlock a primitive desire to eat in some patients.” Even worse, it’s reported that Ambien makes people “hell-bent” to eat while sleeping. Eating while sleeping. Now that takes the cake and eats it, too.) As tough as my personal battle with insomnia has been, I haven’t resorted to prescription sleep aids, not Ambien, not Lunesta … even after flirting with over-the-counter sleep aids …
Oh sure, I’ve been hooked by ear plugs. A few bucks worth of foamy goodness and I can deal with the not-quite-so ambient household noise. One or two Gnomies kindly wrote notes that I should be careful about using ear plugs while sleeping, lest I fail to hear a fire alarm.
Not to worry. Our system is ear-shatteringly loud.
I still have a tough time sleeping many nights, and I’m always on the lookout for safe insomnia cures. But this latest news about Ambien really made me ponder the whole dilemma. Is it worth gaining weight to get a good night’s sleep?
Hell-bent to eat while sleeping. Waking up in a bed full of tortilla crumbs and ice pop wrappers.
How could Sanofi-Aventis, the makers of Ambien, possibly list these artifacts of the midnight unconscious munchies as side-effects? Je ne sais quoi!
4 Comments
Blackwolf
May 29th, 2007
at 12:32am
Dan - believe it or not, I have used and do use Ambien. I swear by it. I use Ambien because I travel at least a couple of times a year to other countries all over the world, and I also have occasional bouts with insomnia. I have never been affected by Ambien in regards to “getting up” in the middle of the night to “sleep-eat”. My wife would have told me about that!
When I travel, I hate getting jet-lagged, and if I have to fly across five or more time zones, then the best thing to do, is set my clock to the destination time zone while I’m on the flight. I do this by taking 10mg of Ambien at about 9 or 10 PM in the destination time zone. Then I’ll sleep until it’s time to land, or I’ve gotten about 6 to 8 hours (some of my flights are over 12 hours in duration) of sleep. When I do arrive at my destination, I will take another 10mg before going to bed - this ensures that I sleep through the night. By the time I’ve done this for two or three days, I’m completely adapted, and there’s no jet-laggy feeling at all. Not even on the first full day I’m in country.
A final note about Ambien: Technically, it’s non-addictive. I’ve found that it becomes less effective after about a week or so of use. The best way to use it, is for travel, or those nights when you just know you are not going to be able to get to sleep by normal means. Using it everyday for a month will probably lead to what the NYT reported. I have also found that ambien does NOT interfere with you ability to wake up if you say, really NEED to wake up - such as if theres a fire or something. You need to wake up because of a situation - poof, you’re awake, and not groggy.
A final trick for when you really do want to stay off of pills - Drink a glass of milk. Enzymes in the milk promote the release of endorphins (I think that’s what they’re called) that make you sleepy.
Take care and God Bless!
Blackwolf
Tim
May 29th, 2007
at 2:28am
mmm..nothing better than cherry cheesecake and a glass of cold milk at 3 am..
CADuser
May 29th, 2007
at 12:21pm
Dan,
One thing that works for me is the book of Numbers in the Bible. All the begats work almost as well as tryptophan.
CADuser
Dave
May 30th, 2007
at 6:17am
Beer works miracles.