When hubby was in facility 2 mos ago for med evaluation they prescribed ambien as needed for sleep. I have not had to use it. He was sleeping very well. Last 3 nights he has been up wandering. It starts about 2 am. I am thinking of trying the ambien and was wondering if anyone has any experience with this drug. He is also on aricept, namenda, respirdal, lamictal, lexapro.
Yes, I take it myself. My Dh with AD does not need sleep medication at this time. The major thing I like about it is that it does not leave you feeling drugged at all the next day even if you sleep has been disturbed.
mya, in my opinion i would give it during the day the first time, just to see the reaction make sure it works well with his other meds etc AND maybe just try half the recommended dose to see if tha works first or ask dr if you can try lowest dose before the whole amount.. then skip a day and then start at nite. sometimes ANY med can have a different reaction when used by AD persons. i usually try to use this method of during daylite hrs just in case, once i had to go to ER at 4am for giving a med that didnt sit well with DH so i never give a new med during nite for my sake. i also told drs i wont start any at nite...if he does well then ok, start thefollowing pm...your dr can let you know whats best, divvi
AD patients don't always react to meds the way healthy people do. They can sometimes have the exact opposite reaction to sleep meds that you'd expect. So the advice to start slowly and carefully is a very good idea.
my dh takes trazadone 100mg for sleep problems. neurologist said it was non habit forming and it helps him so much. he was taking 50mg for about a year,but when he took a turn for the worse the dr prescribed the larger dosage. my son in law has a sleeping problem and his dr prescribed ambien and he said it scared him to death. it made him see thing moving and not remember things. i think ambien,like alot of meds affect people differently. i myself took ambien after having surgery several years ago,and had no problem at all with it. i slept good and did not have that groggy hangover feeling the next morning. i thought it was great,for myself. i think maybe there is an extended release version,and more people have problems with that one. that is the one my son in law took. jav
Comment Author Mya CommentTime 13 hours ago edit delete
Well I tried it last night and he slept like a baby...but his urine output was unbelievable. I had to change him and bedding twice. He didn't void much during the day yesterday but seems like once he was relaxed it all came out. Anyone have experience w/this?
There are two medications, Ambien and Ambien CR. The Ambien puts you to sleep. But some people need more than just getting to sleep, they need help STAYING asleep. The Ambien CR is for when you wake up up even with Ambien...hence the letters CR for Controlled Release. The CR medication has more to it and it is designed to let off medication all through the night.
Our neighbor took it and experienced the hallucinations something fierce. She is not AD. My DW took it, and shook it off like a bull elephant. No side effects for her, it just didn't do anything for her. But then, we have not yet found the medication that will keep her out for the night.
After the Ambiens, we went to Ativan, Seroquel, and then Depakote. Depakote seems to work at least somewhat, but you will be warned of possible really bad side effects from using it. It's an epilepsy drug. But when you have no other choice, there's not much else to do...
And when you are dealing with dementia at the stage where you need something like the drugs that have been mentioned, the side effects frankly don't matter. Does it really matter if a drug is habit forming, or if dementia patients have been known to die earlier if they take it, when we are dealing with a terminal illness and we are trying to keep the quality of what life is left as high as possible?
Would anybody even discuss these particular side effects if it was terminal cancer that was the disease?
Starling, it depends on the person doing the discussing. When my first husband was in the hospital dying of cancer, I had a lot of trouble with a couple of the nurses, who simply could not get it through their heads he was terminal. They were used to a surgical ward, and insisted on treating him as if he was going to get better and go home. They tried to avoid giving him pain medication on the grounds it was habit forming, and that he should learn to "tough it out"; they stopped giving him morphine at night (when I was asleep and didn't notice what was going on) on the grounds that it made him breathe more shallowly, which might end up with his getting pneumonia; they tried to sneak into the room when I went to shower or to the cafeteria to eat, to move him to prevent his getting bedsores, despite the fact that moving even slightly caused him to scream in agony (and by this point, the doctor was rarely coming to the room because he couldn't understand why my husband hadn't died weeks earlier, and couldn't bear to face me)... I had to have more than one little chat with the head of oncology, to keep these well-meaning but very misguided nurses away from him.
And my husband looked absolutely horrible, mind you. It was very clear to anyone looking at him that he was near death.
Sunshyne I am so sorry your husband had to suffer like that. Two of my favorite patients were near death. One was in agony and the other could not get a decent breath. Morphine was the drug of choice for both of them. Did I know morphine would cause respiratory depression-of course I did. Did that prevent me from giving the prescribed dose though I knew it was lethal-no way. Please don't think I am walking the hall as the angel of death. I value life and would never "kill" a bug. bluedaze
bluedaze, I think you were a nurse who really understood what her patients needed. We had some of those, too -- quite a few more of them than the mentally-challenged types, actually. They were the only reason I survived, God bless them.
It's just that I'd think a nurse, of all people, WOULD understand.
In response to Starling's comment, if some nurses don't understand that side effects don't matter when a patient is clearly on death's doorstep, it isn't surprising that people don't understand that it's idiotic to worry about side effects etc when it comes to AD patients who APPEAR to be healthy and may be years away from the final stages.
DD, who is an OB, said that her psychiatrist friend prescribes Ambien for dementia patients and we might try it with getting DH settled down at night. Good heavens, after tonight's dose we were captives on the train to crazytown. DD just happened to call as the incessant talking and confabulation was peaking. I picked up the extension and finally after about 10 minutes of nonstop nonsense, said "Hey, DD, can you tell we are on an Ambien Trip?" She said "Is THAT what is going on?" It is now 90 minutes after the Ambien and DH is still wired and popping out of bed. I just thought I would weigh in with our Ambien experience, which clearly did not act as a sleep aid! Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware).
I used to swear by Ambien- for myself. It seems like it just stopped working. I realize this topic has a lot of history and different forms of it may now be available. Lately I have been alternating the CR 6.25 with the 12.5.
My husband also took Ambien for several years, but most of his experience was with the first 10mg tablets.
marche, any thoughts of using lorazepam? My husband took that regularly, supplemented with amitriptyline and Benadryl.
My wife had a lot of success with ambien. It will lose effectiveness over time, and you have to be sure to avoid taking too much. As mentioned, the CR version lasts for 8 hours which is important for people who have trouble sleeping through the night.
Thanks for the suggestion of lorazepam (Ativan), abby*. Actually we tried that and I reported to the neurologist that it just revved up DH, but was a huge help when I took it. He just laughed. When it comes to medications and brain chemistry, we(medical community and patients) are still shooting gnats with elephant guns.
It is funny how some sleeping meds don't help sleep in some people but do the opposite. One time a cat managed to eat a xanax (1mg) and a Sonata. While the Xanax was making him goofy and extremely uncoordinated, the Sonata was keeping him awake. Fortunately I was able to figure would why he was acting so strange and after calling animal poison control I was told not to worry, just confine him to a room so he would stop falling down the stairs. That he would eventually fall asleep once the Sonata wore off.
I swear that cat was looking in my bedroom for another Xanax for months.
I find that the Ambien is a great aid coping with the afternoon-evening sundowning hyper activity DW suffers from. A late afternoon dose of Lorazapam 0.5 to 1mg. slows DW's incessant pacing, rummaging and restlessness. Then at bedtime, a 5 mg Zolpidem, generic Ambien, followed in an hour by another 5 mg on if necessary. The aforementioned CR or sustained release version of the drug left DW in very confused and disoriented state of mind in the AM (all things being relative)