Many first heard of the uber sleeping pill, Ambien, in 2006 when former Rhode Island representative Patrick Kennedy drove to Capitol Hill under its influence to "vote" at 2:45 a.m., crashing his car. He had also been taking Phenergan, a gastroenteritis drug that can cause drowsiness, said published reports.
Soon Ambien-induced blackouts were so common, they captured the attention of public health agencies. The FDA issued warnings in 2007 about the potential of "complex sleep-related behaviors" with Ambien and 12 other sleeping pills that included "sleep-driving, making phone calls and preparing and eating food (while asleep)." Meanwhile, law enforcement officials reported traffic accidents increasing under Ambien's popularity with some drivers not even recognizing police officers there to arrest them. Dude! Help me get my car out of this ditch.
Then, horror stories began to circulate about blackout eating . Skinny dieters were waking up horrified amid mountains of pizza, Krispy Kreme donuts, and HÃ agen-Dazs cartons consumed by their evil twins when they took Ambien. Blackout eating became such a lifestyle problem--hours on the treadmill shot to hell--Sanoï -Aventis, Ambien's manufacturer, was forced to publish full page newspaper ads telling people if they were going to take Ambien, to get in bed and stay there. No calling for pizza delivery either.
One woman in Pennsylvania woke up in the morning after taking Ambien only to find her fingers black. She soon discovered she had gotten up and drank a bottle of black shoe polish in an Ambien blackout. When she told her doctor he said to stop taking the drug. No kidding.
In 2009, Ambien was again in the news when Tiger Woods reportedly used it to spice up sex with his string of consorts which led to his separation from Elin Nordegren Woods.
And last summer, a generic version of Ambien was found in
the bloodstream of Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and former wife
of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo when she swerved into a tractor-trailer and
kept driving. Witnesses said she was had been weaving for miles. Kennedy told
police when she was stopped that she may have confused the Ambien with her
daily thyroid med but at her court appearance she blamed a "partial
seizure."
This week, the Mayo clinic in Rochester, Minn., is
announcing it will no longer prescribe Ambien to inpatients because of its high
correlation with falls. Data on more than 16,000 hospitalized patients found
that the fall rate on Ambien was more than four times that of those not on the
sleeping pill. Ambien was correlated with more falls than factors like age,
mental impairment, delirium or insomnia, write authors in the Nov. 19 issue of
the Journal of Hospital Medicine, reports
Newsday.
And there are more negatives to Ambien than falls, car wrecks and sleep eating. The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders recently reported Ambien-associated homicides. "This Brief Report presents 2 cases in which concomitant zolpidem [Ambien] and paroxetine [Paxil] use was associated with uncharacteristic, complex acts of violence for which the individuals in question claimed total or partial amnesia. Neither individual had a history of aggressive behavior before killing his or her spouse; both most likely took more than 5 mg of zolpidem on the nights of their offenses."
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