Megherc

Natural sleep is natural sleep. Pill sleep is pill sleep!!! Pills never duplicate the exact natural sleep pattern, and in time will inable the brain to work to produce sleep...dependancy and tolerance are inevitable, even if it takes awhile...having less effect and having to up the dose is the first sign.

Contrary to the popular Ambien commercial, this can happen without "abusing" the medication as the commercial suggests. After tolerance and dependancy set in, only larger doses will work at all and then suddenly it's called abuse instead of the reality that these drugs change brain chemistry.

So, a person needs to taper off the drug slowly and accept a withdrawal insomnia period that may last quite awhile, but eventually the brain will work to produce sleep again...maybe not perfect for awhile, but all good things take time! Original insomnia may have actually gone in time too, especially if there was no medical reasons found, but the waiting for this tries many people's patience, so it's no wonder they reach for the meds. But when drugs are introduced into a situation, things only worsen and complicate in time. If one types in benzo withdrawal in a search engine, they will come upon very informative websites about sleep and anxiety drugs, mainly of the benzodiazepine family...but other families of drugs for sleep are very simular to benzos, so the information can be helpful to people on non-benzo sleep meds, like Ambien for example.

Insomnia and anxiety are top symptoms in withdrawal, because it was found through a Professor Ashton's research that people who were given Valium (a benzo) for medical reasons only (muscle spasms from back injury for example) and NOT any previous insomnia or anxiety....well, these people experienced insomnia and anxiety upon withdrawal of their medication for several months and sometimes 2 years before symptoms completely stopped!!!! So it's obvious how profoundly drugs will mess up sleep cycles and the nervous system even in people with no previous history.

I really hate those commercials for Ambien. A soothing voice shows little puppy dogs sleeping. Since when does a puppy dog need Ambien to sleep...I suppose people are throwing Ambien crumbs to the birds in the commercial.... and apparentely, only people who "abuse" will become dependant...so look out upping the dose too much...what a bunch of hogwash.