Sleeping Pills Make Me Stupid

I am swearing off Zolpidem (generic form of the sleeping pill, Ambien), except in extreme, dire, temporary circumstances.

A troublesome side effect of Prednisone is insomnia. I periodically take Prednisone to prevent, and sometimes resolve small bowel obstructions caused by my Crohn's disease. Some nights, after sleep eludes me for two hours or more, I get up to read. And sometimes I am still up when morning arrives.  After few nights like that, each followed by a day of chugging caffeine-laced Crystal Lite and de-fizzed Diet Coke to stay alert at my desk, it just gets worse. And more miserable.

So I started taking Zolpidem if I was still awake after an hour, or if the night before had been an all-nighter.

But no matter what the literature says or what anyone tells me, following day or two are laced with brain fog.

 The first few days of our France vacation complicated the insomnia further by jumping the time of day ahead by 8 hours. And I wanted to sleep at night so I wouldn't doze off in the day and miss France.

So on night #2, I got back up out of bed after trying unsuccessfully for a couple of hours to fall asleep. I took a Zolpidem and settled down with my IPad to wait for the sleeping pill to kick in.

I put some eggs on the stove to hard-boil for morning, and made myself a warm vanilla instant breakfast, to attack sleeplessness from the L-tryptophan angle as well. Next thing I remember is spilling my warm drink on my pajamas as I was dozing off. So I went to bed.

When my alarm woke me a couple of hours later, the eggs were still in the pan (Thankfully, the stove was turned off!), a full cup of cool milk was in the dish cupboard (weird!), and the splashes from the warm-milk spill waited under the kitchen table for me to tackle with a wet rag.

Yikes!

I doubled my melatonin dose and swore off Zolpidem. If I let there be a next time, things could end so much worse. I am not willing to risk that.

I have been sleeping better at night (most of the time) and feeling better in the morning. And, I think my memory and concentration are better. I don't know if that's because I am sleeping better, or because I don't have the forgetfulness that can be a side effect of Zolpidem.

But it's better. And I'm grateful.