Ambien – My Story of Experiencing the Hallucination Side Effect!

Ambien – Given to me in hospital before having my baby, made me hallucinate!

Ambien is a drug to help relieve sleeplessness and insomnia. If I would have had good experiences with this drug, I’d be looking into getting a prescription as I suffer sleeplessness quite often.

Like most prescription drugs there are many things you must tell your doctor before taking Ambien. For example, tell your doctor if you are depressed, drink alcohol frequently, pregnant or have any lung or liver diseases as well as many more. Ambien interacts with many other drugs as well, so be sure to notify your doctor of anything you are taking, prescription or not. Non-prescription, diet supplements and herbal supplements need to be discussed as well.

Side effects of Ambien include but are not limited to: vision changes, restlessness, depressed mood, confusion and of course, hallucinations! These are only a few, but I do not understand why they cannot make a drug that has fewer crazy side effects?

I was in the hospital getting ready to have my first child and she was going to be early but only because I had pre-eclampsia. The first night I was there they said they were going to give me something to help me sleep. I didn’t mind, only because I do not like hospitals whatsoever, so I figured if I could just pass out it wouldn’t bother me so much.

My partner was there with me, and he pulled his chair up by my bed to sleep. Shortly after they gave me the Ambien, I could feel it kicking in. I wasn’t quite ready to go to sleep, even though I guess I had no choice in the matter. But I laid there with my eyes closed for just a few minutes it felt like, and then I opened them, I can’t remember why, but I look over at my partner, and everything is moving! He had a pillow in front of him and it was moving along with everything else in the room.

I have never taken any hard drugs, or any drug that makes you hallucinate as the thought always scared the crap out of me, so here I am, seeing things moving and I literally freak out. I attempt to wake up my partner but he’s sound asleep and sleeps like a log anyways, so I finally closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing until I finally fell asleep.

Now had they told me about this drug and if I was to watch for something, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But they did not say anything about the side effects or letting them know if I experienced any certain side effects. So I had no clue that the hallucinations were a normal side effect to the medicine, and one that is supposed to be reported to your doctor as soon as possible. They really should fill the patients in on these things, especially when you are a pregnant mother!

I know it doesn’t sound that bad, but I take Melatonin as a sleeping aid, and it works just as good as Ambien for the sleeping part, and I do not have to worry about hallucinations. I think it’s crazy that they would prescribe such a drug with such bizarre side effects for something that can be treated with herbal supplements and other sleep medications that have lesser to none side effects. I recommend taking something else if you want to avoid major side effects.