Friday, July 14, 2006
Day 1 - 9:07 am
So it is five hours after I woke up, which also happens to be the number of hours I slept last night. I feel terrible. I am dead tired, but I think I would have trouble sleeping if I attempted a nap. The coffee and energy drink aren't doing anything for me. Today is Toolbox's birthday and we are all going to see the Giants tonight and I fear I will be worthless. This sucks. I really hope this gets better because if I have another day like this right off I am not taking Ambien ever again.
Day 1 - 4:02 AM
I have been lying here for about 30 minutes now and it is clear that I am not going to get back to sleep because my head is already filled with a hundred different thoughts, so I'd best just get up and make use of the morning. I did get 5 hours and while the Ambien made me feel a little groggy, it certainly a lot more dealable than a Xanax morning where I could sleep for 10 hours and still not feel like I had enough. Still, I am disappointed not to sleep through the night right out of the gate. This may have been my fault though. Yesterday, at the doctor's office, when she asked me whether I wanted 5 or 10 mg tablets I told her that I'd get 10 and just break them in half and take 10 if 5 wasn't helping. At around 9:30 last night I tried to break a pill in half and it is clear these were not meant to be halved. It just kinda broke apart. I took a majority of the larger remnants with some water. In addition to that, I had finished dinner not 45 minutes earlier (Take Ambien on an empty stomach) where I also had a glass of wine (AVOID ALCOHOL). So, in effect, I didn't exactly prime myself for success here. By 10 PM I was really feeling the Ambien kick in and it was very strange. It was almost like being drunk as I was feeling really swimmy. It wasn't unpleasant, but I certainly would be screwed if I would have to function in that state. The thought of getting a call from work in that state is downright frightening. What was even more odd that I was seeing trails like I had been dosed. I remember plugging in my cell phone in the dark and putting it beside me and seeing the afterimage of the LCD screen following the phone by about 3 inches as I put it down. Freaky. I have no idea how long it took me to get to sleep, but I couldn't have been very long. I woke up feeling out of time from a dreamless sleep about 5 hours later with my thoughts already running in my head so as soon as I was aware I was conscious the feet of my brain hit the ground and away it went. I knew right away I was not going back to sleep, but I was tired so I tried. I realize now reflecting on how I woke up that C's leg was under one of mine so maybe she woke me up when I wouldn't have otherwise, but really, that shouldn't matter and it concerns me that I would not be able to get back to sleep at 3:30 in the morning. It was weird as our bed is huge and rarely do we wake each other up by bumping into each other in the night, but she was sleeping starfish style all sideways. Man, I so wish I could sleep like that girl. At 10 PM she could put her head down and be sawing logs in 10 minutes.
In actuality, this is really day 2. Yesterday was the day I really started this "program". I had gone to the doctor to finally deal with my sleeping problems which I have had, to some degree, since childhood. Having not slept at all 2 nights before I realized something had to be done. My sleep patterns were frightfully unhealthy lately, and the last week or two I was particularly short on hours. So after talking to my doctor for a surprisingly long time, she suggested that giving me something to sleep, like Ambien to supplant my taking Xanax to sleep, was just taking a band-aid and would not help me with whatever my real problem with sleep was. After spending 30 minutes with me and listening to me describe my insomnia episodes she was fairly convinced that my trouble with getting to sleep was anxiety related. This did in fact coincide accurately with my history, and any who knows me would agree that my biggest issue is being able to calm the f--k down appropriately. She suggested that an SSRI could be effective in controlling ongoing anxiety and that late night fretting while staring at the ceiling from my bed. I was not really expecting this today. Hell, it was the farthest thing from my mind but when she said it, and after the knee jerk reaction against Prozac Culture I considered the situation and realized that this is something I could try and see what it does for me. I would go back to her office and a month and if this was helping me have a healthy rhythm in my day and even better stave off some of the needless fretting, then hooray! If I find it turns me into a Stepford zombie or makes me prefer adult contemporary music, then it would be a short enough time to discontinue. So Zoloft it is. I had asked why she prescribed it versus other SSRIs and her reasoning seemed sound. She also prescribed the Ambien just to get me through the insomnia, but she clearly was hoping that I wouldn't be on it very long. I'm not sure how that works. The fact that she asked if I needed 5 or 10 mg is kind of curious too. I'm no doctor, you tell me? Don't get me wrong, she is actually good with me, and I do trust her. Her and I can have an honest discussion about my health and my lifestyle choices and she doesn't lecture or judge, just offers me the best advice she can. More importantly, she doesn't treat me like an idiot and appreciates that I have done my homework on whatever it is that I came in there for. However, not expecting I would be prescribed what I would have previously called "crazy pills", I was a bit disarmed and felt completely at her mercy. I guess I got over the prejudice towards these kinds of meds, as I went home with the script, stared at it for about an hour, and then decided to go to the Walgreen's and get them both filled. When I picked them up, I remember a strange sense of something when I opened the package and the bottle and took out the first little blue pill. Would this change me? Is that the kind of change that I want? After a moment I threw the pill into my mouth and washed it down with some water.
In actuality, this is really day 2. Yesterday was the day I really started this "program". I had gone to the doctor to finally deal with my sleeping problems which I have had, to some degree, since childhood. Having not slept at all 2 nights before I realized something had to be done. My sleep patterns were frightfully unhealthy lately, and the last week or two I was particularly short on hours. So after talking to my doctor for a surprisingly long time, she suggested that giving me something to sleep, like Ambien to supplant my taking Xanax to sleep, was just taking a band-aid and would not help me with whatever my real problem with sleep was. After spending 30 minutes with me and listening to me describe my insomnia episodes she was fairly convinced that my trouble with getting to sleep was anxiety related. This did in fact coincide accurately with my history, and any who knows me would agree that my biggest issue is being able to calm the f--k down appropriately. She suggested that an SSRI could be effective in controlling ongoing anxiety and that late night fretting while staring at the ceiling from my bed. I was not really expecting this today. Hell, it was the farthest thing from my mind but when she said it, and after the knee jerk reaction against Prozac Culture I considered the situation and realized that this is something I could try and see what it does for me. I would go back to her office and a month and if this was helping me have a healthy rhythm in my day and even better stave off some of the needless fretting, then hooray! If I find it turns me into a Stepford zombie or makes me prefer adult contemporary music, then it would be a short enough time to discontinue. So Zoloft it is. I had asked why she prescribed it versus other SSRIs and her reasoning seemed sound. She also prescribed the Ambien just to get me through the insomnia, but she clearly was hoping that I wouldn't be on it very long. I'm not sure how that works. The fact that she asked if I needed 5 or 10 mg is kind of curious too. I'm no doctor, you tell me? Don't get me wrong, she is actually good with me, and I do trust her. Her and I can have an honest discussion about my health and my lifestyle choices and she doesn't lecture or judge, just offers me the best advice she can. More importantly, she doesn't treat me like an idiot and appreciates that I have done my homework on whatever it is that I came in there for. However, not expecting I would be prescribed what I would have previously called "crazy pills", I was a bit disarmed and felt completely at her mercy. I guess I got over the prejudice towards these kinds of meds, as I went home with the script, stared at it for about an hour, and then decided to go to the Walgreen's and get them both filled. When I picked them up, I remember a strange sense of something when I opened the package and the bottle and took out the first little blue pill. Would this change me? Is that the kind of change that I want? After a moment I threw the pill into my mouth and washed it down with some water.
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