# Woah! Ambien SUDDENLY stopped working!



## sara01 (Feb 4, 2010)

It used to help so much to get me to sleep, and it was very relaxing. But my doctor has had me on this for a few years which is a bit scary. About three nights ago it stopped working! I mean zero effect. What could have happened?


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## IllusionalFate (Sep 10, 2008)

That's good news that it worked for so long. Ambien is a GABA-A agonist, so tolerance is bound to develop at some point. What dose are you currently on, and are you taking the instant-release or CR version?


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## arth98 (Nov 30, 2009)

it may be the sedation only that has stopped or you may heve heat spoiled tablets, or inactive fakes if bought on the internet


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

You need to talk to your doctor. It could be anything, though.


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## Akane (Jan 2, 2008)

Ambien does that. It's just surprising it took too long to do it. If you are on regular tabs you could try cr for a couple days and see if it works any. Despite becoming tolerant to my regular ambien 12.5mg of cr knocked me out for another 2 days before the stuff was useless. If that doesn't work you can try lunesta. Lunsta does not feel as strong or as much like a benzo as ambien but it hits more gaba receptors instead of just one. It takes longer for complete tolerance. Downside is after taking 1 of the z drugs (benzo like sleep aids) you make yourself at least partially tolerant to all of them. Currently I'm alternating off them with temazepam. I took it for a few weeks and then took ambien cr last night and finally slept good without seroquel. I plan to take it another night and then switch back to temazepam for awhile and then to lunesta for a few days. Hopefully I can avoid tolerance enough to not fail this semester while the sleep disorders clinic is decided what to do about my case.


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## meyaj (Sep 5, 2009)

Yes tolerance can be an issue, but what people here seem to be missing is the fact that it's a very gradual process. If this was due to tolerance alone, it should not just one day out of the blue suddenly stop working completely after taking it regularly for 3 years.

My guess would be is that something is triggering your insomnia/anxiety/other possible problems to be significantly worse at the moment, and that the ambien you are taking is not adequate to compensate for it. I am NOT suggesting that you should increase your dose to deal with it, in fact, I think that would be a very bad idea. But it's an infinitely more plausible explanation for the sudden ineffectiveness of the drug, and I would focus on examining what might be causing that and try to remedy whatever it may happen to be. An obvious source could be some sort of major change that's taken place in your life, but there are tons of possible explanations.


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## blahgman (Jan 27, 2010)

You're lucky it only stopped working! It helped me with my insomnia for about 2 months, then stopped working and made me start hallucinating every night which was pretty fun but definitely didnt help with the whole getting to sleep thing lol


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## meyaj (Sep 5, 2009)

blahgman said:


> You're lucky it only stopped working! It helped me with my insomnia for about 2 months, then stopped working and made me start hallucinating every night which was pretty fun but definitely didnt help with the whole getting to sleep thing lol


I take a different z-drug, zopiclone, and if I for some reason don't go to bed shortly after, I do get pretty wild hallucinations in the dark, every single night. It concerned my psychiatrist when I finally told her about it months later (didn't think it was important), but I assured her that they didn't bother me in the slightest. The first night it looked like bugs crawling all over my walls and flying in front of my face, which was a bit disturbing, but after that I was completely fine with it. My pdoc actually had a great deal of trouble understanding just exactly how it wasn't a dealbreaker for me, but really, after I got over the fascination of it for the first few weeks of me noticing these hallucinations (I thought they were kind of fun, actually), the novelty wore off.

Now I'm back to falling asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow, as opposed to the hours it usually took me pre-zopiclone (or oftentimes no sleep at all). I've been taking the same dose (the "maximum" of 15mg) for nearly a year now and it hasn't lost a shred of efficacy. It really works wonders for me, the subtlety and gentleness of the drug being much better suited for me than the pure knockout power of seroquel, zyprexa, or remeron, which didn't get me to sleep any quicker and only had me waking up feeling terrible.


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## Vega (Feb 12, 2010)

Many prescription drugs to help with SA tend to stop working or are less effective with continued use. I would talk with you doctor and try another one. I tried switching a year ago and did not like the way it made me feel, so I went back to my normal medicine. My normal medicine didn't feel like it was less effective, I was just wondering if there was something that would be more effective. I decided not to try another prescription and just go back to the medicine I've been taking.


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