SCT Day 33 – Done With Ambien – no workee!

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I shut down my book (iPad) at 23:22 last night.  I took my ambien (as reported earlier) around 21:45.  I got up for my first (and only) potty break at 05:30.  I got out of bed at 06:10.  In between 23:22 and 05:30 I was up continuously – as I was drugged (apparently Ambien is climbing as the new date rape drug – wonderful!) I can’t tell exactly what times or how often but suffice it to say it was in hour to hour and a half increments.  between 05:30 and 06:10 I might have slept for about 10 minutes.  At the end of the day, or should I say the beginning of the day, the Ambien “no workee”.

More importantly, my son had his basketball game yesterday and wanted to get there early to practice.  Mom promised he could go to Dunkin Donuts for a breakfast sandwich and then over to the court by 09:30.  But he wanted to be on the court by 09:30, really by 09:00.  So we left our house at 08:00 (ish).   His game WASN’T UNTIL 12:15!  None of this is really relevant – the relevant point is that during the first hour or so of being at the gym I noticed my back was killing me.  I assumed it was from sitting in the bleachers, with no support behind you.  However, I’ve done this before and never had a problem.  So i started sitting in a chair, sat at the top of the bleachers to use the back wall, finally just stood.  Got home and was bending and twisting to find a way to stretch out my back.  I took a nap and put the Olbas Oil (like tiger balm) on my back to help soothe but that didn’t help.  Last night I did the same and this morning I tried putting a pillow under my bottom to force my back to stretch.  Nothing worked.

This morning I googled “ambient muscle pain” and found a number of people that reported severe back pain that went away once they stopped taking Ambien.  I double checked the wikipedia page for Zolpidem (which is where I found the date rape reference) and did not see anything there.  This will be added to my Drugs and Their Effects page soon.

For now, I’ve messaged the doctors (via the Epic My Chart portal – aka EpicFail!) to identify other options for sleep as I do not want to take the Ambien.  I am hoping to prove my theory tomorrow when the back pain goes away (but that may take two to three days so will leave it at that.)

Have a great day everyone!