I have officially been off ambien for six nights. To give a bit of background, I have always had issues sleeping. I would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, rolling over to each side, going to the bathroom with my mind racing for hours about the student issues that day or the strong desire to quit my job and move to middle of nowhere (wait.....I did THAT) once I got to bed. The next question you'll ask is: "When do you drink caffeine in your daily routine?" and I can say that I always have 3 cups of dark dark dark coffee, but I am done with that by 10 am. I do not drink soda (unless, of course, my good friend Jack is attending. In that case, I drink diet soda). I have a sleeping issue. When I started dating Aaron it became more frustrating and more apparent. Aaron would be called in to cover severe weather at all hours of the night and no matter when he first woudl go into the studio, whether it was 2 am or 3 am, he would have to be on air @ 5:30 am. Needless to say, the boy was running on low sleep and you couple that with a cranky girlfriend who isn't sleeping well, something has to change. And it wasn't his god awful work schedule.
I went to my lovely family doctor and he prescribed ambien (genric, duh) for 5 mg. That didn't do squat and we upped the mg to 10. That worked for awhile, but after a couple months, I needed more umph to my ahhh. I was heartbroken and near tears when my nurse told me that 10 was the highest it comes, but I could try ambien cr (continuous release) which was for 12.5 mg. Hook a girl up, seriously.
Long story short, I have noticed a few changes that I've been wanting to make. One, now that I don't work for K-State, my health insurance is not near as glamorous (ie : kick ass) as I have now. What once cost me 15 bucks, now costs 30 and that's for half the pills. So yeah, when you're not earning a paycheck that begins to suck. And I started noticing that even when I woudl get 7-8 hrs of sleep, I'd wake up and not want to get out of bed (sluggish). Since I don't have a "job" that I need to be at work by a certain time (unless the father in law calls for me to do gopher jobs, which happens at about..... 6:30 that morning) I figured I might as well try to ween (is that how you spell ween?) myself off ambien. And I've discovered a little trick in my mom's health food guru vitamin magazines: honey before bed.
Seriously. Honey before bed along with a few "Restful Sleep" vitamin herbs (from my mother) and I'm golden. And I feel safer plugging my body with clover honey and vitamins than with sleep medication.
What's the point of this blog? No, it's not to preach the evils of prescription sleep medications (although they had their spot in my life and who knows, maybe I'll have a night here and there were I need it) or scream in your face the benefits of an "all natural life". I just want to brag that I used to feel as though I was addicated to something and I've made progress. I think we all need to BLOW our horns when we've made progress on something. Especially something that was costing me $30 twice a month.
So who knows, maybe now I can work on weening myself off of something else that's costing me. Don't worry adult beverages, you ain't going anywhere.
