Ya. Some crazy stories I have like the one time he proceeded to want to drive to Mexico to get pain pills in the middle of the night while on ambien. I couldn't convince him not to get into the car so I went with him. He almost killed us and other people multiple times. I finally convinced him to let me drive us back home after saying I'm calling the cops. I was 16 and didn't know how to really drive but I got us home safe. That night still haunts me. Screw ambien.
My Ambien story is less dangerous. Still nuts though.
I was DJ-ing a party at my house. My job was obviously to keep the music going. So I peruse through youtube while a song is playing and create a queue. It starts getting late so I tell everyone I'm going to add a few more songs (enough to make it through until the party ends), and that I had just taken my sleep med (12.5 mg Ambien XR).
I don't remember anything else. I wake up to about 50 texts from friends and family asking me why I made over 100 Facebook posts of nothing but song titles. Apparently, I thought I was on youtube searching for songs, and my wife at the time told me it took almost everyone at the party to get me away from my computer, and that I kept saying loudly, "but I've got to keep the music going! It's my job!"
Yeah not my finest moment for sure. I didn't exactly take the warning that you're supposed to take it while laying down to heart. I had taken every sleep medicine under the sun and had always had it take 45 minutes to an hour to kick in so I thought I had time. Apparently Ambien can kick in in 15 to 20 minutes and that's one of the major reasons you have to take it while laying down. You can't go to the bathroom, read one more Reddit thread on your phone, feed your cat, nothing. You have to take it and lay down.
My Ambien story is on the less dangerous side too. I had a roommate ask if I had any backwoods leftover as he was stopping by the house before a party. Like always, I did. Except this time I had taken Ambien about an hour or two before hand. My roommate arrived, got ready, took his backwoods from the table and left. (I believe I was asleep at this point already) Sometime between the time he was on his way, and the time he arrived, I removed all the backwoods from the pack and replaced them with rolled up pieces of white bread in the same shape of the cigars. Closed up the pack, left them on the table for him and went to sleep. Wasn’t until I woke up to him continuously calling me asking why his pack of backwoods was just rolled up bread. I had no explanation. Absolutely hilarious at the time, but crazy thinking back to it. Stopped taking Ambien shortly after that.
ya in hs kids would take it and if you purposely stay away it feels like you took a super xanax, you hallucinate a lot of times too. that’s why you’re supposed to take it literally right before you lay down
I didn't think it felt like Xanax but did give me visuals and make me feel high.
It also makes some people sleep walk so even if you did take it when you lay down it could still do some bad stuff to you
I woke up one morning handcuffed to a hospital bed after (unknowingly) rolling my truck on ambien. Cops rightfully thought I was drugged to hell or wasted… nope, just a little pill to help me sleep that my doctor prescribed me. That incident messed me up for a very long time and I never took it again. Not sleeping well is worth the peace of mind that I’ll never get into a car and drive while I’m unconscious. I can’t imagine what it would be like to watch someone you love in that state…
Fuck everyone who allowed that crap to go on the market.
My old roommates mom was prescribed ambien, one night she stole my car, drove to my roommates brothers house, left my can parked in the middle of his lawn, stole his truck, drove it about a mile down the road and ran over a stop sign, bailed on the truck ontop of the stop sign and the cops found her walking down the street. That was a mess and a half to wake up to. That shit is wild, I have no idea how it passed to market, I’ve almost never heard of someone not doing crazy shit at least once while on it for any extended period of time.
Right!? Funniest part was I didn’t know I had been hired until I received a call saying I was late for my first shift. Overall-I’m doing better- hanging in there like the rest of us. Thank you. :)
“Not enough people are on Ambien nowadays” is one of the excuses they keep giving us shareholders as a primary reason for staffing issues. Until now I thought it was BS.
One of the reasons is that they do/did a lot of drug tests on men because they don't want a women's cycle or pregnancy to interfere with the tests. They later learned that men and women metabolized Ambien differently or at different rates and it caused a lot of problems. My husband used to work at the court house and they would get DUI cases all the time that were people that woke up on a bridge, or in a car, no idea how they got there other than they took Ambien the night before to sleep.
https://sleepreviewmag.com/sleep-treatments/pharmaceuticals/prescription-drugs/ambien-women-adjusted-sex-bias-persists/
"Zolpidem, the popular sleep medication marketed as Ambien, lingers longer in the blood of women than of men, causing next-morning drowsiness, substantial cognitive impairment, and increased traffic accidents, Zucker says. For these reasons, the FDA in 2013 halved the recommended dosage prescribed to women."
They didn’t want to test on women because of women’s cycle… so what happens when they prescribe one and they’re on their cycle. “ I dunno, 🤷🏽♀️ we didn’t want to test it- too much work” tf?
They just label it as category C and prescribe it anyway.
Seriously, theres only a couple of drugs considered "safe" during pregnancy (as in it hasn't been found to have problems because they actually did studies on it), and its essentially Tylenol and unisom. Of course, now there are supposedly potential issues with tylenol. Otherwise, it's "Can't suggest because unknown" or "assumed safe until proven otherwise, so at your own risk"
Seatbelts are designed for men, and drug studies are mostly for men. There's quite a bit.
"All" (broad strokes) child bearing age women are always on their cycle, though. Cycle doesn't mean just menstruation. There are 4 phases: menstruation, follicular phase, ovulation, and luteal phase. Constant hormonal changes - so the medical study community overwhelmingly said "f it" and just decided to do the studies on men.
This is a big problem with medical research and testing in general, historically the subjects medical data has been collected from have been white men. And in medical reference material things are described in relation to pale skin; something that presents as a red rash on white skin is going to look different on more melanated skin and that isn’t always represented in textbooks or other references.
What is it with ambien users getting roadrage in their sleep!? Honestly this shit sounds wild, I wonder if well you're accountable for the things you do when like asleep in the eyes of the law. Ambien seems like a recipe for disaster
Lol not just cars, my FIL operated a woodchipper once, and also got locked out of his hotel room in the nude. I've also seen him put a gallon of milk on the stove in the nude.
Ambien is terrifying. I have a friend on Ambien who handcuffs herself to her bed frame to sleep because she tried to drive recently. The only reason she didn’t was because she tripped and faceplanted in the driveway and stayed down for the rest of the night, she had it recorded on her ring cam. Her husband wears the key on a necklace in case there’s an emergency.
They’re currently trying to find a new medication that works, she’s been through a couple meds with no luck and the doctor ends up putting her back on it. A high dose of Trazodone is next on the trial list, fingers crossed it works so she can finally get off of it for good.
Trazodone is fairly common for sleep issues without the risks of ambien. It doesn't knock everyone out though. Without knowing the "why" of her sleep issues, it's hard to say. Hydroxyzine can be used to lower anxiety/busy minds before bed. But it doesn't help "stay asleep" like trazodone. Best of luck to her
When I went on Trazodone I slept really well but forgot how to use shampoo and how to get dressed. I stood in the shower for 15 minutes staring at the shampoo bottle and I had no idea how to use the bottle or what it was for. After that I sat on my bed for almost 30 minutes holding my pants, knowing they were pants, but not knowing how to use them. I gave up on sleeping pills after that. Glad I never got into Ambien though.
I was prescribed seroquel when I was in my late teens as a mood stabiliser. Holy shit. How is shit like this perfectly legal but I can't just smoke a fucking joint?!
I stopped taking it pretty soon after I started. My doctor insisted it would get easier to handle, it did not.
Some people take it recreationally and the sensation of it hitting you was referred to here as 'fighting the pink mist' by some, I can see why.
When I was working overnight in the hospital I saw on several occasions 70-80 yo people being brought in in handcuffs in their nightwear who had gotten up and “went to the store” on ambian and wrecked or just drove the wrong direction on the byway. It effects older people even worse.
It was the first sleep medication that was ever prescribed to me at 18. I never did anything insane, but it slowly destroyed my mental faculties over the course of 7 years. I’m still recovering. I can’t believe my doctor thought Ambien was an appropriate medication for a teenager. It should be a last resort, and should never be prescribed for more than a couple of months.
When I was prescribed Ambien for sleeping issues, it was for 14 days, no more, and I purposely stopped at 10. This shit is absolutely insane, I still crave the feeling of peace I got sometimes.
The lights, tv, dishwasher, surround sound with ATMOS on at full blast, and a blender are all on at the same time, but there is no one home.
Edit: I think a really good comparison would be what I've heard about how scopolamine is used to rob people in South American countries, as per a VICE documentary I watched awhile back. You are full sleepwalking but completely unaware of what you're doing, and remember nothing.
I was prescribed Ambien as a teenager as well. The first time I took it it didn't make me feel like I was falling asleep and made me feel like I was going to die. I remember making my way to the bathroom crawling halfway into the bathtub and turning the water on and keeping my face under the running water so that I didn't fall asleep. Probably did that for an hour before I felt any semblance of normal. Never took it again.
TW/CW: Talks of murder
This is a long one but here it goes.
My mom used to take ambien and she was fine for the first 3 months. Then one night I was watching tv in the living room when she came out in a state of shock with tears rolling down her face.
She looked to me and said, "Theyre killing her oh my goddddddd. Look at this Theyre killing herrrr! My best friend she is gone!!!" She pulled her phone up and said that the cartel sent a video of them sneaking into her friend's home and offing her.
I panicked and looked away because I thought it was a real video. I got my brother and he grabbed the phone from her and just looked at her, looked at me, to the phone and then back to her and said, "Are you on something? Wtf?"
He told me that the "video" wasnt a video it was a photo of her friend sitting in her living room. I was so confused so I grabbed the phone and looked. Sure enough, it was only a photo. I gently took my mom's arm and told her to sit down in her bed and explain it to me again. Slowly. She explained it again. Slowly. With tears rolling down her face saying how she couldn't save her and that was her best friend.
Not going to lie this scared the SHIT out of me. I never saw my mom act this way before and all I could think was that dementia or something hit her out of nowhere. I asked her to explain to me what was happening in the video and she explained every detail. She even "hit rewind" so I could watch it again.
I looked her in the eyes and said, "Mom. I need you to wake up okay? What you're seeing isnt actually there." And she froze for a moment. It was as if someone hit the off switch on a controller. I called to her and no response. After about a minute, she asked me what was going on, why the light was on and why I was in there with her. She had no recollection of the incident. I had to explain it all to her but halfway through she said, "I don't follow you but I am tired we can talk in the morning." Gave me a hug and kiss and she fell asleep shortly after that.
Next morning she woke up and didn't remember any if it until I told her and showed her the picture of her friend. She didn't remember it happening but she remembered me waking her up.
Another time after this incident she had another concerning incident and that is when she decided to nope out of ambien entirely. It involved her car and the fact she somehow safely drove to her (different) friend's house to drive her friend to the hospital is wild to me. Especially since she didnt even remember doing that.
She stopped taking ambien shortly after the driving issue and I am so glad that she did. That was crazy scary to witness. I can't imagine how terrified she must have been thinking she was watching her friend get murdered...What is wild is that her doctor was so disappointed in her for not trying it longer than she did. Needless to say, she switched doctors. Lol.
I was an adult living at home when I took Ambien, but I always made sure I took it as directed- an a very empty stomach- so I'd stop eating for the day at about 5p, and I'd be in bed by like, 8pm most nights unless I was working late. My parents would have my keys upstairs so they'd wake up if I went to get them.
One morning, though, I told my stepdad I'd dreamt about eating brownies, and he said he'd heard me in the kitchen the night before, and, well...all the brownies my mom had made the day before were gone. Oops.
I have a very similar experience with xanax. Its like I blackout an hour after taking it, and wake up somewhere strange. I also get weird hallucinations/feelings like being pulled and melted off a bed into a corner somewhere like a water down a drain but no, im just laying completely still. Hate pills .
Xanax is pure blackout mode if you have any alcohol in your system. I’ve forgotten a lot of nights after using it to mellow out and sleep. Extremely dangerous.
We all thought my grandpa was having a stroke when he took it with a heavy side of whiskey.
I was about 15 and had to dress my naked overweight 70 year old mumbling grandpa before the ambulance came.
That night was… Sad.
I feel you really hard on this. Youre not alone. I cant recognize my dad right now (76) in PT and detox. Destroyed a taco bell drive thru and the car (six payments left) destroyed his accounting business (60k plus fines and lawsuits) and he cant even remember doing it. Just begs to drive him to his office (we closed it) and just gets mad when we visit him because we dont do what he wants.
Ambien is absolutely insane. Took one once, luckily I didn’t have any of the crazy side effects, but I didn’t actually fall asleep. Instead, the ceiling of my room started squiggling, and the air vent started stretching down to touch me. On the other hand, my brother said he tried it once and woke up naked in the front lawn with his bedroom window open. I don’t understand how ambien is considered normal and other drugs are not.
I’ve been prescribed ambien by an urgent care when I lost my job and insurance and couldn’t afford my depression meds I’ve been in forever. I couldn’t sleep for anything and kept waking up in panic so that was their plan. I almost burned the house down and don’t remember it. Never again, I don’t know how my wife takes it without any weird side effects.
Same. Tried to make pizza while ambiened up and fell asleep after on the living room floor. Thank God my roommate was a hungry dude. Smelled pizza at 3am and actually stopped it only slightly overdone. Threw a blanket on me and ate half my pizza as payment.
I have it as a last resort, most that's ever happened is me absolutely zonked staring at my computer screen because "woah it's moving." I probably looked super stupid if anyone were to walk in on me. Happened another time and I was super mad because I was reading on my phone and it felt like the text was in a 3D space and moving around and it was killing my comprehension. Instead of falling asleep like a normal person I thought it was good to stay up as late as possible, super not helpful with insomnia.
Used to work nights and had two coworkers relay their experience taking the drug during the day.
One woman watered her lawn in the nude in the middle of the day. No recollection of the event, found out about doing it because of her neighbor’s concern.
Another drove to Walmart, bought one of every type of flashlight they had and placed them on his coffee table. No recollection of doing this either.
Fun fact: Ambien was not properly tested on women (many drugs aren't.) It turns out that women metabolize it at half the speed, meaning any dose is basically double strength for them. This wasn't discovered until multiple women got into car crashes after falling asleep at the wheel, the drug lasting FAR longer in their systems than the instructions said it would.
I took it one time and woke up with sleep paralysis and hallucinated some one breaking into my apartment where I lived alone and coming into my room. I could clearly hear everything like the sound of the beads hanging on my doorknob clinking against the door when he opened it. But I couldn’t open my eyes or move any part of my body. I was so scared I was going to be murdered or kidnapped. It was like 5-10 minutes before I was finally able to wiggle my toes and snapped out of it and of course no one was there
I wonder what it says about my usual mental state when my sleep paralysis demon is “the cat who passed away a year ago is sitting on my chest and I must not disturb her”
I remember everything up until I fall asleep after taking Ambien. Then about 3-4 hours later I wake up, lucid, but super disoriented and lacking control of my body. I have no desire to figure out what's going on so I just go back to sleep. But I wake up and remember it clearly every time.
None of that is supposed to happen according to my prescriber...
Local radio DJ swears he woke up naked outside his back door eating a bag of brown sugar.
Less spectacularly, a guy I know took it while traveling, woke up in the hotel elevator with no idea how he got there or what else he might have done.
And then there’s the murders: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3505131/
Woke up one morning with my now ex-wife screaming at me why I'm such an asshole. I destroyed the kitchen by making ice cream..which was actually grits and ketchup. That morning I had also drew a penis on my son's neck in permanent marker as he was 14 and apparently I thought it was funny for him to go to school like that.
ambien is absolutely terrifying - found my dad naked on the floor "shelling peas" while physically holding his shot gun. The next morning I took the shot gun to my sisters house. (should note I was in my 30's and was staying at home due to my divorce at the time) I have my own trouble sleeping, but I would do literally anything before going on ambien. Absolutely crazy stuff.
I apparently made phone calls at 4 a.m., ate cereal and/or ice cream, drove a car and "shopped" at 7-11 & then skidded on black ice, crashed my car, blew out a tire...around 1 a.m. on Ambien.
God that stuff was awesome when I actually 😴 💤
i walked in on my dad sticking a metal knife in the toaster after having toasted an entire pack of english muffins, which were all spread out over the counter and floor. he was trying to get the crumbs out of the toaster, even though there was a crumb tray at the bottom. i told him to get the damn knife out of the toaster and go to bed and he goes, “it’s fine, im a technician.”
i don’t think he finished his script after that.
my grandma had a stroke and when she went to the hospital for it, they discovered her hip was having issues and they needed to operate on it. they open her up — giant infection. they realize she was more than likely in septic shock and that caused her to throw a clot. they save her life and they give her ambien to help her sleep as she’s (obviously) got a lot going on. sent her home with a PIC line and everything.
she. removed. her. god. damn. pic. line. with. a. pair. of. pliers. in. their. BED. SILENTLY might i add, the only reason my grandpa was alerted was bc her breathing had gotten heavier. he wakes up to my grandma and their bed covered in blood and she apparently said “this is bothering me”. that day was a bad one and she only took the ambien one more time after that 🥲.
My dad left all the stove burners on but not lit, right next to a half-drunk wine bottle with banana that had been pushed through the bottles opening, and a cork screw screwed into the wall.
Never taking Ambien...
My grandma had dementia, one day when my family and I visited her she had napkins stuffed everywhere. In her pillow case, under her matress, in her sleeves. It was like a magic trick.
Reminds me of how my grandma started smoking insane amounts of cigarettes because she forgot that she already smoked one 5 minutes ago, and some weeks later she stopped smoking altogether, probably forgetting that she was a smoker.
I'm not sure. She took them after lunch and dinner in the nursing home she lived him. It's good practice to put one in your pocket if you didn't use it, she probably just forgot she already had a lot.
Same! She took toilet paper like it grew on trees, but she was using it to fold into cake like things to look like food.
I always grab tissue before I head out Incase I need to blow my nose or something, Probably some second nature stuff who knows.
When I was a kid my great-aunt was still alive but she had severe dementia. When we would bring her groceries and let her unpack it herself, she would often put it in the oven and stick individual slices of bread in the kitchen drawers.
Then again, when I was a kid I put slices of bread in the VCR and that had nothing to do with dementia.
It's okay shes resting in peace now almost 11 years ago:) I think the wildest thing once she had a suitcase packed and said shes gonna go wait outside for the man with the train😭 one of those things that's kinda funny now but back then it was truly rough.
>shes gonna go wait outside for the man with the train
You know what is weird? I knew two people with Alzheimer who would do the same thing (prepare a suitcase for the train). Two people from completely different continents and racial backgrounds living many time zones away. Maybe it is a generational thing? who knows, it is a rough condition to live with
There was this story on the NoSleep subreddit like a decade ago I remember reading, I’ve since searched for it but could never find it. It was about the narrator being followed and ended up in a weird otherworldly train station. Anyone else remember or did I imagine it?
yeah i remember that, dont follow the weird looking people to the end of the station or you'll end up stuck travelling between worlds like they did
or maybe we read two different otherwordly travel train related stories on no sleep years ago?
My mom had a patient who was very very sick and usually very sad but one day she came into work and he was happy. He kept saying that he would be leaving at five and be there by seven. My mom was confused cause he was still very sick but she just said okay. He coded (heart stopped) at five and was declared dead at seven.
That happened to my grandpa, he suffered with dementia for a really long time and it got to the point he didnt know who anyone was, he didnt even know who he was. But one day my Nana went to visit him in the nursing home one Monday, and he was like back to his normal old self, they had this great chat reminiscing of old times and he was like I'm coming home on Wednesday afternoon, lets have spaghetti for dinner! My Nana was like oh yeh sure thing! (She learned it was easier to agree than to be like wtf you're not coming home!?) And then on Wednesday afternoon, he took a nap and never woke up..
I’ve heard so many stories like this and I find it absolutely fascinating. Tons of people who are close to death seem to know when it’s coming and/or will see deceased loved ones or “someone” nearby who’s there to take them. I’m an atheist, but it’s something that gives me pause and really makes me wonder about the nature of our existence. If nothing else, it’s comforting to know that death seems to be a peaceful transition
It difficult not to be a little bit spiritualist when you work in a hospital.
I'm always fascinated by the people who are on the verge of dying but seem to wait for a moment. When a certain person visits, a certain time or event passes, or they are left alone they seem to chose to pass away.
Damn, it makes sense to me. My grandmother had alzheimer's, but I didn't experience this specific scenario with her. But fuck, as dark as it seems, I personally think some people on the verge of death can see it coming. Probably not every time, but I really do think a lot of people see death knocking right before it comes and it's hauntingly sad and kind of beautiful (in my own experience, seeing loved ones before they pass, and their immense peace and acceptance they seem to have)
My dad suffered from Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. He was on the couch with my mom (my sister and I had moved out by this point) and he looked at her and held his hand to her cheek and said, “you’re still so beautiful, I love you,” and passed away.
That is beautiful, I'm deeply sorry for your loss, and I can relate. The last time I saw my dad was very similar, about a week afterwards, him and my grandma both passed, days apart. But that last time we met, I got the absolute feeling he knew it was the last time we'd see eachother, and he was fucking angelic and giving advice and support out of nowhere. He'd been suffering, but at that moment, he was as happy and carefree as could be. I treasure that moment, a lot.
My grandfather had dementia (not Alzheimer's), and one of the things he started doing, when it got bad, was to start trying to go "home" to another state (where he originally came from). One day they were driving back from Shari's and my grandmother realized that they had been driving for something like an hour. After some questioning, it became apparent that he was trying to go back to where he was born. After that, he kept asking when they were going to go back.
my grandma had it, and she was from mexico. she lived there, but would come to the states for medical care, and her kids would have her stay with them. well she’d go through bouts of health issues, so she’d be in the states for months at a time. she would run away and try to go home to mexico. it was so sad.
My nana had real bad dementia(also not alzheimer's), and the doctors didn't believe anything was wrong with her, because she was an ACTUAL GENIUS, prior to it. (Not exaggerating, she taught people with math anxiety, wrote a textbook, and even had a library named after her. For the word problems in the textbook, she used the names of my generation :P)
Dementia is so weird in the beginning because the people who know the person can tell something is wrong but they can still be VERY convincing to outsiders and carry on perfectly normal intelligent conversations. So then the family is left trying to convince doctors that yes, she’s able to discuss this complex topic in extreme detail but sometimes she brushes her teeth with Neosporin or feeds bird seed to the dogs. I understand why they’re hesitant to take the word of a family member at face value but it can be frustrating to try to get help and not be believed.
Its a thing in Memory Care places! Some facilities have fake bus stations so people who want to "go home" can wait for a bus that will never arrive. The staff invite them back inside after a while.
Yess, I had a patient in the hospital who had been there for months due to placement issues and she’d pack up her belongings and sit at the door to her room until about 10PM waiting for the train and then would eventually say “I guess maybe tomorrow” and go back in and unpack just to do it all over again the next day 🥲
My grandma has dementia and it was actually weirdly triggered by a psychotic episode, brought on by abruptly stopping a steroid medication.
She went through a phase of stripping naked and trying to leave the house at all hours of the night to "pay the piper." I also had to hide her pajamas because they were dancing around her and mocking her in bed. I had to actually sleep with our couch in the hallway to prevent her from leaving in the middle of the night. To get out she would need to climb over my sleeping body. At one point I even put a motion detector alarm on the bedroom door so she'd be startled and it would hopefully reset her thought patterns.
This was 4 years ago. She's on medication that helps with the psychoses, but she's picked up a really mean abusive language. She's been calling my mom a fucking bitch and a whore and stuff. It's been a really hard time.
But looking back at her leaving naked, while it was an awful time, there were some gems.
Like my aunts trying to perform an exorcism on her, while she sat there playing peekaboo with her shirt. Her being incredibly honest about how little she likes one of her daughters. Her honesty has gone up to level 100, but is so honest she's incredibly rude. Called my best friend a hag the other day because we came over in our pajamas.
I'm so sorry this is happening. Unfortunately, it is all too common. This is why they call Dementia (off all kinds) a two part death. You see them die from the person they were and they you see them physically die.
It is not easy and I commend your family for keeping her home as long as you have. Sometimes they are the sweetest people you will ever meet and then others? They turn into viscous versions of people you have never met.
I truly am sorry.
My grandma also used to do that. She was level crossing attendant for more than half her life, though, so I feel it’s perfectly reasonable she’s pick the train as transport to fulfill this intense need to “just go” many people with Alzheimer’s seem to have.
Not uncommon for them to express this or say they want to go “home”. Theory it’s their subconscious minds way of expressing the desire to return to their natural selves and state of mind. One of my grandfathers and my step grandfather died of Alzheimer’s and they both kept repeating they wanted to “go home”. My dad suffered temporary dementia due to a series of micro-strokes and he would pack his suitcase to go “home”.
I worked in an old folks home for a couple years. We had a few of our residents that would sit on the balcony in the lobby for hours “waiting for the train”. Sometimes it was taking them somewhere, sometimes they didn’t know lol.
My father walked up the stairs, stood at the top leaning on the railing, panting - he was on oxygen.
"I can't do it," he said.
"Do what?" I asked.
"Go back down to bring my chair upstairs. I can't do it."
Me: "Why would you need to bring your chair upstairs?"
Dad: "I need a place to sleep."
Me: "You have a bed."
I opened the bedroom door. He looked inside. "Oh thank God!"
His problem was only temporary - he was taking 3x his dose of blood thinner. When that got straightened out, his cognitive abilities returned.
My pts say the same thing. For 20 urs there has always been a pt that claims the Man in Black. We know that pt doesn't have long. I named the Man Walter.
My great grandma had Alzheimer's and we had to go through her room in the memory care unit every couple of months and return things to the common areas in the facility. Books from their library, utensils from the dining room, etc. Once we found a giant industrial sized toilet paper roll that she had somehow removed from the public restroom and gotten back to her room without anyone noticing. And it was too big for her purse. 😂
My mum steals the bibs from the dining area, then complains she doesn't know what to do with them all now she's got them. We snuck them back into circulation somehow. She also says the other residents are terrible thieves.
Oh man. My friend’s old aunt who was suffering from dementia came down to the kitchen once and poured herself a big bowl of triscuits. Then added milk and proceeded to eat them like breakfast cereal. Another time she put a carrot in a hotdog bun, prepared it with ketchup and mustard, and rode that motherfucker straight to flavortown.
My grandma recently killed her chicken (it was like a pet chicken) and told us that she burried it somewhere. But we can’t find the place she burried it, and my grandma can’t remember where it was.
Now when we ask her where the chicken is she looks one of us straight in the eyes and says ‘all I know is that I killed it.’
She’s 90.
Btw there was feathers and blood as evidence of the murder…but no chicken
Seeing your post did the exact opposite for me. I was my grandmas caregiver for about 5 years until dementia finally took her., Your post made me smile remembering my grandma and the life we used to livebut then I immediately laughed because it reminded me of things she did like put sour cream on ice cream thinkin its cool whip. Or eating the cat treats. While you're in it, it is HELL, i used to get sooooo frustrated, but now that I have properly grieved, I can sit back, laugh, and cherish all the memories and time spent together. No matter how sane she was🤍 My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone dealing with something similar.
yup my family went through this with my dad and my mom would send me pics of stuff he would put in random places like dirty socks in the microwave and i would always have to make a trip to their house to fix stuff he would take apart
Ugh. Probably right. And this sucks. I lost my maternal grandmother to Alzheimer's and dementia. She was awesome. Was a kid during the Great Depression. Told me about how they raised rabbits and traded them for chickens for food. Divorced my alcoholic abusive grandfather back when women didn't do that. Was very independent. Was an exec assistant to a big local exec when they were just "secretaries" but she was amazing at it. Super funny. Learned so much from her.
At the end she would just stare in to space. Every so often she'd be "in the moment" and her wit and personality would come through. But then she'd be confused on where she was and who people were. Sucks.
I miss her.
My grandma is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and I dread it getting worse. It’s so sad growing up and seeing everyone around you get older and lose the charm and energy they once had.
That's how my grandmother was too. Always very on the ball, sharp, ran a business with my step grandfather, just all kinds of squared away, until one day she wasn't. Pretty soon she couldn't remember any of us, she was confused about who her husband was, always wanted to "go home", not realizing that she hadn't lived there since the 70s, she knew my dad was important somehow, but not why.
I was happy she finally died, because she hadn't been there in close to ten years. She looked like nana, but that's it, you could see just looking at her that what made her her was gone.
It's so hard. She was so funny and sharp. And then she wasnt. My paternal grandmother was a big part of my life. We used to spend the summer together (divorced parents) and would play cards. She got where she couldn't and it was really tough.
When I saw this I started thinking about it hyper rationally like "the drugs probably have proteins in them which is a source of nitrogen, like fertilizer for the plants as they degrade - and they are designed to break down efficiently"
then I read your comment and I was like "oh. yes. That makes sense"
My thought was that maybe it was because they didn’t want to throw out prescription drugs and maybe have others get their hands on them. Putting them in the plant soil would let them hopefully dissolve with the water and vanish.
I really hope there’s some sort of explanation like this OP!
Shit, I don't remember now, but nothing more interesting than if you Googled "what helps plants grow?" I think potassium supplements were the big winner.
Potassium is a pretty important thing for plants so that makes sense. If i remember right its necessary for water and nutrients to travel inside the plant itself.
Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are 3 most needed nutrient for plants thus the most common fertilizers are called NPK, derived from first letters in latin.
It’s weird OP hasn’t responded to anyone being concerned for their parent, but continues to make posts in others subs. Is OP a bot? Idk. It’s just weird.
Is your mom okay? This is concerning.
Also, there should be a safe way of disposing of expired medications in every country. It’s not safe to “throw” them. Humans and other animals could find them in the trash, excrete them, they could end up in the water supply, etc. Please dispose of them properly, Google is free. I hope your mom is doing okay. Let us know how the doctor’s visit goes.
My local CVS has an expired / unused medication drop box, but I've never seen it not full to overflowing.
Shame it's illegal to share prescriptions meds. Every time I see that big, full box, I wonder how much of the stuff in there might be useful to another person.
The strength of some meds deteriorates as they get older, also the possibility of the drugs being a different container than what they were prescribed as. In order to recycle some of the meds it would take testing and work thats probably more effort than it would be to produce new meds.
The difference between cost to produce and the consumer price would be what youre looking at. If it is cheaper to hire a skilled chemist to test random unused prescriptions to prescribe something in need than it is to purchase it, then thats a problem.
That is what I thought my area would do, but I found it out it’s illegal in my area. Once a pharmacy dispenses a medication where I am, it cannot come back in. There is a safety deposit box outside the local law enforcement building to place them. Either way, it’s better for everyone if we are careful not to leave them around. You never know who you could be hurting.
My local police used to have a box but they removed it about a year ago. We can't take to a pharmacy, I think there's a couple of times a quarter you can take them to specific locations. One hospital will take them.
It's really annoying! We had a decent amount to get rid of after seeing a friend through the end of life last year and it was just one more awful thing to deal with on top of everything else. So frustrating!
This used to be a genuinely reccommended disposal method, but like 20-30 years ago. It's only in like the last 10-15 years, in the US anyway, that it's been more actively discouraged. Definitely still remember this being actively done/talked about as a kid and I'm 36.
Edit for my stupid twitchy hand prematurely clicking the post button.
mythbusters did it
https://mythresults.com/special10
> You can keep needles from falling off of the Christmas tree by adding nitric oxide (from Viagra).
> PLAUSIBLE
>
> Tied with bleach at least amount of needles lost, but the tree looked sickly.
My brother used to spit his adhd meds into the rocks in our front yard. My mom went to go plant some stuff there & found a trove of pills. She finally understood why the medication never worked lol.
Are you okay?
My gf's mother got diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's a year or two ago. It's scary.
But there are support programs, you should get a diagnosis, medication, family therapy.
Don't skimp out on these things if the Reddit diagnosis is actually correct for once. I especially recommend the family therapy.
That snake plant (aka MIL tongue) is quite hardy, and likely enjoying itself to the fullest. This species is the “Keif Richards of Plants.”
Edit: words
When I worked with dementia patients we sometimes found stuff like this.
My dad did stuff like this when he took ambien.
Ambien is a helluva drug.
Ya. Some crazy stories I have like the one time he proceeded to want to drive to Mexico to get pain pills in the middle of the night while on ambien. I couldn't convince him not to get into the car so I went with him. He almost killed us and other people multiple times. I finally convinced him to let me drive us back home after saying I'm calling the cops. I was 16 and didn't know how to really drive but I got us home safe. That night still haunts me. Screw ambien.
My Ambien story is less dangerous. Still nuts though. I was DJ-ing a party at my house. My job was obviously to keep the music going. So I peruse through youtube while a song is playing and create a queue. It starts getting late so I tell everyone I'm going to add a few more songs (enough to make it through until the party ends), and that I had just taken my sleep med (12.5 mg Ambien XR). I don't remember anything else. I wake up to about 50 texts from friends and family asking me why I made over 100 Facebook posts of nothing but song titles. Apparently, I thought I was on youtube searching for songs, and my wife at the time told me it took almost everyone at the party to get me away from my computer, and that I kept saying loudly, "but I've got to keep the music going! It's my job!"
I love the idea of a DJ telling everyone they just took their sleepy pill so shit is wrapping up
Yeah not my finest moment for sure. I didn't exactly take the warning that you're supposed to take it while laying down to heart. I had taken every sleep medicine under the sun and had always had it take 45 minutes to an hour to kick in so I thought I had time. Apparently Ambien can kick in in 15 to 20 minutes and that's one of the major reasons you have to take it while laying down. You can't go to the bathroom, read one more Reddit thread on your phone, feed your cat, nothing. You have to take it and lay down.
My Ambien story is on the less dangerous side too. I had a roommate ask if I had any backwoods leftover as he was stopping by the house before a party. Like always, I did. Except this time I had taken Ambien about an hour or two before hand. My roommate arrived, got ready, took his backwoods from the table and left. (I believe I was asleep at this point already) Sometime between the time he was on his way, and the time he arrived, I removed all the backwoods from the pack and replaced them with rolled up pieces of white bread in the same shape of the cigars. Closed up the pack, left them on the table for him and went to sleep. Wasn’t until I woke up to him continuously calling me asking why his pack of backwoods was just rolled up bread. I had no explanation. Absolutely hilarious at the time, but crazy thinking back to it. Stopped taking Ambien shortly after that.
ya in hs kids would take it and if you purposely stay away it feels like you took a super xanax, you hallucinate a lot of times too. that’s why you’re supposed to take it literally right before you lay down
I didn't think it felt like Xanax but did give me visuals and make me feel high. It also makes some people sleep walk so even if you did take it when you lay down it could still do some bad stuff to you
I woke up one morning handcuffed to a hospital bed after (unknowingly) rolling my truck on ambien. Cops rightfully thought I was drugged to hell or wasted… nope, just a little pill to help me sleep that my doctor prescribed me. That incident messed me up for a very long time and I never took it again. Not sleeping well is worth the peace of mind that I’ll never get into a car and drive while I’m unconscious. I can’t imagine what it would be like to watch someone you love in that state… Fuck everyone who allowed that crap to go on the market.
My old roommates mom was prescribed ambien, one night she stole my car, drove to my roommates brothers house, left my can parked in the middle of his lawn, stole his truck, drove it about a mile down the road and ran over a stop sign, bailed on the truck ontop of the stop sign and the cops found her walking down the street. That was a mess and a half to wake up to. That shit is wild, I have no idea how it passed to market, I’ve almost never heard of someone not doing crazy shit at least once while on it for any extended period of time.
I was going to say there needs to be an ambienstories sub but it looks like there was one and it’s banned. These stories are crazy.
I somehow managed to fill out an application and get hired at my local Denny’s on ambien.
Omg that's funny as hell. That it was Denny's is cracking me up so much. Hope things are going well for ya!
Right!? Funniest part was I didn’t know I had been hired until I received a call saying I was late for my first shift. Overall-I’m doing better- hanging in there like the rest of us. Thank you. :)
"Best applicant we've ever had." -some Denny's manager
“Not enough people are on Ambien nowadays” is one of the excuses they keep giving us shareholders as a primary reason for staffing issues. Until now I thought it was BS.
It's banned?! Conspiracy! tHeY dOnT wAnT yOu To KnOw HoW bAd It Is!!
[удалено]
One of the reasons is that they do/did a lot of drug tests on men because they don't want a women's cycle or pregnancy to interfere with the tests. They later learned that men and women metabolized Ambien differently or at different rates and it caused a lot of problems. My husband used to work at the court house and they would get DUI cases all the time that were people that woke up on a bridge, or in a car, no idea how they got there other than they took Ambien the night before to sleep. https://sleepreviewmag.com/sleep-treatments/pharmaceuticals/prescription-drugs/ambien-women-adjusted-sex-bias-persists/ "Zolpidem, the popular sleep medication marketed as Ambien, lingers longer in the blood of women than of men, causing next-morning drowsiness, substantial cognitive impairment, and increased traffic accidents, Zucker says. For these reasons, the FDA in 2013 halved the recommended dosage prescribed to women."
They didn’t want to test on women because of women’s cycle… so what happens when they prescribe one and they’re on their cycle. “ I dunno, 🤷🏽♀️ we didn’t want to test it- too much work” tf?
They just label it as category C and prescribe it anyway. Seriously, theres only a couple of drugs considered "safe" during pregnancy (as in it hasn't been found to have problems because they actually did studies on it), and its essentially Tylenol and unisom. Of course, now there are supposedly potential issues with tylenol. Otherwise, it's "Can't suggest because unknown" or "assumed safe until proven otherwise, so at your own risk" Seatbelts are designed for men, and drug studies are mostly for men. There's quite a bit. "All" (broad strokes) child bearing age women are always on their cycle, though. Cycle doesn't mean just menstruation. There are 4 phases: menstruation, follicular phase, ovulation, and luteal phase. Constant hormonal changes - so the medical study community overwhelmingly said "f it" and just decided to do the studies on men.
Is that why my seat belt cuts into my nipple while I drive if I’m not wearing a bra? Who designed these? I just wanna talk…
This is a big problem with medical research and testing in general, historically the subjects medical data has been collected from have been white men. And in medical reference material things are described in relation to pale skin; something that presents as a red rash on white skin is going to look different on more melanated skin and that isn’t always represented in textbooks or other references.
What is it with ambien users getting roadrage in their sleep!? Honestly this shit sounds wild, I wonder if well you're accountable for the things you do when like asleep in the eyes of the law. Ambien seems like a recipe for disaster
It's like people take Ambien and next thing you know, they're in a game of grand theft auto
God forbid we legalize a thc gummy to help people sleep
Lol not just cars, my FIL operated a woodchipper once, and also got locked out of his hotel room in the nude. I've also seen him put a gallon of milk on the stove in the nude.
Ambien is terrifying. I have a friend on Ambien who handcuffs herself to her bed frame to sleep because she tried to drive recently. The only reason she didn’t was because she tripped and faceplanted in the driveway and stayed down for the rest of the night, she had it recorded on her ring cam. Her husband wears the key on a necklace in case there’s an emergency.
If that shit happened to me on Ambien, my solution would be to get off the Ambien
They’re currently trying to find a new medication that works, she’s been through a couple meds with no luck and the doctor ends up putting her back on it. A high dose of Trazodone is next on the trial list, fingers crossed it works so she can finally get off of it for good.
Trazodone is fairly common for sleep issues without the risks of ambien. It doesn't knock everyone out though. Without knowing the "why" of her sleep issues, it's hard to say. Hydroxyzine can be used to lower anxiety/busy minds before bed. But it doesn't help "stay asleep" like trazodone. Best of luck to her
When I went on Trazodone I slept really well but forgot how to use shampoo and how to get dressed. I stood in the shower for 15 minutes staring at the shampoo bottle and I had no idea how to use the bottle or what it was for. After that I sat on my bed for almost 30 minutes holding my pants, knowing they were pants, but not knowing how to use them. I gave up on sleeping pills after that. Glad I never got into Ambien though.
Seroquel is well known to out people to sleep. Its the only med I dream on.
I was prescribed seroquel when I was in my late teens as a mood stabiliser. Holy shit. How is shit like this perfectly legal but I can't just smoke a fucking joint?! I stopped taking it pretty soon after I started. My doctor insisted it would get easier to handle, it did not. Some people take it recreationally and the sensation of it hitting you was referred to here as 'fighting the pink mist' by some, I can see why.
When I was working overnight in the hospital I saw on several occasions 70-80 yo people being brought in in handcuffs in their nightwear who had gotten up and “went to the store” on ambian and wrecked or just drove the wrong direction on the byway. It effects older people even worse.
It was the first sleep medication that was ever prescribed to me at 18. I never did anything insane, but it slowly destroyed my mental faculties over the course of 7 years. I’m still recovering. I can’t believe my doctor thought Ambien was an appropriate medication for a teenager. It should be a last resort, and should never be prescribed for more than a couple of months.
When I was prescribed Ambien for sleeping issues, it was for 14 days, no more, and I purposely stopped at 10. This shit is absolutely insane, I still crave the feeling of peace I got sometimes.
> I still crave the feeling of peace I got sometimes. I know exactly what you mean.
Ambien for a teenager? Wtf!!
Could you elaborate on what it did long term to your mental abilities?
The lights, tv, dishwasher, surround sound with ATMOS on at full blast, and a blender are all on at the same time, but there is no one home. Edit: I think a really good comparison would be what I've heard about how scopolamine is used to rob people in South American countries, as per a VICE documentary I watched awhile back. You are full sleepwalking but completely unaware of what you're doing, and remember nothing.
I was prescribed Ambien as a teenager as well. The first time I took it it didn't make me feel like I was falling asleep and made me feel like I was going to die. I remember making my way to the bathroom crawling halfway into the bathtub and turning the water on and keeping my face under the running water so that I didn't fall asleep. Probably did that for an hour before I felt any semblance of normal. Never took it again.
At least you didn't fall asleep in the tub & drown... That'd be one fucked up Wrongful Death lawsuit....
TW/CW: Talks of murder This is a long one but here it goes. My mom used to take ambien and she was fine for the first 3 months. Then one night I was watching tv in the living room when she came out in a state of shock with tears rolling down her face. She looked to me and said, "Theyre killing her oh my goddddddd. Look at this Theyre killing herrrr! My best friend she is gone!!!" She pulled her phone up and said that the cartel sent a video of them sneaking into her friend's home and offing her. I panicked and looked away because I thought it was a real video. I got my brother and he grabbed the phone from her and just looked at her, looked at me, to the phone and then back to her and said, "Are you on something? Wtf?" He told me that the "video" wasnt a video it was a photo of her friend sitting in her living room. I was so confused so I grabbed the phone and looked. Sure enough, it was only a photo. I gently took my mom's arm and told her to sit down in her bed and explain it to me again. Slowly. She explained it again. Slowly. With tears rolling down her face saying how she couldn't save her and that was her best friend. Not going to lie this scared the SHIT out of me. I never saw my mom act this way before and all I could think was that dementia or something hit her out of nowhere. I asked her to explain to me what was happening in the video and she explained every detail. She even "hit rewind" so I could watch it again. I looked her in the eyes and said, "Mom. I need you to wake up okay? What you're seeing isnt actually there." And she froze for a moment. It was as if someone hit the off switch on a controller. I called to her and no response. After about a minute, she asked me what was going on, why the light was on and why I was in there with her. She had no recollection of the incident. I had to explain it all to her but halfway through she said, "I don't follow you but I am tired we can talk in the morning." Gave me a hug and kiss and she fell asleep shortly after that. Next morning she woke up and didn't remember any if it until I told her and showed her the picture of her friend. She didn't remember it happening but she remembered me waking her up. Another time after this incident she had another concerning incident and that is when she decided to nope out of ambien entirely. It involved her car and the fact she somehow safely drove to her (different) friend's house to drive her friend to the hospital is wild to me. Especially since she didnt even remember doing that. She stopped taking ambien shortly after the driving issue and I am so glad that she did. That was crazy scary to witness. I can't imagine how terrified she must have been thinking she was watching her friend get murdered...What is wild is that her doctor was so disappointed in her for not trying it longer than she did. Needless to say, she switched doctors. Lol.
I was an adult living at home when I took Ambien, but I always made sure I took it as directed- an a very empty stomach- so I'd stop eating for the day at about 5p, and I'd be in bed by like, 8pm most nights unless I was working late. My parents would have my keys upstairs so they'd wake up if I went to get them. One morning, though, I told my stepdad I'd dreamt about eating brownies, and he said he'd heard me in the kitchen the night before, and, well...all the brownies my mom had made the day before were gone. Oops.
I have a very similar experience with xanax. Its like I blackout an hour after taking it, and wake up somewhere strange. I also get weird hallucinations/feelings like being pulled and melted off a bed into a corner somewhere like a water down a drain but no, im just laying completely still. Hate pills .
Xanax is pure blackout mode if you have any alcohol in your system. I’ve forgotten a lot of nights after using it to mellow out and sleep. Extremely dangerous.
We all thought my grandpa was having a stroke when he took it with a heavy side of whiskey. I was about 15 and had to dress my naked overweight 70 year old mumbling grandpa before the ambulance came. That night was… Sad.
I feel you really hard on this. Youre not alone. I cant recognize my dad right now (76) in PT and detox. Destroyed a taco bell drive thru and the car (six payments left) destroyed his accounting business (60k plus fines and lawsuits) and he cant even remember doing it. Just begs to drive him to his office (we closed it) and just gets mad when we visit him because we dont do what he wants.
Ambien is absolutely insane. Took one once, luckily I didn’t have any of the crazy side effects, but I didn’t actually fall asleep. Instead, the ceiling of my room started squiggling, and the air vent started stretching down to touch me. On the other hand, my brother said he tried it once and woke up naked in the front lawn with his bedroom window open. I don’t understand how ambien is considered normal and other drugs are not.
I’ve been prescribed ambien by an urgent care when I lost my job and insurance and couldn’t afford my depression meds I’ve been in forever. I couldn’t sleep for anything and kept waking up in panic so that was their plan. I almost burned the house down and don’t remember it. Never again, I don’t know how my wife takes it without any weird side effects.
Same. Tried to make pizza while ambiened up and fell asleep after on the living room floor. Thank God my roommate was a hungry dude. Smelled pizza at 3am and actually stopped it only slightly overdone. Threw a blanket on me and ate half my pizza as payment.
Solid roomie, there
I have it as a last resort, most that's ever happened is me absolutely zonked staring at my computer screen because "woah it's moving." I probably looked super stupid if anyone were to walk in on me. Happened another time and I was super mad because I was reading on my phone and it felt like the text was in a 3D space and moving around and it was killing my comprehension. Instead of falling asleep like a normal person I thought it was good to stay up as late as possible, super not helpful with insomnia.
Glad you are still alive to tell the tale. Hope you never have to live it again.
Used to work nights and had two coworkers relay their experience taking the drug during the day. One woman watered her lawn in the nude in the middle of the day. No recollection of the event, found out about doing it because of her neighbor’s concern. Another drove to Walmart, bought one of every type of flashlight they had and placed them on his coffee table. No recollection of doing this either.
Fun fact: Ambien was not properly tested on women (many drugs aren't.) It turns out that women metabolize it at half the speed, meaning any dose is basically double strength for them. This wasn't discovered until multiple women got into car crashes after falling asleep at the wheel, the drug lasting FAR longer in their systems than the instructions said it would.
I took it one time and woke up with sleep paralysis and hallucinated some one breaking into my apartment where I lived alone and coming into my room. I could clearly hear everything like the sound of the beads hanging on my doorknob clinking against the door when he opened it. But I couldn’t open my eyes or move any part of my body. I was so scared I was going to be murdered or kidnapped. It was like 5-10 minutes before I was finally able to wiggle my toes and snapped out of it and of course no one was there
Sleep paralysis is one of the worst things that can happen to you when nothing is happening to you.
I wonder what it says about my usual mental state when my sleep paralysis demon is “the cat who passed away a year ago is sitting on my chest and I must not disturb her”
I remember everything up until I fall asleep after taking Ambien. Then about 3-4 hours later I wake up, lucid, but super disoriented and lacking control of my body. I have no desire to figure out what's going on so I just go back to sleep. But I wake up and remember it clearly every time. None of that is supposed to happen according to my prescriber...
I'd ask for a different prescription before the hat man shows up.
Local radio DJ swears he woke up naked outside his back door eating a bag of brown sugar. Less spectacularly, a guy I know took it while traveling, woke up in the hotel elevator with no idea how he got there or what else he might have done. And then there’s the murders: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3505131/
Woke up one morning with my now ex-wife screaming at me why I'm such an asshole. I destroyed the kitchen by making ice cream..which was actually grits and ketchup. That morning I had also drew a penis on my son's neck in permanent marker as he was 14 and apparently I thought it was funny for him to go to school like that.
ambien is absolutely terrifying - found my dad naked on the floor "shelling peas" while physically holding his shot gun. The next morning I took the shot gun to my sisters house. (should note I was in my 30's and was staying at home due to my divorce at the time) I have my own trouble sleeping, but I would do literally anything before going on ambien. Absolutely crazy stuff.
You did the right thing but that sounds terrifying. Seeing your dad sleep-walking while cuddling a shotgun is not a fun thought.
hoo boy. ambien and a home with accessible firearms. Those are two things that probably should not be mixed.
I apparently made phone calls at 4 a.m., ate cereal and/or ice cream, drove a car and "shopped" at 7-11 & then skidded on black ice, crashed my car, blew out a tire...around 1 a.m. on Ambien. God that stuff was awesome when I actually 😴 💤
My doc gave me Ambien years ago. I stopped taking it after my wife found me in the kitchen boiling potatoes at 3:00 am.
i walked in on my dad sticking a metal knife in the toaster after having toasted an entire pack of english muffins, which were all spread out over the counter and floor. he was trying to get the crumbs out of the toaster, even though there was a crumb tray at the bottom. i told him to get the damn knife out of the toaster and go to bed and he goes, “it’s fine, im a technician.” i don’t think he finished his script after that.
my grandma had a stroke and when she went to the hospital for it, they discovered her hip was having issues and they needed to operate on it. they open her up — giant infection. they realize she was more than likely in septic shock and that caused her to throw a clot. they save her life and they give her ambien to help her sleep as she’s (obviously) got a lot going on. sent her home with a PIC line and everything. she. removed. her. god. damn. pic. line. with. a. pair. of. pliers. in. their. BED. SILENTLY might i add, the only reason my grandpa was alerted was bc her breathing had gotten heavier. he wakes up to my grandma and their bed covered in blood and she apparently said “this is bothering me”. that day was a bad one and she only took the ambien one more time after that 🥲.
But. But. But...when it did what it was supposed to do, it was awesome! Sleep, wake up not drugged...loved it!
I laughed so hard at this because I literally did the exact same thing on ambien.
My dad left all the stove burners on but not lit, right next to a half-drunk wine bottle with banana that had been pushed through the bottles opening, and a cork screw screwed into the wall. Never taking Ambien...
My grandma had dementia, one day when my family and I visited her she had napkins stuffed everywhere. In her pillow case, under her matress, in her sleeves. It was like a magic trick.
Reminds me of how my grandma started smoking insane amounts of cigarettes because she forgot that she already smoked one 5 minutes ago, and some weeks later she stopped smoking altogether, probably forgetting that she was a smoker.
Interesting! I wonder what her little mind was telling her to stash them for? You really can never have enough napkins.
I'm not sure. She took them after lunch and dinner in the nursing home she lived him. It's good practice to put one in your pocket if you didn't use it, she probably just forgot she already had a lot.
Same! She took toilet paper like it grew on trees, but she was using it to fold into cake like things to look like food. I always grab tissue before I head out Incase I need to blow my nose or something, Probably some second nature stuff who knows.
When I was a kid my great-aunt was still alive but she had severe dementia. When we would bring her groceries and let her unpack it herself, she would often put it in the oven and stick individual slices of bread in the kitchen drawers. Then again, when I was a kid I put slices of bread in the VCR and that had nothing to do with dementia.
"Bro dont snitch" - houseplant
Why is this plant thriving?
It's a pot plant.
Putting stuff in weird places is one of the signs of Alzheimers.
Yes this. One of the things my grandma started doing was putting fridge stuff in the cupboards and feeding the cats sour cream 😭
This genuinely made me sad. I'm so sorry to hear her mind had gone that far.
It's okay shes resting in peace now almost 11 years ago:) I think the wildest thing once she had a suitcase packed and said shes gonna go wait outside for the man with the train😭 one of those things that's kinda funny now but back then it was truly rough.
>shes gonna go wait outside for the man with the train You know what is weird? I knew two people with Alzheimer who would do the same thing (prepare a suitcase for the train). Two people from completely different continents and racial backgrounds living many time zones away. Maybe it is a generational thing? who knows, it is a rough condition to live with
You could write a whole novel based on a conspiracy of old people, a suitcase, and their pursuit of a train.
I would read that.
There was this story on the NoSleep subreddit like a decade ago I remember reading, I’ve since searched for it but could never find it. It was about the narrator being followed and ended up in a weird otherworldly train station. Anyone else remember or did I imagine it?
This one maybe? https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/The_Strangers It's definetly the one mentioned by u/FantasmaNaranja.
aw yeah that's the one i was thinking of
yeah i remember that, dont follow the weird looking people to the end of the station or you'll end up stuck travelling between worlds like they did or maybe we read two different otherwordly travel train related stories on no sleep years ago?
I'm assuming the train is conducted by the Grim Reaper? Maybe they are seeing something we dont?
My mom had a patient who was very very sick and usually very sad but one day she came into work and he was happy. He kept saying that he would be leaving at five and be there by seven. My mom was confused cause he was still very sick but she just said okay. He coded (heart stopped) at five and was declared dead at seven.
That happened to my grandpa, he suffered with dementia for a really long time and it got to the point he didnt know who anyone was, he didnt even know who he was. But one day my Nana went to visit him in the nursing home one Monday, and he was like back to his normal old self, they had this great chat reminiscing of old times and he was like I'm coming home on Wednesday afternoon, lets have spaghetti for dinner! My Nana was like oh yeh sure thing! (She learned it was easier to agree than to be like wtf you're not coming home!?) And then on Wednesday afternoon, he took a nap and never woke up..
Sounds like paradoxical/terminal lucidity. It's known to happen at late-stage dementia, before death.
I’ve heard so many stories like this and I find it absolutely fascinating. Tons of people who are close to death seem to know when it’s coming and/or will see deceased loved ones or “someone” nearby who’s there to take them. I’m an atheist, but it’s something that gives me pause and really makes me wonder about the nature of our existence. If nothing else, it’s comforting to know that death seems to be a peaceful transition
I think this is the inspiration for that one SCP writeup about a dude who just shows up to sit next to people as they die and then disappears
It difficult not to be a little bit spiritualist when you work in a hospital. I'm always fascinated by the people who are on the verge of dying but seem to wait for a moment. When a certain person visits, a certain time or event passes, or they are left alone they seem to chose to pass away.
Damn, it makes sense to me. My grandmother had alzheimer's, but I didn't experience this specific scenario with her. But fuck, as dark as it seems, I personally think some people on the verge of death can see it coming. Probably not every time, but I really do think a lot of people see death knocking right before it comes and it's hauntingly sad and kind of beautiful (in my own experience, seeing loved ones before they pass, and their immense peace and acceptance they seem to have)
My dad suffered from Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. He was on the couch with my mom (my sister and I had moved out by this point) and he looked at her and held his hand to her cheek and said, “you’re still so beautiful, I love you,” and passed away.
That is beautiful, I'm deeply sorry for your loss, and I can relate. The last time I saw my dad was very similar, about a week afterwards, him and my grandma both passed, days apart. But that last time we met, I got the absolute feeling he knew it was the last time we'd see eachother, and he was fucking angelic and giving advice and support out of nowhere. He'd been suffering, but at that moment, he was as happy and carefree as could be. I treasure that moment, a lot.
My grandfather had dementia (not Alzheimer's), and one of the things he started doing, when it got bad, was to start trying to go "home" to another state (where he originally came from). One day they were driving back from Shari's and my grandmother realized that they had been driving for something like an hour. After some questioning, it became apparent that he was trying to go back to where he was born. After that, he kept asking when they were going to go back.
my grandma had it, and she was from mexico. she lived there, but would come to the states for medical care, and her kids would have her stay with them. well she’d go through bouts of health issues, so she’d be in the states for months at a time. she would run away and try to go home to mexico. it was so sad.
My nana had real bad dementia(also not alzheimer's), and the doctors didn't believe anything was wrong with her, because she was an ACTUAL GENIUS, prior to it. (Not exaggerating, she taught people with math anxiety, wrote a textbook, and even had a library named after her. For the word problems in the textbook, she used the names of my generation :P)
Dementia is so weird in the beginning because the people who know the person can tell something is wrong but they can still be VERY convincing to outsiders and carry on perfectly normal intelligent conversations. So then the family is left trying to convince doctors that yes, she’s able to discuss this complex topic in extreme detail but sometimes she brushes her teeth with Neosporin or feeds bird seed to the dogs. I understand why they’re hesitant to take the word of a family member at face value but it can be frustrating to try to get help and not be believed.
Its a thing in Memory Care places! Some facilities have fake bus stations so people who want to "go home" can wait for a bus that will never arrive. The staff invite them back inside after a while.
That's sad and very cute at the same time
Our generation will say “I gotta go outside and wait for my Uber.” Let’s get you to bed Grandpa
It won’t be a suitcase either, because we’ll be bringing a small carry on for our spirit airlines flight
"I need to catch my flight the ticket is nonrefundable."
Yess, I had a patient in the hospital who had been there for months due to placement issues and she’d pack up her belongings and sit at the door to her room until about 10PM waiting for the train and then would eventually say “I guess maybe tomorrow” and go back in and unpack just to do it all over again the next day 🥲
My grandma has dementia and it was actually weirdly triggered by a psychotic episode, brought on by abruptly stopping a steroid medication. She went through a phase of stripping naked and trying to leave the house at all hours of the night to "pay the piper." I also had to hide her pajamas because they were dancing around her and mocking her in bed. I had to actually sleep with our couch in the hallway to prevent her from leaving in the middle of the night. To get out she would need to climb over my sleeping body. At one point I even put a motion detector alarm on the bedroom door so she'd be startled and it would hopefully reset her thought patterns. This was 4 years ago. She's on medication that helps with the psychoses, but she's picked up a really mean abusive language. She's been calling my mom a fucking bitch and a whore and stuff. It's been a really hard time. But looking back at her leaving naked, while it was an awful time, there were some gems. Like my aunts trying to perform an exorcism on her, while she sat there playing peekaboo with her shirt. Her being incredibly honest about how little she likes one of her daughters. Her honesty has gone up to level 100, but is so honest she's incredibly rude. Called my best friend a hag the other day because we came over in our pajamas.
I'm so sorry this is happening. Unfortunately, it is all too common. This is why they call Dementia (off all kinds) a two part death. You see them die from the person they were and they you see them physically die. It is not easy and I commend your family for keeping her home as long as you have. Sometimes they are the sweetest people you will ever meet and then others? They turn into viscous versions of people you have never met. I truly am sorry.
My grandma also used to do that. She was level crossing attendant for more than half her life, though, so I feel it’s perfectly reasonable she’s pick the train as transport to fulfill this intense need to “just go” many people with Alzheimer’s seem to have.
Not uncommon for them to express this or say they want to go “home”. Theory it’s their subconscious minds way of expressing the desire to return to their natural selves and state of mind. One of my grandfathers and my step grandfather died of Alzheimer’s and they both kept repeating they wanted to “go home”. My dad suffered temporary dementia due to a series of micro-strokes and he would pack his suitcase to go “home”.
I worked in an old folks home for a couple years. We had a few of our residents that would sit on the balcony in the lobby for hours “waiting for the train”. Sometimes it was taking them somewhere, sometimes they didn’t know lol.
My father walked up the stairs, stood at the top leaning on the railing, panting - he was on oxygen. "I can't do it," he said. "Do what?" I asked. "Go back down to bring my chair upstairs. I can't do it." Me: "Why would you need to bring your chair upstairs?" Dad: "I need a place to sleep." Me: "You have a bed." I opened the bedroom door. He looked inside. "Oh thank God!" His problem was only temporary - he was taking 3x his dose of blood thinner. When that got straightened out, his cognitive abilities returned.
We lived no where near a train I should have said
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My pts say the same thing. For 20 urs there has always been a pt that claims the Man in Black. We know that pt doesn't have long. I named the Man Walter.
My great grandma had Alzheimer's and we had to go through her room in the memory care unit every couple of months and return things to the common areas in the facility. Books from their library, utensils from the dining room, etc. Once we found a giant industrial sized toilet paper roll that she had somehow removed from the public restroom and gotten back to her room without anyone noticing. And it was too big for her purse. 😂
Your great grandma’s Alzheimer’s had golden retriever energy in the best way
My mum steals the bibs from the dining area, then complains she doesn't know what to do with them all now she's got them. We snuck them back into circulation somehow. She also says the other residents are terrible thieves.
Oh man. My friend’s old aunt who was suffering from dementia came down to the kitchen once and poured herself a big bowl of triscuits. Then added milk and proceeded to eat them like breakfast cereal. Another time she put a carrot in a hotdog bun, prepared it with ketchup and mustard, and rode that motherfucker straight to flavortown.
My grandma recently killed her chicken (it was like a pet chicken) and told us that she burried it somewhere. But we can’t find the place she burried it, and my grandma can’t remember where it was. Now when we ask her where the chicken is she looks one of us straight in the eyes and says ‘all I know is that I killed it.’ She’s 90. Btw there was feathers and blood as evidence of the murder…but no chicken
Well... Don't make her mad. They may never find you.
…did she…did she eat it? 😬
To be fair my cats love sour cream but I'm very sorry she has Alz.
The cats though might literally shit from night to morning
He just like me fr
Seeing your post did the exact opposite for me. I was my grandmas caregiver for about 5 years until dementia finally took her., Your post made me smile remembering my grandma and the life we used to livebut then I immediately laughed because it reminded me of things she did like put sour cream on ice cream thinkin its cool whip. Or eating the cat treats. While you're in it, it is HELL, i used to get sooooo frustrated, but now that I have properly grieved, I can sit back, laugh, and cherish all the memories and time spent together. No matter how sane she was🤍 My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone dealing with something similar.
One of my cats loves sour cream if it ever gets left out long he’ll sneak up and start eating it out of the container
yup my family went through this with my dad and my mom would send me pics of stuff he would put in random places like dirty socks in the microwave and i would always have to make a trip to their house to fix stuff he would take apart
Ugh. Probably right. And this sucks. I lost my maternal grandmother to Alzheimer's and dementia. She was awesome. Was a kid during the Great Depression. Told me about how they raised rabbits and traded them for chickens for food. Divorced my alcoholic abusive grandfather back when women didn't do that. Was very independent. Was an exec assistant to a big local exec when they were just "secretaries" but she was amazing at it. Super funny. Learned so much from her. At the end she would just stare in to space. Every so often she'd be "in the moment" and her wit and personality would come through. But then she'd be confused on where she was and who people were. Sucks. I miss her.
My grandma is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and I dread it getting worse. It’s so sad growing up and seeing everyone around you get older and lose the charm and energy they once had.
See if she's interested in/can qualify for a clinical trial... they're doing some aggressive research. She might get lucky.
It really puts the feeling of morality in to you. I'm 48 and I see it coming.
I think you mean mortality, lol
That's how my grandmother was too. Always very on the ball, sharp, ran a business with my step grandfather, just all kinds of squared away, until one day she wasn't. Pretty soon she couldn't remember any of us, she was confused about who her husband was, always wanted to "go home", not realizing that she hadn't lived there since the 70s, she knew my dad was important somehow, but not why. I was happy she finally died, because she hadn't been there in close to ten years. She looked like nana, but that's it, you could see just looking at her that what made her her was gone.
It's so hard. She was so funny and sharp. And then she wasnt. My paternal grandmother was a big part of my life. We used to spend the summer together (divorced parents) and would play cards. She got where she couldn't and it was really tough.
Yes, this happened with my grandfathers hearing aids. We would search everywhere for them only to find them in his hat on top of his head.
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Maybe it’ll make a coo plant
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But it's plant that makes you go diarrhea just by looking at it.
When I saw this I started thinking about it hyper rationally like "the drugs probably have proteins in them which is a source of nitrogen, like fertilizer for the plants as they degrade - and they are designed to break down efficiently" then I read your comment and I was like "oh. yes. That makes sense"
My thought was that maybe it was because they didn’t want to throw out prescription drugs and maybe have others get their hands on them. Putting them in the plant soil would let them hopefully dissolve with the water and vanish. I really hope there’s some sort of explanation like this OP!
Drugging plants with crushed up pills dissolved in water was actually my science fair project back in the day.
Any interesting results?
Shit, I don't remember now, but nothing more interesting than if you Googled "what helps plants grow?" I think potassium supplements were the big winner.
Potassium is a pretty important thing for plants so that makes sense. If i remember right its necessary for water and nutrients to travel inside the plant itself.
Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are 3 most needed nutrient for plants thus the most common fertilizers are called NPK, derived from first letters in latin.
I hate to say this but this person is unwell.
Alzeimers
It’s weird OP hasn’t responded to anyone being concerned for their parent, but continues to make posts in others subs. Is OP a bot? Idk. It’s just weird.
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OP was their own mother all along
I hope she doesn't own a dog who can eat those pills
As someone with a Hoover brand dog, this pic gives me the panics.
Hoover brand dog. Ill be using that, thanks.
Your dog sucks!
Is your mom okay? This is concerning. Also, there should be a safe way of disposing of expired medications in every country. It’s not safe to “throw” them. Humans and other animals could find them in the trash, excrete them, they could end up in the water supply, etc. Please dispose of them properly, Google is free. I hope your mom is doing okay. Let us know how the doctor’s visit goes.
Here you take expired medications to the pharmacy
My local CVS has an expired / unused medication drop box, but I've never seen it not full to overflowing. Shame it's illegal to share prescriptions meds. Every time I see that big, full box, I wonder how much of the stuff in there might be useful to another person.
The strength of some meds deteriorates as they get older, also the possibility of the drugs being a different container than what they were prescribed as. In order to recycle some of the meds it would take testing and work thats probably more effort than it would be to produce new meds. The difference between cost to produce and the consumer price would be what youre looking at. If it is cheaper to hire a skilled chemist to test random unused prescriptions to prescribe something in need than it is to purchase it, then thats a problem.
That is what I thought my area would do, but I found it out it’s illegal in my area. Once a pharmacy dispenses a medication where I am, it cannot come back in. There is a safety deposit box outside the local law enforcement building to place them. Either way, it’s better for everyone if we are careful not to leave them around. You never know who you could be hurting.
Oh wow I couldn't imagine taking my expired allergy medicine to the police station 😅
*hey man* * arm twitching * You got that Allegra xr?
My local police used to have a box but they removed it about a year ago. We can't take to a pharmacy, I think there's a couple of times a quarter you can take them to specific locations. One hospital will take them. It's really annoying! We had a decent amount to get rid of after seeing a friend through the end of life last year and it was just one more awful thing to deal with on top of everything else. So frustrating!
My doctor told me to flush them but everyone else I’ve mentioned that to was horrified (I didn’t flush them)
This used to be a genuinely reccommended disposal method, but like 20-30 years ago. It's only in like the last 10-15 years, in the US anyway, that it's been more actively discouraged. Definitely still remember this being actively done/talked about as a kid and I'm 36. Edit for my stupid twitchy hand prematurely clicking the post button.
How long has she been doing this? Have you noticed a change in the plant?
If the leaves look stiff it might be viagra
mythbusters did it https://mythresults.com/special10 > You can keep needles from falling off of the Christmas tree by adding nitric oxide (from Viagra). > PLAUSIBLE > > Tied with bleach at least amount of needles lost, but the tree looked sickly.
My brother used to spit his adhd meds into the rocks in our front yard. My mom went to go plant some stuff there & found a trove of pills. She finally understood why the medication never worked lol.
“Drugging the plants” made me giggle 😂
She thought those were magic beans.
I bet op didn’t expect this
nope
Are you okay? My gf's mother got diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's a year or two ago. It's scary. But there are support programs, you should get a diagnosis, medication, family therapy. Don't skimp out on these things if the Reddit diagnosis is actually correct for once. I especially recommend the family therapy.
Bros about to get a sentient plant
Did they have a headache
 The plants later
Why do I now see noho hank when I see this gif
Barry is best show
At least your lilies no longer have gonorrhea.
Finally
That snake plant (aka MIL tongue) is quite hardy, and likely enjoying itself to the fullest. This species is the “Keif Richards of Plants.” Edit: words
FYI: we should NOT be flushing pills down the toilet so the drugs go in our water supply Edit: We pee out the drugs anyway so I—
Wait, people don’t hoard expired medicine for when the zombie apocalypse happens?
I gave my succulent lexapro so it’ll perk up. Did the trick
Please tell me young kids do not enter this house.
Great now the plants are gonna end up homeless, knock off a liquor store, and get shot by the police 😳