Ambien, sleepwalking and memory gaps
Ambien, the most popular sleep medication in the US with over 24 million prescription in 2004, may cause sleep-walking, driving, talking, even stealing. Timothy Morgenthaler of the Mayo Clinic Sleep Disorders Center says he has seen many cases of people sleepwalking and sleep-eating after taking the drug, behavior that stopped when they went off Ambien. He reported 5 such cases in the journal Sleep Medicine in 2002 and others at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center reported 19 more last year. Reports to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) show more instances of sleepwalking with Ambien than with all the other sleep aids combined.
Somnambulism, or partial arousal, is a disorder in which a person is neither awake or asleep. Ambien might prevent people from waking up completely when something disturbs their sleep, so they end up in partial arousal. This would explain why they are able to carry out routine tasks, albeit imperfectly at times, and why they do not remember doing so when questioned afterwards. The most absurdly hilarious case of Ambien-related somnambulism is probably Lt. Judith Renee Lasswell, 39. Last September, she was arrested for shoplifting after she sleepwalked into a Navy base exchange, picked up an "X-Files" DVD and tried to return it for store credit. As a result, her top-secret security clearance was revoked and, in addition to larceny charges, she could face a dishonorable discharge. "I’ve never had a problem before in my life until I took Ambien, and it’s literally ruined my career and everything I ever worked for," said Lasswell. "I have gaps in memory from the whole time I was on Ambien, which is very terrref=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somnambulism”>Sleepwalking, Wiki
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