Wow !!! You’ve got a real conundrum on your hands.
Zolpidem IS Ambien. and Ambien was the sleeping med that George H.W. was on when he traveled to Japan and threw up all over the Japanese PM, after becoming somewhat incoherent and disoriented.
There are endless stories about bizarre actions taken under its influence.
It’s a strong and unpredictable hypnotic, with some very pronounced side effects, most of which your mother seems to be suffering from. It alters behavior, it causes abnormal, delusional thinking, profound sedation, driving while asleep, as well as other sleep-walking types of behaviours. It also causes a high risk of falls and fractures in the over 65 age group.
Combined with alcohol it becomes even more …. interesting. And dangerous. I have no doubt that your mother has no idea that she’s doing all those things, and the difficulty is that weaning her off of that sleep aid at her age is going to be difficult, and stopping cold turkey is out of the question. Even if she was willing to do it, which from your post seems doubtful. The lure of a good night’s sleep and an easy drop-off with a short latency period would be hard to overcome.
Personally, I think her prescribing Dr should be shot, and I’m dead sure that he knows that your mother has reached the point of no return. Or more accurately, the point of extremely difficult and unpredictable return, and he’s afraid of putting an 86 yr old woman thru that, a situation that his careless, almost reckless, prescribing practices have created.
It might be possible to transfer her to Valium (diazepam) in a large enough dose to help her sleep, but it has a longer half life (one of Ambiens selling points is its claimed lack of ‘hangover’ effect, due to its shorter half life), which in this situation may not be helpful, tho it would be if she were willing to taper off of it and eventually try something less damaging for sleep.
My heart goes out to you. There’s nothing harder than trying to manage something like this from a distance of 2000 miles, with a probably unwilling participant on the other end.
PS .... I dunno, what's the difference between a steer and an MD ? I mean, neither one has any balls, but that's a similarity .... hmmm .... confused....
Thanks so much. I just feel really alone in dealing with this. My family has been fractured apart since the 1980s, much dysfunction, alcoholism, & a suicide by alcohol (my dad), & the man my mother got with 2 months after 🤯, oh nevermind. We're mostly all estranged.
Unfortunately, she adores her female doctor who can do no wrong. Her pill is the *only one in the world* that will let her sleep. I read a study once on how attached women get to what they use on their face, that even when proven what they're using breaks them out or otherwise makes skin worse, most cling to whatever creme like a liferaft. That really hit home & I've tried since then to get out of denial faster about whatever I'm putting in my body that may be bad in the long run.
She's never going to give up the alcohol. From here on out it's damage control. She won't give me her doctor's name. My 1 sibling & I had a falling out in 1992, so he's out of the Q for help. I guess this is all a bit triggering, as it sorta puts me in the headspace of being that child, telling the truth about the abuse but the adults denying it all the next morning.
I hope I didn't hijack this thread. Because I no longer have CFS I feel like a poser posting anything. But I wrote down a lot here to look into, like Phenibut. Glutamate's effect I need to look into. Daily I take L-Glutamine & Kratom. Anyway, lately I've been thinking my CFS was tied in part to my autonomic system, then to read it here was affirming. I have next to NO temperature regulation to this day, & break out in a sweat after each meal, even in winter. This is something crept up on me in my 30s & only gets worse. All prior to CFS.
Other times, maybe 7 times a year, I get weak, dizzy, gulp for air WHILE simultaneously all a sudden YAWNING, sweat so hard even down my back that it's like being under a waterfall. It sucks when it happens out of nowhere in public. Zero reason for these episodes either. I had enough food, sleep, am hydrated, no sudden stressors, everything was fine going about my day, then BAM. The last one lasted hours, not 15 mins. Naturally, my ADHD doctor has no experience with this crap. Haha, would *any* doctor? Naw. Gave me a blood test - everything's peachy.
Steer & MD-- I was living in Iowa having moved there from CA & extremely BITTER at the doctors who couldn't or wouldn't help me at U of I, supposedly one of the best facilities in the U.S. Lots of cows 😂 in Iowa, the air continuously smells like 💩 was the first thing I noticed driving in. The only real help I got turned out to be this LIFE-SAVING WEBSITE, which is why I return once a year. To give even one person hope. EDIT to say this GABA stuff sounds great, & I'm getting some asap. 😃
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