Ambien wakes up the brain damaged

    Ambien (AKA Zolpidem) is an odd drug. Prescribed for insomnia, it seems to cause weird side effects like sleep eating and sleep driving, and getting into fights with cops. On occasion it also seems to wake people up from near vegetative states. In the case of this study a woman suffering from akinetic mutism- a state where you’re conscious, but can’t respond to the world with movement or speaking, Ambien let her function, ala Awakenings. From the press release:

…researchers conducted a study of a 48 year-old woman who developed akinetic mutism due to oxygen deprivation to her brain following an attempted suicide by hanging. The patient was totally dependent, unable to speak or walk, and was using a feeding tube for nourishment, although she was able to understand single words. Two years after the suicide attempt, she was given Zolpidem for a bout of insomnia; 20 minutes later, she was able to communicate to her family, eat by herself, and move. These effects lasted for up to three hours.

It’s not the first time Ambien has shown these kinds of effects on brain damage victims. The researchers don’t know why, but that just as adds to Ambien’s mystery- no one knows exactly why it has any of these strange cognitive effects. It’s in the top 20 of drugs prescribed in America consistently. Colin Powell not only confirmed he takes it, but that it was popular with the administration. It’s also abusable, which is the technical way of saying it can be addictive and overly fun. A pharmacist I was speaking to socially once told me that “if you want to see a soccer mom shake like a crack whore, tell her she’s out of refills on her Ambien.”

I personally stopped taking Ambien after an inappropriate conversation with my partner, where I apparently called him bad things. I say apparently, because I have no memory of this happening at all. That it can help patients to come out of a vegetative state just another confirmation that we know very little about how our drugs or our bodies work. It’s even odder than saving babies’ lives with Viagra.

I missed this yesterday, but it’s too amazing not to post. Ambien can apparently wake people up from a persistent vegetative state. The anecdotes in this Guardian story are incredible. The drug appears to improve not only brain function but also physical capabilities for people who have barely moved and have not communicated at all for years.

George Melendez was starved of oxygen when his care overturned in a pond near his home in Houston in 1998. His mother, Pat Flores, said doctors told her her son would never recover. He had suffered multi-organ failure and doctors said his body would eventually give out.

He survived and four years later, while visiting a clinic, Pat gave him a sleeping pill because his constant moaning was keeping her and her husband, Del, awake in their shared hotel room. “After 10 to 15 minutes I noticed there was no sound and I looked over,” she recalls. “Instead of finding him asleep, there he was, wide awake, looking at his surroundings. I said, ‘George’, and he said, ‘What?’ We sat up for two hours asking him questions and he answered all of them. His improvements have continued and we talk every day. He has a terrific sense of humor and he carries on running jokes from the day before.

“It is difficult to describe how it feels to get someone back who you were told you had lost for ever.”