[lost_lover]

I am new to taking medication for wakefulness, my old (and not very competent) pdoc put me on ritilan for a couple months for it and my new doctor put me in nuvigil since I don't actually have ADD. I read a couple online reviews saying it takes a few weeks for your sleep pattern or normalize, is there any truth to that? My is defiantly not normal anymore. I was prescribed 295mg and told to split it into a morning and afternoon dose, I am currently taking it all in the morning because even then I have trouble falling asleep at night. My body will be totally beat but my mind will be running like mad.

The daytime sleepiness kind of came out of the blue for me, put it hit me really bad and I was missing work and falling asleep driving. I need something that helps keep me awake. This stuff just lasts so long, and when I do get to sleep I wake up in the middle of the night (which I never used to do) with a lot of difficulty going back to sleep...that is what is happening now.

Have you found that eventually your body finds a rhythm that works on nuvigil? I like that it last me all day, and does not make me as he go strung as the methylphenidate did. I also don't lose track of time and suddenly realize it is almost morning and I never even went to bed, I know I need to go to sleep because my body gets tired it is just my mind running.

I see the doctor in a week or two, and this is only my first couple weeks on the nuvigil so I haven't been on it long enough yet to know if it is going to work for me. Randomly being awake from 3am-6am does not really work for me, even if after I take my morning medication I am no longer tired.

I just want to hear some people's experiences since I am new to this whole type of medication.

[Marilyn2016]

Hey lost_lover,

I've had nuvigil for a few months now. I take a bunch of other meds too, but this one is for shift/sleep disorder. I find that it's best to take it (for me anyway) as soon as I wake up in the morning. If I take it in the afternoon or evening, forget it, I'm up forEVER. Even taking 200mg in the morning, it took a good few nights to adjust to it. I notice there is no effect other than wakefulness. There is no buzz, no high. It does do it's job if you take it as directed, but give it some time for your body to get used to. In the early days I would take it an hour before work (in the evening) and I would fall right to sleep after I took it...Try to be patient with it until you get the desired dose/effect.

I personally prefer adderall, because I do have ADHD, and it lasts a shorter amount of time. Like I said, some days nuvigil will keep me up through the next day, and I really don't like to be awake for too long. So, I guess I do find a rhythm with taking it, but it can also be hit or miss....sorry I don't have any more concrete answers.

Keep us posted on how you get on with it...

Sincerely,

Marilyn

[lost_lover]

I am really not liking this stuff. My mouth tastes like acid and I cannot seem to figure out the right time to take it to be able to sleep when I want to. At first, I was staying up until 4 am every night, now I am falling asleep at 9 pm.

I just got home from work and am ready to crash out. It wouldn't be that bad if I didn't have stuff I need to get done after work. I need to be up until like midnight on a normal night and awake around 9 am. That should be plenty of sleep but I cannot get the timing right. Maybe I need to go back to splitting it into two smaller doses.

Not sure if other people have had this happen but I am getting on this cycle where I wake up and immediately go to work, get home and immediately go to bed. It is really frustrating because I work 7 days a week so nothing gets done and I have no leisure time. This is the only medication that changed so I am surprised it is messing with me so much. When I try and stay up and watch tv and end up turning it off after about 15 minutes because it just does not hold my interest, same thing with music.

[AncientMelody]

Are your doctors actually evaluating WHY you are suddenly sleeping, or just using medication to treat it? Nuvigil can be very helpful...but sometimes TOO helpful. I had the same promblem as you with it. Provigil is the gentler, milder cousin of Nuvigil, that may be a better option

But most importantly, I would request a sleep study and further evaluation into WHY you are having these symptoms....

[lost_lover]

My primary wants me to do a sleep study but I needed something that worked immediatly because I was falling asleep while driving. I need to follow up and get the sleep study, just until this month I have been pulling an extremely busy schedule. I still work 7 days a week but the hours are not as long so I should be able to see my doctor before or after.

I don't know for sure I don't have it but I really don't have any of the common symptoms of sleep apnea, generally, once I get to sleep I sleep very well. The last couple weeks I have been having consistent anxiety dreams but they are not as bad as they were a few years ago and they really just started up a couple weeks ago.

Today was really weird. I took the Nuvigil late, around noon, went to school don't really remember if I did anything after, came home and took a 4-hour nap, and currently, I am wide awake and extremely restless. The memory loss is probably not from the Nuvigil, with my med cocktail I get blank spots where nothing interesting happened every so often.

I would be more willing to adjust to the Nuvigil if stuff like last night didn't happen on it. My body will be exhausted, I can barely get out of my chair, but my mind is wide awake and not letting my body get the rest it needs. I am packing for my move in a couple weeks which is why my body was so tired.

I know methylphenidate was the wrong medication for me, it is not made to treat daytime tiredness so you have to take it multiple times and you get crazy highs and lows of energy. It actually gave me energy though, Nuvigil does not give me energy it just keeps me awake. I don't know if that makes sense.

I actually appreciate this new doctor not just throwing ADD meds at me like my last doctor did and trying medication actually approved for daytime tiredness. I just don't like the one I am on. The bad taste in my mouth has been improving over the past few days.

[Shazerac]

Nuvigil stays in your body for a long time so taking it the minute you wake up is best. Also have you tried reducing the dosage? Maybe the amount you are on is too much for your body to handle.