Drugs for Daytime fatigue
Hello all
I'm struggling with adherence with my cpap machine (its a resmed 11 any tips on trying to stick with it also appreciated) and I'm experiencing relentless daytime fatigue, could nod off 4 times a day if i didn't force myself not to. a couple of years back my gp prescribed me modafinil, but i found it made me feel weird and jittery .
I'm wondering if anyone has tried other drugs in this class, Nuvigil, Provigil, apo-modafinil etc, and if there's any difference between them
Russ
RE: Drugs for Daytime fatigue
I don't have any experience with those drugs so can't help you there. I hope someone else can.
It'd help a lot to know what experiences you're having that make it hard for you to use your PAP machine consistently all night long.
It'd also help to see an Oscar daily chart or to get a link to data on SleepHQ. That might give us some ideas about how to improve your experience.
Small thing: could you fill out your profile?
RE: Drugs for Daytime fatigue
Hi Russ,
I had a go with Modafinil over 15 years ago. After a couple of months I could take one at 8am and be asleep by 10am so I stopped. Provigil is just the brand name of modafinil. In Europe Modafinil was withdrawn in 2010 for OSA due to heart related side effects I believe - still available for narcolepsy. I've not tried the newer variants.
I was given a try out of something called sunosi (solriamfetol) 2 years ago. It is supposed to stop you falling asleep - much like modafinil. It did seem to do that - but didn't stop you wanting to fall asleep or make you be alert. It also stopped me falling asleep at night. I was having a "busy" time at the time and could do without the distraction so stopped after 10 days.
What is your issue with CPAP? We'll have to try and get you going.
If you still have the machine (with SD card) and a mask and a PC you can install OSCAR on, give it one night - as much as you can - download the results into OSCAR and post a screen shot and we'll take a look.
RE: Drugs for Daytime fatigue
Provigil is name brand modafinil, apo-modafinil is generic made by Apotex. So of the 4 drugs mentioned, 3 are modafinil and only Nuvigil is not, specifically it is armodafinil. The latter is an enantiopure version of modafinil, specifically ®-Modafinil.
Lots of drugs are racemic mixtures of a R/S molecule which are mirror images in 3D. Modafinil,e.g. your Provigil, is a mixture part of which is armodafinil and the other part is not. Nuvigil consists of only the singular molecule of ®-modafinil.
So if you are especially sensitive to that molecule, it might work better, and since it is now generic, maybe for not much of a price difference.
The thing is, that these drugs are prescribed for among other things, drowsiness due to sleep apnea. And what they recommend as first line, is PAP therapy. So I'd start there, get your PAP settings optimized vs. take drugs for apnea which is not yet resolved by proper PAP therapy.
RE: Drugs for Daytime fatigue
I would keep working at the cpap or try an alternative treatment before moving to drugs -- not going to make you feel better in the long run, at all.
