No longer using Modafinil

I haven't been using modafinil for a few months now.  Instead, I have been practicing mindfulness meditation from Jon Kabat-Zinn which is helping much better than modafinil.

Modafinil 8

I don't know if I mentioned it already but I lowered my Zyprex Zydis to 2.5mg for about 1.5 weeks, then to 1.25mg for about 19 days, then because of sleep disturbances (hypnopompic hallucinations) one night, I reverted back to 2.5mg Zyprexa Zydis, which I am currently taking.

Two days ago I got a new prescription for modafinil of 400mg/day.  I don't plan to take 400mg every day though, I will explain this in a bit.

For about 2.5 weeks now I have been experimenting by taking 3 days off of modafinil, followed by 4 days on modafinil, thus my week consists of cycling modafinil on and off.  This worked for the first week (after about 10 days of no modafinil, so if there was a tolerance effect it would have dissipated by the time I started taking modafinil again this time).  In the second week (after a three-day off period), 100mg of modafinil was working for the first two days, however, by the third and fourth day it was not strong enough for me to fight off my excessive tiredness, so I slept for 14 hours those days.  Actually, on the third day, I was too tired to get out of bed when my alarm went off after 10hours of being in bed, so I just slept in for 14 hours.  And, on the fourth day, I did take 100mg of Modafinil, but it was not enough to fight off my tiredness, so I went back to bed shortly and slept for the remaining 4 hours to make 14 hours of bed time.  [Note, in this paragraph, modafinil was at a dosage of 100mg on my on days, and I didn't go higher.]

 Now for what's happening right now:  Today is a start of my new week's cycle on modafinil after having taken a three day off period of modafinil.  I took only 100mg upon waking and am doing well on only 10-10.5 hours of bed time.  I plan to try taking 100mg again tomorrow to see how it will work (I don't expect there to be any problems).  By the third day, I will take 100mg upon waking, however, I don't expect that it will be strong enough to fight off my sleep by that date (perhaps due to the tolerance effect), so I am willing to take additional modafinil pills to make my total modafinil dosage for that day 300-400mg.  And, for the fourth day on modafinil, I plan to take 300-400mg again to fight off my excessive tiredness when waking with ~10hours of bed time.  Then I will take a three day off period to allow my body to retain to homeostatic levels (according to my understanding that modafinil does work on neurotransmitters in the brain, although some say that there is not a tolerance effect).  Then I will follow it up with another four-day on period of modafinil and will post further results in this post.

Modafinil 7

I have stopped taking modafinil daily as it stopped working (havings its effects).  In fact I think that while taking 200mg of modafinil at the end of my modafinil 30 day trial my cognitive functioning was worse, however, this may just be coincidence.
After corresponding with others I have decided that I will only take modafinil on the days that I need to get up early and take at least a two day off period every two weeks.  When my day courses begin, I plan on taking at least 2 days off every week, i.e. no modafinil on the weekends.
Another thing that I can do is up my dosage of modafinil to 300mg or 400mg [from 100-200mg currently].  I was told by a peer that beyond 400mg, efficacy has not been proven, i.e. there will be no additional benefit by increasing the dosage beyond 400mg/day.  If I were to take 300mg or 400mg of modafinil a day, I could divide the dosage to be taken twice a day.

If modafinil is still not working then I can try switching to armodafinil (brand name Nuvigil, manufactured by the same company of Provigil [modafinil]).  More info on armodafinil can be found here.

Modafinl 6 - Summary

I've been on modafinil for almost 30 days now.  For the first two days I took 200mg upon waking and it was great.  For the rest of that week I took 100mg upon waking, and it too was great.  I had decreased sleep time in the range of 7-8 hours, and my concentration was great and daytime fatigue absent.  However, I then took a two-three day break from modafinil, and when I started the following day at 100mg again, it was okay, but not the same like in the first week, and from there, the medication seems to have decreased in effect as time went on to the point where I had to up the dosage to 200mg daily, and even after being on 200mg for the past six days, my sleep time has gradually become 12-14 hours again and my daytime fatigue has returned, and cognitive functions are not as well as I'd like them to be.

Modafinil 5

I have been taking 200mg of modafinil for about a week now because on 100mg I was still sleeping excessively (i.e. 11-13 hours).  My sleep time on 200mg is now about 13-14 hours, so I am not really experiencing much decrease in sleep time as compared to my sleep time before using modafinil (prior to modafinil I was sleeping 13-14 hours, usually 14).  However, I do feel that when I am awake, on the modafinil, I am perhaps less tired than without the modafinil.

Modafinil 4

My sleep time on 100mg modafinil is no longer 7-8 hours, because with that amount of sleep I still feel excessively tired in the daytime.  It seems that I need sleep in the range of 10-11 hours, this is probably due to tolerance of modafinil.  This to be confirmed through future trial.

www.askapatient.com

Here is a great website for drug reviews by patients.
This is the link for modafinil (Provigil in the USA):  http://www.askapatient.com/viewrating.asp?drug=20717&name=PROVIGIL