Does anyone currently taking adderall also take provigil or have experience in taking them together? And if so would you mind sharing your experience?

Thanks!! :)

My doc gave me a sample pack last month. I tried it for a week but didn't really like it. It did make me stay awake but that was it. With Adderall it somehow actually helps with my drive.

I've heard that about Provigil, that it's good for wakefulness but doesn't help cognitive functioning.

I am on Adderall now, which is supposed to help me with both, because I have ADD but also chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, both of which come with at times incapacitating fatigue (and this awful brain fog that makes my ADD feel 10x worse)

I've seen that some chronic fatigue use a combo. I think what's happening with me is that the fatigue from the cfs/fibro is so strong that the Adderall can barely combat it. It's like if someone without cfs/fibro only slept like an hour a night. The adderall would fight against their fatigue and maybe have some benefit, but not nearly as good. (This is the idea I've formulated which could be a bunch of bologne.)

But Adderall does seem to help with focus and concentration. So I see my doctor tomorrow and am going to bring up adding Provigil to the mix, but I wanted to get some feedback if anyone had tried the two together.

Thanks for responding!! :)

Yeah I've used both. I pretty much only take Provigil now. Wonderful med. Just go slowly with the Provigil at first since it has a long half-life and you might get too wired from it + Adderall.

When taking both I really didn't have any problems. Provigil is God-Aweful expensive and your insurance may or may not approve it without prior authorization. Since Provigil is a C-IV med you can get multiple refills and even samples to try.

JR

Cool, thank you for the tip. I would definitely need to see how long it lasts for me and take it earlier in the day. The last thing I want is to go straight from collapsing at 5pm to being awake till 5am!

My sleep requirements are so weird as it is. I can't get out of bed in the morning and I'm a mess till about noon. Then I feel "okay" (but never fully wakeful) till late afternoon. By 5 or 6 I'm falling apart, but I force myself to not nap because I don't want to be up all night. But that doesn't matter because nap or no nap, around 9pm I feel less tired and then I'm up till 1 at least. And this has been since long before Adderall.

Hmmm...come to think of it, maybe instead of adding Provigil I should ask my doctor to set up a sleep study for me.
(I asked for one before and they didn't think it was necessary. :confused: Maybe time to revisit that idea!)

A sleep study would be a good idea. They are a pain to go through but worth it. I have sleep apnea and also a ton of residual excessive daytime sleepiness.

Provigil has been great. I take it first thing in the morning (6-7am) and then another dose around 12 noon for a total of 400mg. It really helps fight off the afternoon sleep attacks and such.

This med has been a huge help for people battling fatigue from other things like Lupus, Depression, Fibromyalgia and the list goes on. If anything bad to say is that it doesn't do squat for attention or motivation. Whenever I get around to seeing my doc again I might try Vyvanse or simply go back to Adderall XR along with my Provigil.

Goto the Provigil website and print up the free 7 day trial. Ask your doc if you can try it for a week.

Good Luck!

JR

Thanks, I really appreciate it! I see my doctor tomorrow, so we'll discuss it and go from there. Hopefully if he doesn't think Provigil is a good idea he'll have another idea of what to do, because my focus might be better on the adderall, but man, I am wiped out...

You can also point out to your doc that Provigil does not interfere with stimulants such as methylphenidate and amphetamine. Says so right on the provigil website.


JR

Just a sincere thanks for the responses regarding Provigil. I saw my doctor today and got a prescription for 200 mg a day (with 5 refills). This will be 4X the copay of Adderall, but worth it if it works.

Overall I had a very unpleasant experience today. I am in the midst of a very bad fibromyalgia flare. I believe this has rendered my Adderall all but ineffective.

I went to the doctor and I can honestly say it's a partial blur. I don't remember chunks of our conversation.

Brief background: The psychiatrist who prescribes my Adderall (and now Provigil) has only known me for about 2 months. He diagnosed my ADD at first visit, but my fibro and cfs were diagnosed by my team of other doctors who referred me to the psych because he can prescribe the meds I need without having to cut through a bunch of ins co red tape.

Anyway, today was my 4th visit with him and basically I check in for about 10 minutes each time and get a new prescription. (and, yes, he bills my ins co for a full hour)

Today he asked me how the Adderall was working and I told him. Works okay on focus. Not too well with energy. I'm still incredibly fatigued. I'm in the midst of a flare so fatigue is much worse right now. Having trouble sleeping, but I don't think this is Adderall, at least not 100%, because I seem to have trouble sleeping every few weeks. My symptoms are ever present but seem to get worse in cycles.

Bear in mind I am in a flare or something right now, and when this happens I have more trouble than usual putting words and thoughts together.

Apparently I was not clear and apparently I frustrated the doctor to the point where he snapped at me. I don't remember what I was even saying. I was trying to explain to him how I guess I am better energy-wise because I don't fall asleep during the day at the drop of a pin, but I really don't have any energy and am still way more fatigued than a normal person.

I guess this came out all wrong. I can see that, considering. If asked, maybe I could have tried to clarify a little. But he accused me of saying one thing and then another and contradicting myself, etc, etc. I immediately felt like he didn't trust me. I welled up a tiny bit (exhaustion exacerbates emotion, I guess) and apologized and explained that it's very frustrating for me to not be able to communicate.

This is the most frustrating thing I deal with and the worst part is how it makes me feel stupid.

I will grant that I was probably confusing as heck. I told him I wanted to start taking the Adderall twice a day instead of three times to see if I would sleep better, and I guess I wasn't clear about that either, so he lowered my dosage by just knocking off the last dose of the day. And I'm sure I may have been a little hard to follow. My brain was literally in neutral. I couldn't come up with words, I would take long pauses when talking because I'd stop to gather my thoughts and my brain would just stall out for like 30 seconds before I remembered I was talking.

I'm no stranger to confusing people to the point of frustration. But, that said, I thought that was why I was seeing him, and I thought he knew that.

Apparently my ADD combined with serious fibro fog just irritated him.

So to cut this long story short HE brought up Provigil, and by that point I was afraid anything I said might make me look stupid or whatever. (I don't think he thought I was being 'funny' about getting more meds, but you never know.)

So out of fear I kept quiet and didn't ask about the 7-day free trial. Bummer.

Then he told me to take just the Provigil alone to see what I like about it, what I like about Adderall, and then when I go back in a month we can see if we should combine.

Problem: Well, I don't want to go back. I now feel like I have to defend everything I say to him. But now that I'm on meds, if I start switching docs it will look suspect.
Problem #2: He didn't tell me how long to just take the Provigil alone. I can't fill the prescription for about a week or maybe two weeks because it requires some pre-authorization forms for the ins co. So I'm still on Adderall till then. And then I guess I will have to stop the Adderall and take just Provigil for almost a month. So if the Provigil doesn't work, I'm back to square one and will spend a month feeling like I did pre-diagnosis (i.e. like a big old mess).

And now I have an awkward situation and feel unable to communicate effectively with him. I wish I could give him back both prescriptions and start from scratch with a new doc, but it took me almost four years to get the diagnosis and get any meds to begin with.

Oh, he also refused my request to be referred for a sleep study. He said he did not see that it was necessary, and I got the distinct impression he felt my confusion and inability to communicate well today was due to my just being dumb and annoying as opposed to being a side effect of severe fatigue. Basically he made me feel guilty for having symptoms that can't be entirely explained, and he called fibromyalgia "just a label" which made me realize he either one, doesn't know much about it or two, doesn't think it's real.

Yes, I know I should just tell him I now feel untrusted and uncomfortable, but, you know, I don't want to argue with doctors. I just want to get treated. So it sucks, but...

...on the brightside maybe the Provigil will work for my fatigue and it'll give me the energy to tell him I don't trust him anymore so who cares what he thinks of me anyway? Maybe.

Desperate1, I will not lie to you....dexie is going byeeee byeeee and I was unable to read your whole post. I think I got the gist though, and ya know what? These jokers work for YOU, not the other way around.

If your new pants didn't fit you would you feel bad about exchanging them for a pair that fit? Would you care what the pants thought about it?

;)

hehehe...don't worry, I can't read my whole post either.
jeesh, I just go on and on, don't I?

Thank you. Words of wisdom, as usual. Of course, I'll probably go without meds for a while, and probably have to be totally "reevaluated."

Damn fibro fog!!

Keep us updated on the provigil.

Just my advice on the doc..... Ditch him/her. A shrink won't know crap about sleep issues or fibro. Go to a Neurologist since they can handle this sorta stuff including adhd treatment.

JR

My doc gave me a sample pack last month. I tried it for a week but didn't really like it. It did make me stay awake but that was it. With Adderall it somehow actually helps with my drive.
Agree

Update:

First full week off adderall/on provigil:

200mg of provigil in the mornings, around 8:30am. Energy still not great, but better than Adderall. I crash hard around 4pm though. Yesterday I woke up at 5pm with my head on my desk and didn't even remember falling asleep. I wonder if taking 100mg in the am and 100mg in the afternoon would work better?

No weird side effects (yet...fingers crossed) Had a mild headache the first two days--might not even have been provigil related.

gained 3 pounds in one week (again, who knows if this is from being off adderall or just a sudden water retention or something.)

hard to type because my hands and palms feel sweaty, even though they are dry to touch. It's like they are tacky and stick to the keyboard. Very annoying. I hope this is something that goes away.

Brain fog is back with a vengeance. Can't concentrate at all. Seems Provigil is only helping me with energy, and so far only mildly.

Adderall helped with the focus and brain fog, so I'm hoping my doctor will let me combine the two. I'm thinking maybe even just 5mg of Adderall would help at this point.

My focus and thinking seem to be even worse than before I ever started taking the Adderall. Could this be possible? Or is it just that now that I know what it's like to think clearly, I'm less tolerant of not being able to?

Anyway, that's the update. If anyone is thinking of trying Provigil I hope my experience can give you some insight. And if anyone has or is taking it and has any thoughts on my experience, I'd love to hear it as well.

Best to everyone, hope all is well!

My combo is Provigil at 400 mg and Dexedrine at 150 mg and all I notice is the dexedrine so????????????