Straterra nightmare.. Scared of Provigil..

[mattj949]

Hi...

New user here. I have been on and off ADHD medications since I was a little kid. I was on Ritalin until 1998. In 1998 I had a medical problem that forced me to stop taking it. That medical problem has since been resolved, I just never went back on medication.

I'm 35 and have severe ADD with pretty bad fidgeting/hyperactivity problems.

For the last year I have been seeing a therapist. She has been hounding me about getting my ADHD under control because it has really impacted my life in a very negative way. I just haven't felt like dealing with it.

I finally gave in and went to see a psychiatrist that she recommended.

He did not want to put me on any of the stimulant drugs, so he decided to put me on Straterra. I went along with it hoping it would be effective without doing the stimulant thing.

It was a horrible 7 days of torture. I felt like a zombie and could not function at all. Did not want to eat. Could not sleep. Just basically felt like crap. Kept waiting for the feeling to go away but it never did. I finally had to stop taking them because they were causing my eyes to dialate so bad that I couldn't see very well.

I stopped the Straterra and started feeling better right away. The doctor was quite upset with me for stopping them. He said I didn't give them enough time/chance. Bah.

I went back to this doctor this week again hoping he would just put me on Ritalin again or something else, but now he has thrown me onto another drug (which I have yet to fill) called Provigil.

From what I understand it is a stimulant and has has some minor ADHD reducing effects on some people. Most of what I have read about it since he gave me the Rx has not been too positive. I am afraid to take it. As it is, it's a huge hassle to get my insurance to pay for it and I'm not sure they even will at this point.

Has anyone here tried this drug? I guess I'll go thru the BS it takes to get it covered and try to get it filled tomorrow but i really want to talk to someone that has used it already.

Maybe I should just tell the doc to put me back on something proven. I kinda feel like he is using me as a Guinea Pig. He keeps telling me that the other drugs stop working after a while and I'll have to change them. I don't remember having to change my Ritalin.. maybe it just stopped working before and I didn't notice it.

I do remember taking ritalin and not having any side effects and it was very effective for me at one point.

Dazed and confused...

[InattentiveType]

I tried Provigil. Didn't like it. I just started Strattera.

Provigil made me feel adrenaline pumped. It lasted about 7 hours and then I was dead tired. So taking it at 7:30 I was needing a nap by 3:00 or so. No good.

I guess I could have tried two doses per day but I just didn't feel great on it. And I don't think it really helped my ADD much.

Provigil is a nor-epinephrine agonist vs Strattera which is said to be a nor-epinephrine re-uptake inhibitor. So same neurotransmitter but different effect.

[mattj949]

Good luck on Straterra. I guess I'll try the Provigil if I can get it filled thru the insurance.

At this point, I would almost prefer he gave me one of the other drugs but I guess I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

[Wheel1975]

Yep.

I did better with less Strattera than they recommend, though I ended up stopping because my experience was very similar to yours... no energy, no sleep, **** for brains... people liked me on it, because i wasn't taking their heads off, but i could do that by not being alive or not being around.

Provigle just kept me awake all the time. Other people do not have that problem. Keep your eyes open and try what you can.

For some people, some things work like magic.

Your Doctor will discover that lots of people don't gain benefit from Strattera and have intollerable side effects. give him time, or go to a new one.

Good luck.

[mattj949]

I already said byebye to the Strattera. It sucked. I'm going to go try to get the Provigil filled today.

[mattj949]

Finally started Provigil today after 1.5 week hassle with the HMO to get it filled. Took one 200mg tablet this AM. So far it's almost like I took nothing. Cannot really feel anything, good or bad. It definitely does not have the side-effects Strattera did.

I haven't been doing anything today that would require my un-divided attention though, so maybe a better test will be on Monday at work.

[Wheel1975]

start slow. take it easy. Don't demand too much of your drugs. good lcuk.

[mattj949]

Couldn't really get a hold on Provigil because insurance company denied it. I did buy 10 and started it and only real thing I noticed was it made me irritable. No other effects, positive or negative. Doc just started me on Concerta so will see how that goes. I have been on Ritalin off and on my entire life.. and if I remember correctly it was fairly effective. We shall see.

[jayblaze2]

Strattera sucked for me!!! hated it!! made me tired and weird

[see7towers]

I know this is an old thread , but provigil made me feel like I drank billions of cups of coffee ... Yuk was that horrible , wide awake , jittery , anxiety , energy abundance and no real motivation to use it ...

[Sam6220]

I take 200mg of provigle and it has given me my life back. This is by far the best I have been. They just put my 8 year on it and we will see. I am 2 years on mine she is one day.

[FlyingMoose]

I had the same reaction to Strattera, and it turns out I'm a 2D6 Poor Metabolizer (check the PI sheet if you're not sure what that means). I don't know if the test for that was available to the public in 1993, but from your reaction you probably are a PM. If you were have side effects like that, you should have tried a smaller dose. (I tried down to 2.5mg and gave up, but if I was gonna continue trying I'd start with 1mg) I believe it has a bell-shape response curve, so too much is worse than none.

Anyway, Provigil is metabolized by a different pathway. I just started taking it a few days ago (started slow at 20mg since I didn't want it to start like Strattera, namely like running into a brick wall). It seems quite good so far (taking 50mg for the moment), but supposedly the effective dose for ADD is around 400mg.

Sorry this is an old thread, but it was at the bottom in the "similar threads" box...