Nursing Voices

Friday, July 04, 2008

Provigil: As American as Apple Pie

Wow, I want whatever she’s on. She looks so Yankee Doodle PERKY! Maybe she’s standing like that because her leotards are too tight, or maybe it’s because she’s been taking a bit too much Provigil for her ES. That’s the new marketing term for “Excessive Sleepiness.” No, I’m not kidding. The makers of Provigil have found a new way of marketing trucker speed. Can’t stay awake? Take Provigil and wave your stars and stripes all day long! Check out this “non-biased” website about Provigil. The website also claims that Provigil cures apathy and Nurse K’s favorite ailment, fibromyalgia.

Have a happy and safe 4th of July holiday weekend.

10 Comments:

Blogger Braden said...

Taking Provigil turned my life around. Seriously. I went from sleepy droopy Braden to alert awake Braden literally overnight with Provigil.

Now I'm finding out that there might actually be a real physiological cause for my fatigue and I'll post about it one of these days on my blog, but at the very least, Provigil has enabled me to have something of a life when I've been suffering from nearly disabling fatigue.

And I'm a cowboy-up, no-excuses kind of guy.

3:32 AM  
Blogger Mother Jones RN said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

7:04 AM  
Blogger Mother Jones RN said...

Be careful with that stuff, Braden. It's speed, the kind of stuff that housewives use to get hooked on when they were taking diet pills. The drug company that makes Provigil is running around saying it's safe and effective for all kinds of stuff. Safe? No way! I use to work with a doctor who started using that stuff to help keep him awake. He got hooked, and he lost his wife, his family, and he is no longer practicing medicine. Get your physical condition fixed (I’m guessing that you have sleep apnea), and quit taking that stuff ASAP.

7:08 AM  
Blogger DrugMonkey, Master of Pharmacy said...

Provigil falls under what I call the "Ritalin pharmacy conundrum." There is a place for it in medicine, a small place, like about maybe 10% of the people who actually use it. Wanna hear something funny? In 1969, when Congress was working on what would eventually become the Controlled Substances act, some expert witnesses estimated that there were perhaps a thousand cases of ADHD in the entire nation. Narcolepsy was estimated as affecting a few hundred people at most.

Let's say those experts were off by a factor of 10. We're still talking a national ADHD/narcolepsy caseload of under 100,000 people.

Yet almost as soon as the feds took nearly all of the lucrative depression and weight loss markets away from speed, diagnosis for ADHD went through the friggin' roof, and today more doses of amphetamine are produced to treat ADHD as were made to combat depression and fat in the 60's. Big Pharma found a way to keep the dollars rolling in. Go figure.

Thing is, from my vantage point behind the counter, I have little if any way of knowing if the particular customer I'm looking at is part of that 10% of patients whose speed use could be justified....or if they have duped their doctor into doping their kid 'cause the TV no longer works as a babysitter. Or if their doctor has duped them into thinking they have medically treatable "excessive sleepiness." One thing is for sure though, at prices starting at around $250 for 30 tablets of the lowest dose, Provigil is an amazingly effective treatment for EMS, "Excessive Money Syndrome." There's way cheaper speed out there.

Oh, and watch out for the toxic epidermal necrolysis. Toxic epidermal necrolysis is exactly as scary as it sounds.

12:42 PM  
Blogger bernadette said...

ok.
if you look at the" RESEARCH" used to support the use of provigil ( i would rather call this drug PROPROFIT ),
it is one of those fly by night outfits funded by the mattress industry. sad but true,
it's always a bit scary when the research is authenticated by a PhD.
bwaaahahah. " i have a degree in SCIENCE."
anyway.. now that sleepworks/sealy posturpedics, and all those expensive mattress co."s have schnoodled us into thinking that the key to a good night's sleep is spending 10x on a mattress/pillow/sheet set... we get hit with a even more lucrative industry.. SLEEPING PILLS.
so... gone are the good old days of dalmane and quaaludes... we have tons of choices to knock us out ....
BUT WAIT...
you may wake up a bit groggy.. so let's sell some wake up pills.
for pity's sake. here is some FREE advise for that soooo desired "good night's" sleep...

1. clear your mind ( stop fixating on karl rove and his plan to destroy life as we know it)

2 .get some exercise,

3. plop down on that old (cheap) mattress and get to sleep.

4. if you wake up a bit sleepy.. drink some friggin' coffee.
BUT,, this IS america.. so you do have the opportunity to take your halcion, sleep on a tempurpedic mattress with some special pad, and form fitting pillow.. and sleep. wake up to your dose of provigil and get the hell to work.
god. i love this stuff.
oh... wait what about restless leg "syndrome"

10:56 PM  
Blogger MOJITOGIRL said...

I took Provigil once......and only once. I needed to stay awake after 3 night shifts. I did stay awake. I also was totally irrational. Was out on the ocean boating, kept having impulses to jump overboard and drown, or take a blunt object and kill my husband because he couldn't get me home fast enough. I picked a fight with everybody and everybody was an A****hole that day. So much for Provigil.

8:14 AM  
Blogger Anne said...

Drugmonkey basically said it all, but...seriously, guys, seriously...take Ambien to sleep, take Provigil to wake up...take Zoloft to make you happier, take Seroquel to keep you from getting TOO happy...so many drugs have gone from being prescribed only for clinically significant, legitimate disorders to being little lifestyle enhancers...why live an ordinary life when, for a $20 copayment a month, it could be extraordinary? Sigh.

10:11 AM  
Blogger scalpel said...

It's a miracle drug, and I don't understand the animosity some of you have against it. It doesn't make me high or jittery, it just makes me awake and able to function. On the way home from work I used to literally doze off 50 or more times, sometimes driving off the road but somehow always waking up just in time to avoid disaster. Instead of looking forward to red lights as a chance to take a quick nap and often sleeping 4 times per day, my need to sleep doesn't control my life anymore. This medication is not addictive (except in the sense that I really like being able to do stuff with my family instead of staying home to take another nap while they go to dinner), and there is little if any benefit from increasing the dose.

12:14 AM  
Blogger LicensedToILL said...

We work too hard, like as a culture. We are overworked and exhausted. We are responsible for an unbearable amount of responsibility.

You think provigil is trucker speed?

Has anyone had a double shot from Starschmuck's lately?

Holy crap. Lift off!!

12:14 AM  
Blogger Who I am Today said...

Please don't forget that there are those of us with legitimate medical problems and disabilities who can live more productive lives thanks to medications like Provigil. I was injured in the line of duty while working as an Emergency Medical Tech eight years ago. As a result of head trauma, I have neurologically based fatigue and muscle weakness. However, I take medications, including Provigil, that help me to function well, hold down a job, and be a successful, educated, tax-paying member of the community.

It lets me have an almost-normal life. Please don't be so quick to judge those who need help...until you've walked, or rolled, a mile in their shoes/wheelchair/walker/etc.

thank you.

8:59 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home