Hello Everyone,
I know this is a strange place to ask this question, but the knowledge base here is so diverse I believe I will find the right answer.
Years ago I had a very serious back injury that required a fusion. Since then I have been in chronic severe pain and have been on every pain narcotic in existence. My doctor and I have cut the dosage and have finally settled on extended release morphine daily (60mg) with Percocet for brakethrough pain. Needless to say the daily use of these strong opiates has left me with zero energy. As a short term side effect it isn’t to bad, but this has been going on for years. I sleep 10 hours and wake up feeling as tired as when I went to bed, no energy ever and I just can’t take anymore. I want to rejoin the world of the living.
Today after sharing my concerns with my doctor and sharing research I have done on the internet he perscribed me the drug Nugivil. My understanding is that it is an amphetimine based drug that should give me more energy and wake me up. I also take a weekly dose of 50,000 units of vitamin D and depending on the outcome of a blood test will be receiving vitamin B shots on a weekly basis.
I hope that this new drug regiment will take care of the lethargy that has become my life. My question is: Does anyone here have any experience taking an amphetimine based drug? What does it feel like to be on it and will I have the energy I so deserately crave?
Thanks in advance for your advice. To all those in chronic pain I feel for you. It is a terrible thing to have to deal with.
Nuvigil is interesting because it isn’t a stimulant. Nuvigil and Provigil are not technically stimulants; they are classified as wakefulness enhancing agents. I take Provigil for narcolepsy. It works very well, provided I skip doses on the weekends to cut down on tolerance. Watch out for anxiety issues as well as mood issues. I tend to be a bit anxious all the time, as well as irritable when changing doses. Avoid caffeine until you figure out how much you can have. When I first started, I had some spicy salsa at dinner and three or four glasses of Dr. Pepper. Twenty minutes later everything was spinning and I felt incredibly nervous and had a vague feeling of dread about something.
Yeah, just to clarify, Nuvigil is definitely not an amphetamine.
I used to know a couple people who took Provigil (modafinil), the slightly older version, and generic adrafinil, the even older version, while taking opiates for chronic pain like you do. They both stopped taking them after a few days because they weren’t getting any benefit from it – the wakefulness-enhancing effects of the modafinil and adrafinil were unable to “overpower” the sedating effect of the opiate, in their cases. One of them switched to … I think it was Ritalin, but I can’t find my notes from that long ago at the moment. I believe the other just decided to accept being drowsy all the time.
However, both of them were taking methadone, not morphine and Percocet, which may make a difference. And I don’t know if Nuvigil is better than Provigil or adrafinil in this regard.
Good luck! Hope you get your energy back. And my sympathies about your condition.
Please let us know if any of this works, since I am in essentially the same place!