Greetings,
I was wondering if anyone had any insight/experience on the long term effectiveness of Provigil for CFS.
I was diagnosed with CFS about 2 months ago now, but my Doc thinks i've been suffering from it for about 4 years, we had thought it was seasonal affective disorder but when it didn't go away anymore in summer and then kept getting worse and worse with the fatigue decided to test for EVERYTHING. The good news is i'm REALLY healthy, the bad news is i do have chronic fatigue and it was getting worse quickly.
The docs first plan of action was to see if i saw improvement by trying to improve my sleep, that didn't work, i slept GREAT...but was even more fatigued through the day, so he decided to switch his game plan and see if we could address the fatigue head on, he prescribed a daily dose of 200mg of Provigil for 15 days and then told me to switch to Phentermine for 15 days and we'd see if either one of them made a difference. The provigil was the winner, i finally feel 'normal' again, i crash occassionally but at least i can rally, i did try the phentermine for 1 day and it made feel so darn 'high' i called him up to explain that it was great, but probably a little bit too 'fun' for a solution, i couldn't function on the stuff. So...now i'm back on the Provigil. So far so good, no side effects, and i don't take it on the weekends if i get tired...i just take a nap, or lay down...basically...i can let the fatigue have it's way and it doesn't really affect my quality of life...but through the week, i've GOT to work and the provigil gets me through with flying colors.
My fear is i will build up a tolerance to the medication over time and it's really scaring me. It's been so refreshing having my life back this past month...i don't know how i'd cope if this stuff stops working. Has anyone here been on provigil for an extended period of time? Any information you can provide would be most helpful.