Our 13 yr old son is taking 300 mg of Provigil along w/ 150 mg Zoloft & afternoon dose of 5mg Methylin to help w/ homework. He has ADD, processing & expressive/receptive language deficits. He’s considered very-high functioning nonverbal learnind disabled. The toughest challenge is social interaction w/ peers. He has great trouble expressing himself & understanding conversations whizzing by him. He works very hard & does well in school and is a terrific athlete. Friends are very difficult & he says the Provigil helps relax him, yet keep him alert & upbeat. I’m concerned about this drug, yet it’s the only one he’s actually been very positive & self-aware of it’s help in helping him feel more “up.” Does anyone have any comments on the meds & the dosage? Can anyone recommend what might help his social skill/language problems? Like many LD kids, he’s a wonderful, sensitive kid who wants friends & is remarkably upbeat & determined. As a 7th grader, life is not easy & I really want to help him.
Re: Provigil - anyone using this?
Compared to drugs like Aderall and Ritalin, Provigil appears so far to be safe and effective. The following is some commentary from the safe drug guide but first allow me to introduce myself. I am know in these here parts as Ball (Brilliant Altruistic Lion-hearted and Liberating) I am sort of the watch dog here that protects both parent and child from the shysters and snake oils salesmen that prey upon them. I am happy to serve you.
Yours truly,
Ball
http://www.modafinil.com/
“…modafinil (‘Provigil’, ‘Aletec’, ‘Vigicer’, ‘Modalert’, etc) is a memory-improving and mood-brightening psychostimulant. It enhances wakefulness and vigilance, but its pharmacological profile is notably different from the amphetamines, methylphenidate (Ritalin) or cocaine. Modafinil is less likely to cause jitteriness, anxiety, or excess locomotor activity - or lead to a hypersomnolent ‘rebound effect’ - than traditional stimulants. Subjectively, it feels smoother and cleaner than the amphetamines too. The normal elimination half-life of modafinil in humans is between 12 - 15 hours. So it’s worth fine-tuning one’s dosage schedule accordingly.
Current research suggests modafinil, like its older and better-tested analogue adrafinil, is a safe, effective and well-tolerated agent. It is long-acting and doesn’t tend to cause peripheral sympathetic stimulation. Yet its CNS action isn’t fully understood. Modafinil induces wakefulness in part by its action in the anterior hypothalamus. Its dopamine-releasing action in the nucleus accumbens is weak and dose-dependent; the likelihood of a euphoric response (‘abuse potential’), dose-escalation and tolerance is thus apparently small. Modafinil has central alpha 1-adrenergic agonist effects i.e. it directly stimulates the receptors. Modafinil inhibits the reuptake of noradrenaline by the noradrenergic terminals on sleep-promoting neurons of ventrolateral preoptic nucleus (VLPO). More significant, perhaps, is its ability to increase excitatory glutamatergic transmission. This reduces local GABAergic transmission, thereby diminishing GABA(A) receptor signalling on the mesolimbic dopamine terminals.
Modafinil is proving clinically useful in the treatment of narcolepsy, a neurological disorder marked by uncontrollable attacks of daytime sleepiness. Narcolepsy is caused by dysfunction of a family of wakefulness-promoting and sleep-suppressing peptides, the orexins. Orexin neurons are activated by modafinil. Orexinergic neurons are found exclusively in the lateral hypothalamic area, but their fibers project to the entire central nervous system. Genetically modified orexin-knockout animals offer a model of human narcolepsy. Selective orexin receptor agonists of the future may prove useful both to narcoleptics and the population at large.
Experimentally, modafinil is also used in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, depression, attention-deficit disorder, myotonic dystrophy, multiple sclerosis-induced fatigue, post-anaesthesia grogginess, cognitive impairment in schizophrenia, spasticity associated with cerebral palsy, age-related memory decline, idiopathic hypersomnia, jet-lag, and everyday cat-napping. Depressives who feel sleepy and fatigued on SSRIs can augment their regimen with modafinil. In September 2003, an advisory panel to the FDA endorsed its use for treating shift work sleep disorder and obstructive sleep apnea.
The US military are interested in modafinil too.
Modafanil is marketed as ‘Alertec” in Canada - and over the Net. ‘Alertec’ is less expensive than ‘Provigil’. Cheap generic modafinil should be available from 2006. But Cephalon is vigorously litigating to defend its patents.
Modafinil is increasingly used as a ‘lifestyle drug’ - a lucrative ‘off-label’ market its makers have not been unduly keen to discourage. Some prescribing physicians have reportedly been surprised at a previously hidden epidemic of narcolepsy among hard-working young professionals attending their surgeries.
Prudence, however, should be exercised in drastically curtailing one’s sleep. Prolonged sleeplessness weakens immune function. Animals tortured in sleep-deprivation experiments eventually die from massive bacterial infections of the blood…”
modafinil.com
Re: Provigil - anyone using this?
“Life sucks and then you die” Unfortunately that is true for many people.
Children should laugh more than they cry. They should feel more joy than sorrow. Anything else is BS.
Achievement is overrated. A happy and joyful child is a thing of beauty.
As a parent it is tough to sit by while life dumps all over your kid. All you should do is decide how much you think he can handle and let him find joy where ever he can.
Most schools are too inane and infexible to let kids learn at their own pace. Consequently kids often feel stressed and overwhelmed. Unfortunately that sets up a pattern for the rest of their lives.
If you think about what you learned in school compared to what you know you realize it was precious little. School should be a blip on the screen at worst and at best it should be a positive experience. As a parent you are limited as to how much control over that. The best thing you can do isto prepare your child to handle the obstacles and adversity he may encounter in the school setting and praise him for doing his best.
Philosophically at your service,
Mr B.
or the psychologist at your school and see if there is something they can do to help you with his pragmatics. I am an SLP and we often work with kids who have pragmatics issues. The psychologist at my school and I often work together to find ways we can help the kids with these issues in middle school.