irishdrought - your thoughts on stimulants

[Guest guest]

> I have to take a stimulant to stay awake. I don't have narcoplsey

> but do feel brain dead and so sleepy without it.

I have been having the same problem, especially this summer. Humid heat

seems to magnify the problem (even if I am in an air-conditioned room).

However, retrospectively it seems that more subtle sleepiness may have

been a problem for me thruout the last year (which is the amount of

time that I've been running 3-6 miles again, recovered from

depression/malaise/brainfog, and generally highly recovered from severe

CFS, all apparantly thanks to antibiotics).

What have you tried and what worked/failed? I've been taking caffeine

liberally all year but that was not fully effective. I started

amineptine at 150-200 mg on tuesday. It had superb effects which seem

to have mostly worn off even tho I am still taking it. So today I added

adrafinil at 300 mg. (I have no opinion on whether this combo is safe;

I just went for it pretty blindly.) Again, tremendous effects - I am in

doubt whether they will persist very long even if I work up to the max

dose, but hope abideth. I've also experimented with thyroid, so far

without lasting success, but I will try again when I obtain more.

My vague sense is that amphetamine and methylphenidate are probably

stronger than amineptine and adrafinil, but to obtain those I'll have

to do a song & dance for a doctor. Anyway, I cant go around being very

sleepy quite often, falling asleep in the afternoon, and averaging 9.5

to 10 hours of sleep per day. This problem has been easy for me to

underrecognize, as I was desperately insomniac during my time of severe

illness.

I also fear the possibility of long-term diminishment of effectiveness.

Have you experienced that with stimulants? For me, tho I do build

caffeine tolerance, the tolerance seems to max out at a reasonable

level. That gives me hope that I could find a constant dose of some

stronger stimulant that could be both fully and permanently effective.

I didnt get good grades last year, tho I learned alot anyway. I think

low activity drive is the primary reason, and it seems the

norepinepherine and dopamine systems may often be blameable for this.

Its usually pretty easy for me to work furiously on stuff related to my

own ideas, but hard to do homework. I also notice a decided preference

for walking places over riding my bike, contrary to my pre-illness

habits. Now I've graduated and am taking two graduate courses (Biochem

and Microbial Pathogenesis). Kind of my last shot to lay down a good

record and get into a good PhD program.