My first round with provigil lasted a year or so. It’s not that the Doctor took me off it or anything, just that I switched insurance companies and had multiple headaches trying to refill my prescription and eventually gave up messing with it because it had mostly done the job and I was regularly waking up at reasonable times.

That lasted… a while. A few months. Maybe a year. Then I started drifting again. The doctor had me try out Ambien with the provigil — Ambien did nothing for me. I was terribly disappointed. I even tried it at double the dose and I was still up most of the night. It did make me extra groggy the next day though. He gave me some samples of Lunesta and those worked, but we’d just switched insurance companies again and more headaches with the mail-order prescriptions ensued, so I gave up on messing with it. I had saved a few pills and the doctor gave me some samples when I was in for the flu (“You’re my only patient that uses this stuff, and it’s expiring soon, so you might as well take it”), so I started just taking them when I knew I was going to be dead to the world without it. But those ran out months ago.

Now my sleep schedule is royally messed up again, my friend who was regularly dragging me out of bed to go to breakfast (and coincidentally make it in to work on time) has moved back to Kansas City, and work is getting a bit impatient with my irregular hours, so I got off my arse, got all my ducks in a row with the mail order pharmacy bits of my insurance plan, and asked the doc for a renewed prescription. I received the provigil Friday.  I’m still waiting on the Lunesta (I think I messed it up when I hung up on the automated phone call when I realized it wanted my credit card number and I’d left my wallet sitting on my desk).

I took the first pill of my new prescription today. And… it’s much like the first time I took it, probably because i haven’t had one in months. Bouncing knee, too much energy, but not quite as irritatingly chipper. The fact that I actually slept quite a lot last night probably adds to it.

Oh — and current price through my insurance: $150 for a 90 day supply. They claim the price without the insurance is something like $1600. I think Cephalon hiked the price so they could encourage people to migrate to their new “Nuvigil” pill, which is basically identical to provigil but won’t be available as a generic for a very long time.

The competitor’s big selling point was how well their stuff could be customized. Um… guess what guys… if I roll it myself, I can make it precisely the way I want it to be… not just “your choice of fonts, colors, and logo”.

Anyway, it’s 6pm now, I just got home from the office, I’m still pretty lively. Don’t think I’ll be up terribly late tonight though.

Can’t remember what the evening of 2/15 or 2/16 was. I’ll check my email at work and see if I can get at least the approximate time I woke up.

2/17 went to bed around 6am, fell asleep soon after, woke up about 1pm, didn’t take a pill.

2/18 went to bed around 4am, fell asleep soon after, woke up around noon, didn’t take a pill, took a 3 hour nap from around 3pm til 6pm

2/19 went to bed around 1AM, couldn’t sleep (nap should have been 30 minutes), finally passed out around 6:30, woke up around 8:30, took a pill. No notable effects. Wasn’t particularly out of it but wasn’t terribly alert either.

2/20 went to bed around 1:30 AM, fell asleep around 2:30, woke up at 10 or so. Forgot to take a pill.

2/21 went to bed around 9:30, fell asleep by 10, must have been really tired, slept til 10AM. Decided to try a double dose of provigil to see if it made any difference. Regretted it within 20 minutes. Have I mentioned that this stuff has a nasty side effect (makes your urine smell horrible)? Well, it does… and taking 2 pills exported a hint of that smell/taste to my mouth. Not a strong amount, but enough that I noticed it til I ate something, which was far more than enough. Beyond that, no noticable difference between two pills and one.

I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s not *supposed* to be a terribly noticable difference, just that it helps you stay awake more easily. Which is good, but it’s pretty subtle. I also realize I’m going to need more help forcing myself to get up early enough to take the blasted pill if it’s going to do anything besides reinforce the hours I’m already keeping.

I wasn’t 100% sure yesterday that I remembered to take a pill, so I made absolutely sure I did today. Not really noticing a difference with it. Guess the first couple days were a fluke? Not sure. Might be that the dosage isnt high enough, or needs to be spread out, half in the morning and half in early afternoon or something. Or maybe I should have gotten up when I woke up just before my alarm went off and I was really wide awake instead of hitting snooze and waking up groggy 90 minutes later. Ah well. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Going to try and force myself to make it to work between 7:45 and 7:55 every morning next week. Might give my coworkers heart attacks though.

Oh. And Ann got the flowers today. The 1800flowers people never called me back. Bastards. She doesn’t do valentine’s day (she didn’t tell me that til after they were ordered…. but I would have done it anyway). But to my view, there are two ways to do flowers. Having flowers delivered to someone at work, is not so much about them getting flowers, it’s about them receiving flowers in front of their peers. People will see them and know someone cares enough about her to send flowers, which raises her esteem in their eyes subconsciously. I can’t take credit for that, really… something I learned from Nicole (she always tells people to only send her flowers for any reason on mondays so she can have them on her desk and get compliments on them all week long). Of course, for N., I think making the other girls in the office jealous that she got flowers and they didn’t was also a small factor, but Ann doesn’t seem to be like that. I dunno. The fact that the students might tease her a little about it may be a small factor.

I hope i haven’t given her the impression that I only give flowers on holidays. I do them ‘just because’ too… particularly if I think they might cheer someone up a bit.

The other way to do flowers, is the way I prefer… choose them myself at a florist, maybe even have some role in the arrangement, and deliver them by hand, in private. Not a gesture for others to see… purely the gift of a special, momentary beauty from one hand to another.

Not seeing any notable difference today between having taken a pill and any day where I didn’t do so.

As a side note, to hell with 1800flowers.com. I spent all bloody day trying to call them to get the name of the florist actually *delivering* the flowers (because I’m sending them to my friend who’s a teacher, and her school had a snow day today so I was going to get them rerouted to her home), and when I finally get through they tell me they can’t give me that information “for confidentiality reasons”.  Bastards. I tried calling both the local florists for her area and neither one had any record of an order for her, which means it’s coming from one farther away, and that opens up way too many of the blasted places. I can only hope they’ll either call me at some point, or deliver them tomorrow. From now on, screw that. I’ll call a local florist myself and cut out the middle man.

Provigil is listed as having a headache as one of its side effects. I’ve had one all day. Not sure if it’s related or not.

Not nearly as hyper as yesterday, but I guess 90 minutes of sleep probably has something to do with that. Energy is coming more in spurts, not a constant. Of course, I took it 3 hours earlier today, too… so I guess 12:30 in the afternoon today is probably approximately equivalent to 3:30 yesterday.

Not buying that this stuff could keep you awake and functional for 48+ hours as some magazine articles have indicated. Well, not on the recommended dosage anyway, and I suppose being wide awake for 48+ hours is somewhat beyond recommended. So maybe.

Thursday 2/1 Went to bed around 1 AM, fell asleep around 2:30, woke up around 9:00
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Friday 2/2 Went to bed around 11pm previous night. Fell asleep around 3. Up at 6am. Heading to chicago with Ann, had mom call and wake me up.
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Saturday 2/3 Went to bed around 3AM I think. Time zones had me confused. Woke up around 6, fell asleep again around 7:30, slept til around 9.
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Sunday 2/4 Long drive home, then into the office. Exhausting day. Left office around 12:50 AM, got home, spent an hour or so unwinding, went to bed at 2:30 or so, woke up at 10
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Monday 2/5 Worked til 1 or so again, went to bed around 2:30, asleep around 3:15 I think, woke up at 10:45
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Tuesday 2/6 Went to bed around 12:30 AM, fell asleep around 3, woke up around 9:30
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Wednesday 2/7 Went to bed around 1am, fell asleep around 4:30, woke up about 10:45. Think I got up to use the bathroom around 6. Should have stayed up.
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Thursday 2/8 Went to bed around 2am, fell asleep around 3, woke up around 10.
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Friday 2/9 Went to bed around 1am, fell asleep around 3:30, woke up around 10.
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Saturday 2/10 Went to bed around 7am, fell asleep within minutes, woke up around 3pm
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Sunday 2/11 Went to bed around 4am, fell asleep around 4:30, woke up around noon.
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Monday 2/12 Went to bed around 1am, fell asleep around 5:45, woke up about 11:15. Package at the door when I left for work — provigil arrived. Took a pill and went into work.

Initial impressions of Provigil:
About 60-90 minutes after taking it, I noticed a sort of odd dichotomy. On the one hand, I can tell I haven’t slept enough, I could easily lay down and fall asleep, and my back and neck are sore; but on the other, I’m… how to describe it… bouncing off the walls is a little too strong a term, but I’m much more energetic. Euphoric is probably too strong a term as well. I’m finding myself drumming my fingers alot on the desk, bouncing my leg, I don’t exactly feel more motivated to work but I feel like I could get more done faster. It’s a little annoying, actually, I’m not a particularly “bouncy” person and there were moments when I felt like I was “bouncing up and down like a jack russel fucking terrier“. It seemed like a bit too much. It seems mostly to have worn off around 5 or so, and as I type this now at 7:30 I’m not feeling much of anything. Still noticing a little ‘bounciness’… but that might be normal, I have a tendency to bounce my leg sometimes without noticing for hours at a time anyway, though today is the first time I recall doing it in months. I’ll get someone to wake me up early tomorrow, take it again and head into work and see how the day goes.
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