A month of modafinil

[james_davis_nicoll]

What seems to work is half a pill in the morning and a half in the afternoon. More alertness but when it wears off, it wears off very quickly. Also not loving the minor head-ache I get about an hour after I take it.

Still not convinced that it improves cognition, but at least I don't feel tired all the time.

Comments

[kithrup]

Gale is on it, and it is very obvious when they did not take the pills. A considerably higher dose than you're on, but only once a day I believe.

[james_davis_nicoll]

I tried once a day. The side effects were worse, and the crash was as well.

[james_davis_nicoll]

Bah. It turns out pill cutters are designed to cut pills in two, not other fractions.

[(Anonymous)]

Only seldom do I achieve a result that is close to 50-50.

William Hyde

[(Anonymous)]

You can ask if it comes in smaller doses. Pill splitters are a crude tool, at best, and are useless for odd-shaped pills.

-Awesome Aud

So, still no sign of superpowers? How disappointing.

[autopope]

Also, if it's a sustained release formulation you will bugger up its pharmacokinetics completely by cutting it up, with Bad And Unpredictable effects. (And one a day pills are often SR types.)

[bolindbergh]

Wikipedia says there are multiple mechanisms in use, and only some of them are affected by splitting.

[(Anonymous)]

Do the pills come with an informative leaflet that may cover that sort of thing?

Robert Carnegie

[zxhrue]

hrmm. 50 to 100mg, 2x/day. the headache sucks, but moderate and judicious application of etoh can buff that edge somewhat, say a dram about an hour after each dose (strictly medicinal), preferably _before_ the headache starts.

modafanil does not improve cognition, well, not beyond baseline. it is useful for those not nearly enough sleep days, and of course, as prescribed, to stave off narcolepsy. if you really want to improve cognition d-methylphenidate, lisdexamfetamine (or just straight up mixed amphetamine salts), or microdoses of psilocybin all produce better results, with microdosing probably being the best. of course it kinda depends on what you're looking for, the stimulants just make one think faster, not necessarily _better_, microdosing otoh can have some beneficial effects wrt divergent/creative thinking. neither really improve executive functioning. um, or so I've heard. ymmv.