Comment · Wed, August 14, 2013 · Ceretropic
Talking to a doctor about a modafinil prescription
Original post in this thread
promtom · 7 points
I've recently gotten into nootropics after having terrible experiences with SSRI's. 5-HTP has helped me more than any anti-depressant ever did.
My only problem is that I suffer from terrible insomnia. I go for 2-4 days without sleeping. I've tried melatonin and that hasn't worked for me even at extremely high doses of 40mg. I'm seeing my doctor soon to see what he recommends to help improve sleep(he will probably prescribe me a small dose of ambien).
Well with this I wanted to ask my doctor about modafinil and see if he thinks it would help with my daily life seeing that I'm basically tired 24/7.
tl;dr If I ask my doctor about modafinil do you think he would prescribe it? I'm not certain doctors actually regularly prescribe modafinil so that's why I'm asking.
What they were answering
Direct reply to the original post — see the thread post above.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
It sounds like you have a serotonin system issue. Perhaps low expression of tryptophan hydroxylase. If you can't sleep, then your sleep cycle is off. Your sleep cycle is controlled by melatonin, which is created from serotonin. You also mentioned that 5-HTP worked better for you than SSRIs. Well SSRIs won't do shit if your serotonin production is nonexistent. However, 5-HTP skips tryptophan hydroxylase, and just use l-aromatic amino acid decarboxylase. So it's no wonder that helped. It finally gave your body the precursors it needed to create serotonin.
Take a step back and reevaluate this. Modafinil is not going to fix the problem, nor will 5-HTP. They are masking the symptoms. You need to figure out a way to regulate your serotonin system. If it really is what I think it is, low expression of TPH, then bacopa can help. Or you can get on a prescription to up-regulate TPH called sertraline. I'd start with bacopa, though.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11901216
Then you might need to get your sleep cycle back in step. This will require melatonin, but not 40mg! Take .5mg 30ming before bed. Then you need to do light therapy in the morning when you wake up. This will signal your body to stop releasing adenosine, and start producing vitamin D, which is used to produce melatonin and keep the cycle going. You might even need to supplement vitamin D and B6. This is not going to be an immediate fix, but is much better than considering sleeping with Ambien, then waking with modafinil.