I'm awake again, even though I'm tired, exhausted from Music Camp - only 2 days left! WooHoo.
Back when Dr Dori did her BlogTalkRadio interview she suggested again that I might like to look into a drug used for people with narcolepsy called Provigil. I know that other Cushing's patients use this drug to help the stay awake during the day.
I was talking to my son tonight about how music camp was wiping me out during the day and he told me about another drug that he'd tried similar to Provigil that helped him when he had to stay awake while working on his Ph.D.
The more I read about this stuff, the better it sounds but I'll have to convince my kidney cancer surgeon that it would be ok for me to try. He's very conservative about what would be good to take, to protect my kidney from any further harm. I can't even take aspirin!
It's a quality of life thing, though. If I take this med, how many minutes/days/hours would it shave off the life of my kidney? I'm already sleeping about 8 hours a day more than my husband does. So, if one pill got me back say 4 hours and only took 1 hour off the life of my kidney, that would be a fair trade-off.
But, there are so many variables and I doubt that anyone, including my doctors, can tell me this kind of info.
But it's sure tempting!
I have to tell you that taking Adderall makes a big difference for me, but I don't know about your other concerns (although it's filtered through the liver). You may be able to do one of the newer patch delivery systems... what you need to do is talk to your doctors. Don't forget that it's been proven that amphetamines are the treatment of choice for apathy related to endocrine disorders (and other disorders like cancers... I can dig up the article if you want it).
ReplyDeleteP.S. I haven't forgotten that I'm supposed to be stalking you. I'm just the worlds laziest stalker *HUG*
oh, post post script.... I'm on a very low dose of the stuff, only 10mg a day. You may need even less!
ReplyDeleteAmi, does the Adderall help you stay awake or just generally?
ReplyDeleteI'm getting really tired of losing so much of each day. I'm sure no one can can tell me but I'm hating trading naps for "kidney time"
You're not a lazy stalker - I still owe YOU a phone call!
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ReplyDeleteI think it helps me stay awake during the day (on top of helping my ADHD symptoms). Since adderall is primarily processed by the liver it might not affect your kidney so much. You need to talk to doctor.
ReplyDeleteThere are days where I do take a nap... but those are less on the drug and I think that has more to do with crazy hormone cycles (something you're not doing so much anymore).
Plus it might help some of the symptoms of depression. It's sure worth asking about. And honestly... there are worse things in this world than dialysis.
Maybe this is one of those small molecules that isn't so hard on the kidney... maybe the transdermal patches are easy on the kidneys ... ask the doc.
Sending you hugs.