Modafinil Online is a medicine that promotes wakefulness and is used to treat conditions like narcolepsy, obstructive sleep apnoea, and shift work sleep disorder. It is a Schedule 4 substance under the Poisons List, and it is illegal to possess, sell, or attempt to obtain modafinil without a prescription.
However, consumers can legally import the drug from overseas under the TGA’s Personal Importation Scheme.
Narcolepsy
A person with narcolepsy has problems staying awake or falling asleep at the right times. They have episodes of sudden, uncontrollable sleepiness during the day, which can last from a few seconds to a few minutes.
They may fall asleep while eating or talking to someone, and they cannot control when these episodes occur. The episodes are accompanied by intense feelings of tiredness or even anger or depression. They can also cause memory lapses and make it hard to learn or remember things.
Narcolepsy is caused by a lack of the chemical hypocretin (hi-poe-KREE-tin), which is needed to control being awake. A brain injury or tumor can also cause narcolepsy. It can be difficult to diagnose, and tests are often required before a person can be diagnosed with the condition.
People with narcolepsy can manage their symptoms with medication and key changes to their lifestyle. They can take short naps during the day and try to avoid alcohol, caffeine, and tobacco products. They should also stick to a regular schedule for going to bed and waking up, including weekends. They can also plan for driving trips and ask their healthcare provider about medicine to help them stay alert during long drives.
Medications to treat narcolepsy include the wake-promoting drugs modafinil (Provigil) or Modalert Tablet (Nuvigil). Other medicines that may be prescribed include methylphenidate (Ritalin), amphetamines, and sodium oxybate (Xyrem or Xywav). People with narcolepsy should also be careful about taking over-the-counter medicines that can cause drowsiness, such as allergy and cold medicines.
Sleep apnea
Sleep apnea is a common condition in which your breathing stops and starts repeatedly throughout the night. This can prevent your body from getting enough oxygen, and it may lead to serious health problems if not treated. Your doctor can diagnose it based on your medical and family history, physical exam, and sleep study results.
There are two types of sleep apnea: central and obstructive. Obstructive sleep apnea is the most common and occurs when your throat muscles relax during sleep, narrowing the airway. This causes loud snoring and gasping for breath, which disrupts sleep. Obstructive sleep apnea can also cause high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. It may also lead to irritability, poor concentration, and erectile dysfunction (low libido).
People with obstructive sleep apnea are more likely to have car accidents or work-related injuries. They are also at increased risk for cardiovascular diseases, including atrial fibrillation and heart disease. In addition, they are more prone to hypertension and diabetes.
Treatment for obstructive sleep apnea includes lifestyle changes, avoiding alcohol and sleeping pills, using mouthpieces, losing weight, and surgery. Some people use a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device while they sleep to blow pressurized air into their throats, which keeps them open. These devices can be purchased with a prescription and are often titrated by your physician during a sleep study.
Shift work sleep disorder
Working shift work can throw off the circadian rhythm that keeps your sleep cycle aligned with your natural wake and sleep cycles. This can lead to insomnia, grogginess, extreme sleepiness, and problems with concentration. People who work night shifts or rotating shifts are at particular risk for this condition. Police officers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, and paramedics, as well as factory workers and even office cleaning staff, can suffer from shift work sleep disorder.
The problem arises when melatonin, the hormone that helps you fall asleep and stay asleep, drops too low during your night shift, while cortisol, which boosts your energy levels, rises too high during the daytime portion of your schedule. The imbalance in these hormones is responsible for the fatigue that shift workers experience.
To diagnose shift work sleep disorder, healthcare providers ask people to keep a log of their sleep and wake patterns over some time—typically a few weeks or more. They may also use actigraphy, which uses a wrist-worn device to measure the body’s natural sleep-wake cycles. Healthcare providers also check to make sure that a person’s symptoms are not caused by another sleep disorder or medication side effects.
The most effective treatment for shift work sleep disorder is to switch to a traditional daytime work schedule. However, many people cannot do this due to their current job or family obligations. In these cases, light therapy can help. This involves exposing the skin to bright light at the start of a person’s night shift.
Fatigue
Fatigue is a common problem that affects people of all ages and backgrounds. It can be caused by a variety of factors, including sleep problems, stress, illness, and medication. Treatment for fatigue usually includes rest and exercise.
In some cases, it may also require blood tests and other diagnostic procedures to find the underlying cause of the fatigue. For example, doctors may order a urine test to check for infections or liver and kidney problems. They may also recommend a sleep study to rule out sleeping disorders.
The selective wakefulness-promoting agent modafinil ( Waklert 150 mg ) is FDA-approved for treating narcolepsy, obstructive sleep apnea, and shift work sleep disorder. It is known to exert its stimulant effects by binding to noradrenergic, dopaminergic (specifically the dopamine transporter), GABAergic, glutamatergic, adenosine, and histaminergic receptors at pharmacologically relevant concentrations. However, at these concentrations, it does not interact with any potentially relevant receptors of the hypocretin system, which regulates wakefulness.
Although the benefits of modafinil in MS patients are promising, more research is needed to determine the ideal dose and to establish the optimal time to administer the drug. Taking it too early in the morning can increase the risk of adverse effects, such as headaches or dizziness.
It can also have negative effects on cognitive performance. In one study, 400 mg of modafinil increased the time required to correctly identify sequences and shortened the initial thinking time on a task compared to placebo, but it did not improve self-ratings of fatigue.
