(2021-01-17) Matuschak Modafinil

Andy Matuschak on Modafinil. I suffered from excessive daytime drowsiness throughout 2018; after working with my doctor to try a dozen different solutions, taking 200mg modafinil daily was finally what fixed the problem. I stopped taking it in early 2020 and the drowsiness has not returned. Probably I fell into some weird physiological local minimum, and the drug helped knock me out of it.

I suffered no apparent withdrawal or tolerance effects

So: why not just keep taking it regularly? Well, modafinil is a powerful controlled substance with an unknown mechanism of action

If my problem hadn’t resolved itself, I’d certainly still take it, though.

It’s also worth noting that modafinil is fairly pricy. If my insurance hadn’t covered my treatment, my pills would have cost $40/day.

The patent expires in 2024, so generics should solve this problem relatively soon.