Brand Name: Nuvigil
Generic Name: Armodafinil
This medication is not meant for treatment without a specialist's intervention
Common Uses
Armodafinil is a medication that promotes wakefulness. It is used to treat excessive sleepiness caused by sleep apnea, narcolepsy, or shift work sleep disorder.
How to Take
Take exactly as prescribed by your doctor. Do not take in larger or smaller amounts or for longer than recommended. Follow the directions on your prescription label. This medication comes with patient instructions for safe and effective use. Follow these directions carefully. Ask your doctor or pharmacist if you have any questions.
Armodafinil is usually given for up to 12 weeks. Follow your doctor's instructions.
Armodafinil is usually taken each morning to prevent daytime sleepiness, or 1 hour before the start of a work shift to treat work-time sleep disorders.
If you are taking Armodafinil to treat sleepiness caused by obstructive sleep apnea, you may also be treated with a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine. This machine is an air pump connected to mask that gently blows pressurized air into your nose while you sleep. The pump does not breathe for you, but the gentle force of air helps keep your airway open to prevent obstruction.
Do not stop using your CPAP machine during sleep unless your doctor tells you to. The combination of treatment with CPAP and Armodafinil may be necessary to best treat your condition.
Missed Dose
Take the missed dose as soon as you have remembered, but avoid taking the medication if you do not plan to be awake for several hours. If it is close to your normal bedtime hour, you may need to skip the missed dose and wait until the next day to take the medicine again. Do not take extra medicine to make up for the missed dose.
Overdose
Overdose symptoms may include confusion, feeling excited or agitated, fast or slow heart rate, and chest pain.
Warning and Precautions
You should not use this medication if you are allergic to Armodafinil or Modafinil.
Before using Armodafinil, tell your doctor if you have liver or kidney disease, heart disease or high blood pressure, a heart valve disorder, a history of mental illness, a history of drug or alcohol addiction, or if you have recently had a heart attack.
Armodafinil may impair your thinking or reactions. Be careful if you drive or do anything that requires you to be alert. Avoid other dangerous activity until you know how this medication will affect your level of wakefulness.
Stop taking Armodafinil and call your doctor if you have a skin rash, no matter how mild. A medicine similar to Armodafinil has caused severe skin reactions serious enough to require hospitalization. Other signs of a severe reaction include fever, sore throat, headache, and vomiting with a severe blistering, peeling, and red skin rash.
Possible Side Effects
Stop using Armodafinil and call your doctor at once if you have a serious side effect such as:
-fever, sore throat, headache, and vomiting with a severe blistering, peeling, and red skin rash;
-the first sign of any type of skin rash, no matter how mild;
-bruising, severe tingling, numbness, pain, muscle weakness;
-easy bruising or bleeding;
-mouth sores, trouble swallowing;
-upper stomach pain, itching, loss of appetite, dark urine, clay-colored stools, jaundice (yellowing of the skin or eyes);
-depression, confusion, hallucinations, aggression, unusual thoughts or behavior;
-chest pain, uneven heart beats.
Less serious side effects may include:
-headache, dizziness;
-feeling nervous or anxious;
-nausea, diarrhea, upset stomach;
-trouble sleeping (insomnia); or
-dry mouth.
More Information
The information given above is a summary. Your doctor can provide more information about Armodafinil. Do not share this medicine with others for whom it was not prescribed. Do not use this medicine for other health conditions. Do not store the medication with an end term of its storage.
