WELL GOOD MORNING, i HAVE BEEN ON NUVIGIL SENSE OCTOBER AND NOW TAKING XYREM AT NIGHT. jUST WAS AT DR. 2 WEEKS AGO AND THE DR. TOLD ME THAT NUVIGIL DOES NOT AFFECT THE HEART. My DAD HAS HEART PROBLEMS AND I WANTED TO MAKE SURE . He SAID RITALIN AND ADDERALL WILL INCREASE THE HEART RATE. i WOULD CALL UR DR. Hope this helps

Are you drinking any caffeinated beverages?
Are you exercising?
That heart thing sounds seriously wrong! Please tell you Doctor.

i don't drink anything with caffine in it because i'll react to it. i called the doctor, i have to take it easy and drink a boat load of water. if it happens again then off to el hospital i go. he's hoping that i'll adjust to it. i have to go buy one of those bp cuff reader things and start copying the results. i''m due to go back to my cardiologist in the next week anyway to talk about options since i'm allergic to the meds they normally perscribe. i'll end up on a holter monitor again to see what all my heart is doing on this med. but it's most likely a defib and pacemaker for me. if this narco med doesn't work out then i'm out of hope for any relief. as crappy as i felt with my heart being stupid it's beyond nice to feel awake, i mean really wake and motivated to get up and move. it's been years since i've felt this good i'd hate to give it up.

For most people nuvigil wont effect the heart but my heart issue is severly sensitive electrical prob. one drink of a caffine soda and i react. i deal with it going haywire 24/7. my doc was worried because of how sensitive my heart is.


Thanks though you two!!!

I'm so glad you called your doctor! I hate to worry about you.

(Since you talked to your doctor and I am not providing any medical advice)

The symptoms listed sound like a drop in blood pressure with your feeling like your passing out being right on. (Normally the worry with Nuvigil is too high of a blood pressure so this doesn't seem like a contraindication to the meds Yeah!). Also that feeling of the heart working hard but slow can happen when blood fluid levels are low. The heart will slow down so it can fill more and then forceful push the blood out. Fluids to increase blood volume is a good idea and since the weather is getting hotter you may be losing fluids and then Nuvigil itself can give you dry mouth and change your natural desire to seek fluids. You may not have had any idea you were dehydrated. Do you know if this feeling occured/occures when you were chaning position from lying down/sitting/standing or just doing with no real change in what your body was doing?

Having started Nuvigil lately myself, I think/I know I would be tempted hide any side effects that could prevent me from it even though I know better. I'm only admiting that becasue you already did the right thing and I'm not an bad influence. I don't want to promote taking chances with ones life and I would report it...but I would be kickin and screaming inside every step of the way. lol

Thanks Babyblues.

I wasn't movin when it happend. I know what you mean about the high bp being a possible reason for the near passing out. The only thing I have to remember that for me (cuz my heart is wonky) i can and have passed out because my heart will go so fast that it trips up and my bp will be beautifuly perfect. I didn't believe that until i say it when I was at the hosptial (i'm a weird one lol). I have orthostatic hyptertension (so dont think i've spelled this right) where whenever i stand up my bp will completely bottom out but what happened eariler was definitely different.
For now my doctor and I have decided to go a day at a time till we know if i can tolerate the nuvigil. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that i can stay on it.

:) Thanks for the concern though :)

Ew. I get orthostatic hypotension too. Light headed and dizzy just because I stand up, or sit up from lying down. My heart pounds to force enough oxygen to catch up while my veins slowly shut their little gates to stabilize blood pressure. No fun. Sometimes my hearing zones out and I hear ringing, and everything else is muffled and contorted.

That being said, if that isn't your norm be careful.

But I don't think it is the nuvigil either. It isn't a stimulant. I may be telling you stuff you already know, but my doctor said that nuvigil is very safe because it is specific to the alertness center of your brain. It doesn't affect the fight/flight pathway, so you don't have the worries you have with stimulants--heart rate, mood issues etc.

However, that is what I took from what my doctor said, and is by no means an extensive study or reiteration of the totallity of the effect of nuvigil on the human body. So be careful.

And I totally feel for you about not wanting to give up nuvigil. I panicked the first week of taking it because I felt so good, then I got on line and read reviews from people complaining that it stopped working after a time, etc. I completely panicked thinking it could be a limited time offer and I was LOVING feeling like the me I had given up on a long time ago, thinking maybe that wasn't me after all.

Oh, and so I went back to my doctor who told me that the problem with nuvigil is that it ONLY counteracts the sleepiness due to narcolepsy. It will not overcome exhaustion caused by bad sleep habits, or not taking care of the rest of your life--nutrition, etc. So he said a lot of people feel better at first, but then, because they aren't attentive to their sleep habits, the exhaustion overwhelms it and they think the medicine isn't working.

He said "those are the pills and potions people who think the medicine should fix everything, instead of taking responsibility for fixing what they can fix on their own." Harsh. But true.

I hope everything with your heart gets better!

i am surprized that they put you on it as my resting heart rate on nuvgil is 108-110 wich is dangerous over a long time.....might try some of the otherpossibilities

sorry first off that it's taken me this long respond. i was severely sick last week.


I was put on nuvigil because it's my only option. having a heart rate of 100 would be good for me. at one point my hear rate was at 128 for 8 hours straight, it's jumped to 174 while i was asleep. the ortho static hypertension (spelling?) sucks, i've actually passed out from it, nothin like standing up and then finding yourself on the ground
nuvigil can have cardiac side effects but it's extremely rare. my dotor told me that only very few people have that problem with it.