Were you once diagnosed with "neurosyphilis" or something like that?  Narcolepsy seems to result from loss of certain brain cells due to "inflammation" (which occurs due to arachidonic acid metabolites).  This would explain your problem.  Obviously, if you feel you must drive a car, and this medication seems to work, then it looks like you better take it.  Some cells are not going to regenerate, no matter what your diet is.

 

Here is something you might want to take a look at:

 

Jamie, my mother was narcoleptic and refused the stimulant medication.  She did alright as long as she took a nap right before she had to stay awake.  That method is very life-disrupting, but I suppose no more so than the narcolepsy itself.  It was also before medication was required to drive (30 years ago).  Once she retired, she fell into a natural sleep pattern of 2 hours asleep, 4 hours awake throughout the day and closer to 4 asleep/2 awake during the night. The biggest health problem with the medication may be that it does nothing to improve the quality of your sleep, so without naps you're going to be keeping a permanent sleep deficit.  If it were me, I'd experiment to minimize the medication and maximize the naps as much as possible.

 

She also had thyroid and perhaps other endocrine problems which I believe contributed or were related to the disruption.  Hans says he doesn't much get into hormones, so read up at http://www.raypeat.com

 

Ironically, for a medication required while driving, Provigil carries this warning:  Use caution when driving, operating machinery, or performing other hazardous activities. Provigil may affect your judgment, thinking, or motor skills. If you experience any of these effects, avoid hazardous activities.

Another thing is to see if you are having hypotensive problems that lead to the fatigue.  All you need to do is to take your blood pressure and pulse when you feel like you have a lot of energy and then again when you start to feel tired.  Let me know if that appears to be an issue.

 

The interesting question is, why did they tell you that you had neurosyphilis in the first place?  Did they find markers of "inflammation?"

 

Are you sure you are getting enough good-quality protein and overall calories?  Are you doing any strenous work or exercise?

According to the wikipedia.org entry:

 

QUOTE:  "Rapid Plasma Reagin (RPR) refers to a type of test that looks for specific antibodies in the blood of the patient that indicate that the organism (Treponema pallidum) that causes syphilis is present. The term "reagin" means that this test does not look for antibodies against the actual bacterium, but rather for antibodies against substances released by cells when they are damaged by T. pallidum.  UNQUOTE.

 

My guess is that these "substances" are released due to an "inflammatory" condition.  When molecules are damaged they are then attacked by macrophages, and such substances can get released.  It's not really important, so far as I can tell, whether a "germ" is really present or not - it's the "inflammatory" process that does the damage, and there are ways of dealing with this.  Unless the "germ" can actually destroy tissue quickly on its own, they are only a problem if they get introduced into parts of the body that lead to a strong inflammatory reaction, like rabies is supposed to do.  "Syphilis" seems to be very similar to "HIV/AIDS," in terms of how "modern medicine" deals with health problems.

 

I'm more concerned now with how I feel and actual symptoms, since I know how to prevent "inflammatory" problems, which make up the bulk of "diseases" in "advanced" nations.  As I said in the other post, you can have hypotensive problems, even if there is no underlying inflammatory problem, for example.  And also all kinds of problems can occur due to lack of proper protein, electrolyte mineral, B vitamin, etc., consumption.  If you were a lab rat, I could control everything and see what happens, but since you are not, I can only give you some ideas about what might be the problem.  I think a lot of "patients" go to their doctors in an almost religious ritual (not saying that you are), where they confess their health-destroying sins to the priest/doctor and ask for redemption (medication), but then they go back to doing what they used to at some point in the not-too-distant-future.  I would never say I could help someone, because of this issue, unless I was given total control, and that is just not going to happen, except for myself, and so I give advice based upon not only my examination of the evidence, but also what I've seen for myself, since I've had all kinds of afflictions and tried all kinds of diets.

You might want to take a look at this description of a patient with "neurosyphilis" and "AIDS:"

 

 

What symptoms did you have that led doctors to think you had syphilis?

I thought my other posts were clear, but perhaps not.  My guess is that you had damage in your brain from AA metabolites, due to some stressor - could be a "germ" that prompted an inflammatory response (if it got into some place it shouldn't be) but that's probably not relevant now, unless you go back to doing whatever it was that led to those test results in the first place.  I'm just tring to do some medical "detective work" here, and it's important to know what led you to think you were "ill," for my comprehensive approach.  A concern is that you tested "positive" on some test for markers, then were given "medicine" that did damage, if you didn't do anything to yourself that caused the damage.  At this point, I have no idea, but if given a whole lot more information, I'd certainly try to figure it out, so here are some questions:

 

1.  Did you get tests done because you thought someone you had sex with was "diseased" in some way?

 

2.  Did you take medication for psychological problems before any physical symptoms appeared?

 

3.  Did you do anything that is considered "risky" before the appearance of physical symptoms?

 

4.  Did you make any major changes (diet, drug use, etc.) right before symptoms appeared?

 

As I've said before, I can't really speak to psychological issues, except to say that I think excess AA turnover in the brain in probably the root cause of much "mental illness" these days.  And I don't know about your current lifestyle, such as what you feel that you absolutely must do (such as driving a car, getting less than 8 hours of sleep, etc.), so there's only so much I can say about these things.  Basically, since you already know quite a bit, and you are in control of your own body, it's important to try things out to see what seems to work and what does not.  For example, it might help to take a full B complex RDA each day, whereas I only take a small amount as a supplement each day.

My guess here is that you just got caught up in the "modern medicine net," and they did damage to you with their "medicines" to "kill the germs."  I still have problems from when they couldn't help me and I was not getting enough protein - as I said, in some cases, the damge cannot be reversed.  Fortunately, I was not willing to take any drugs for more than a few weeks, and always asked for the minimum prescription, so I think I avoided damage from the "medicines."

 

What is now of interest to me is what you were doing when you had the syphilis test done.  Where you doing drugs, smoking a lot of cigarettes, getting very little sleep?  In short, were you doing anything different from a what a boring, middle class, mid-west housewife would do on a typical (boring) day?  My sense is that the tests are really detecting "inflammation" or the effects of certain kinds and amounts of stressors.  There is also the possibility, though, that a lot of people would test positive.  Since large numbers of the population have not been tested for things like "HIV" and "syphilis," there is no way to know for sure at this point.