Modafinil cured my Bruxism (teeth clenching / grinding) caused by Adderall. And I have no idea why it worked for me, or if it would help others.
On Adderall or Dexedrine (both are amphetamines) since 2007. I was a teeth clencher, didn’t have issues with grinding personally. It was caused by my prescription amphetamines. In 2023, I tried modafinil (wakefulness promoting drug, approved in U.S. for narcolepsy, people with sleep apnea, or shift work disorder).
Started at 100mg, which did absolutely nothing for me therapeutically as my amphetamine tolerance was far beyond it. But, I stopped my teeth clenching on that day with that dose that did nothing else for me whatsoever. No idea why or how, but 16 years of teeth clenching was gone since that day.
At the time I had been off Adderall for 2 or 3 months except a couple times a month to drive. Skipping a lot of detail. The take away is, even after I stopped modafinil a week or so later, the teeth clenching still did not come back. Even though it had persisted when I was off adderall prior to it. And did not come back when I was on the combination of modafinil (or the stronger racemic drug armodafinil) and Adderall.
Note though, modafinil / armodafinil are technically central nervous system stimulants although their primary function is as wakefulness promoting drugs. They can have a synergistic effect with Adderall or other amphetamine (probably with other stimulant and non stimulant ADHD meds too). So you can’t just add it on to your ADHD meds.
There are people actually prescribed the combo of Adderall and Moda or armoda. And they always had to reduce their Adderall A LOT in doing so. Many complain of trying the combo and being overstimulated and never doing it again. Which they may not have reduced their Adderall enough when they tried it.
My experience is not going to be the same for others most likely, but gives a good idea of what I mean. At the time, it took 100mg Adderall IR (generic Teva or Sandoz brand) to feel comfortable driving. Titrated up to 400mg modafinil alone over 3 days, which I felt a bit, but not even close to therapeutic. Then added 20mg Adderall. And that together was more therapeutic and lasted longer than my 100mg Adderall IR. Literally 1/5th my Adderall dose with that dose of modafinil. Note though, that was the max recommended dose of modafinil so relatively speaking, was a strong dose for most people. Long story on how my tolerance got so bad that I am not getting into.
If you have issues with medication induced bruxism. I’d recommend discussing with your therapist and ask if you can try some modafinil by itself and see if it helps you at all too. They can discuss dosing to try. Brusims for many is a significant enough issue that it is more than worth bringing up the topic with their therapist. With the caveat that I have no idea why it worked for me, or if it will be the same for anyone else. I did not take modafinil for bruxism, that was just a happy accident.