Narcolepsy is a fairly rare sleep disorder, which causes sufferers to fall asleep at any second of the day whether they are weary or not. Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder, meaning that the brain sends orders to the body that it is exhausted and ought to go to sleep immediately and the body obeys whatever it is doing.
Attacks of narcolepsy most often occur whilst the sufferer is doing something quiet, like watching TV or reading, but it can also occur while eating or driving, which is obviously extremely dangerous. Some Individuals fall asleep in the middle of a conversation or at work in the middle of a piece or work.
As with a number of other disorders like restless leg syndrome and sleep apnoea and even snoring, it is not usually the sufferer that is first aware that he or she has a problem. Very frequently a spouse or colleague is the first to alert them to their condition and frequently it take quite a time before they will believe it and even longer before they do anything about it.
There are five indications of narcolepsy, but not all sufferers will experience all five of them: daytime drowsiness, broken sleep patterns (a kind of insomnia), sleep paralysis, hypnagogic hallucinations and cataplexy. If you have any of these symptoms, you should have yourself checked out, in case you also fall asleep at the wheel or when carrying out a dangerous manouevre at work.
The first and most obvious symptom is daytime drowsiness. Victims of narcolepsy might have the irresistible urge to go to sleep during the day five or six times or more. Narcoleptics call these ‘sleep attacks’ and say that they last for from five to ten minutes each.
Broken sleep patterns are not a ideal means by which to judge as many people suffer from insomnia for other reasons too.
About half the sufferers of narcolepsy experience sleep paralysis, which is when the sufferer can neither talk nor move for a number of minutes just before falling asleep and slightly after waking up. It can be very frightening for the narcoleptic and the family.
Around the same percentage suffer from cataplexy, which is the loss of muscle control when awake. The bouts of cataplexy take place normally for brief periods of time during episodes of high emotion. For example, while the sufferer is very angry, very glad or very emotional. Sometimes, the sufferer falls over and goes limp – it looks as if they have dropped asleep, but| they are wide awake and fully conscious.
A hypnagogic hallucination happens slightly before falling asleep or and just after waking up and involves seeing incredibly vivid images or and hearing very lifelike sounds.
These experiences are often accompanied by sleep paralysis and most sufferers find them very alarming. Normally, the sufferer cannot distinguish between this hallucination and reality during a bout.
There are other symptoms which transpire occasionally such as migraine or headaches and ‘automatic actions’ which are not quite right, like putting books away in the fridge or writing off the edge of a page. Narcolepsy can be treated with pills.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on several topics, but is now involved with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at Sleep Apnea Surgery Techniques