Narcolepsy is a quite rare sleeping 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 should go to sleep immediately and the body obeys whatever it is doing.
Bouts of narcolepsy most often occur whilst the sufferer is doing something quiet, like watching TV or reading, but it can also occur whilst eating or driving, which is obviously highly dangerous. Some Individuals fall asleep in the middle of a chat or at work in the middle of a job.
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 suffer all five of them: daytime drowsiness, broken sleep patterns (a form of insomnia), sleep paralysis, hypnagogic hallucinations and cataplexy. If you have any of these symptoms, you ought to have yourself checked out, in case you too fall asleep at the wheel or whilst carrying out a dangerous manouevre in 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 perfect means by which to judge as numerous people suffer from insomnia for other reasons as well.
Around half the sufferers of narcolepsy experience sleep paralysis, which is when the sufferer can neither talk nor move for several minutes slightly before falling asleep and just 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 usually for brief periods of time during episodes of high emotion. For instance, when the sufferer is very angry, very glad or very emotional. Sometimes, the sufferer falls down 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 people 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 exactly correct, like putting books away in the fridge or writing off the edge of a page. Narcolepsy can be treated with medication.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is now involved with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. If you want to know more, please go to our web site at Sleep Apnea Surgery Techniques
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