NARCOLEPSY

NARCOLEPSY

Narcolepsy is a condition that causes excessive daytime sleepiness. This condition affects 1 out of 2,000 people. Symptoms of narcolepsy include daytime sleepiness and unwanted episodes of sleep, called sleep attacks. Sleep attacks can occur during activities such as talking, eating or driving. Narcolepsy can cause serious disruptions in your daily routine.

Sleepiness can often decrease alertness and focus throughout the day. Recommended short naps, lasting 15 minutes, can improve narcoleptics alertness for several hours but severe tiredness returns. Most people with Narcolepsy suffer from the condition for more than a decade before they are correctly diagnosed and treated.

People with Narcolepsy also have a dreamlike phenomenon that occurs while awake. Two-thirds of people with this condition have cataplexy, which is the abrupt loss of muscle tone precipitated by a strong emotion. Sleep paralysis (episodes of awakening paralyzed lasting 30 – 90 seconds) and hypnogogic/hypnopompic hallucinations (hallucinations lasting several seconds to minutes when the brain is partly awake and partly in dream sleep) are also common symptoms of this condition.

​​​​​​​Narcolepsy is usually caused by an autoimmune process which destroys a small population of cells in the brain responsible for switching between the dream and wake states. Unfortunately, there is no cure for narcolepsy. There are a variety of mediations which improve symptoms of this disorder and one’s quality of life.