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Often under diagnosed, misdiagnosed or allowed to go unchecked due to the lack of alarming symptoms, narcolepsy directly affects one person in every two thousand.
The main symptom of narcolepsy, daytime sleepiness, is often misinterpreted by sufferers as signs of other stresses in their lives.
In fact, the average time frame from actual onset of the disorder to appropriate diagnosis is approximately 14 years. To be sure, potential sufferers of narcolepsy would be well advised to know the symptoms and treatments of this often time very disruptive disorder.
The most significant symptoms of narcolepsy are abnormal REM sleep accompanied by an excessive daytime sleepiness.
Accompanying the abnormal REM sleep patterns are some unusual manifestations of the lack of appropriate REM sleep. The first protracted symptom is sleep paralysis.
Sleep paralysis is usually experienced just after falling asleep or waking up and is thought to be a sort of abnormal episode of REM atonia. The next symptoms of the erratic sleep pattern are hypnagogic hallucinations where patients tend to feel auditory or visual hallucinations while lightly napping or falling asleep.
The third and most striking symptom of narcolepsy manifests itself as extreme bouts of muscle weakness brought about by strong emotional reactions.
Sometimes the sufferer's knees may buckle, their head may fall slack or they may even fall to the ground paralyzed for up to a few minutes as a result of anger, elation, or surprise. These symptoms are all manifestations of inappropriate mind/body connections and disrupted REM sleep.
Fortunately there are specific scientific testing methods for determining if a particular patient is narcoleptic.
First, doctors will test for other diseases that disrupt sleeping patterns such as periodic leg movements or sleep apnea.
Once those are ruled out, tests at sleep centers will measure the amount of sleep latency a patient experiences just prior to falling asleep and just after waking up.
The Narcolepsy Network (www.narcolepsynetwork.org) has more information about the disorder, and information about support groups.
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