Narcolepsy – Simply Funny Or A Life-threatening Sleeping Disorder?
Many of us are familiar at least with the concept of narcolepsy as it is often referred to for comical effect in stories and movies. The commonly portrayed image is of a person in mid-conversation who suddenly falls to the ground and goes from a state of alertness to a state of complete sleep. The individual then awakens not realizing that she has been sleeping and carries on talking.
Of course, narcolepsy is not exactly as it is portrayed on the screen. Although in some very rare cases of narcolepsy individuals do fall asleep without any warning, most sufferers have difficulties with overwhelming tiredness during the day and from time to time are forced to give in to the need for a nap.
Just like many other sleep disorders there are varying degrees of narcolepsy. For instance, some people might merely have a problem with becoming excessively sleepy during the day while others may have a wide variety of difficulties that all indicate narcolepsy.
One example is sleeping while you are working or engaged in conversation and not even appearing to be asleep to the people around you. Although people may think that you are allowing your mind to wander or you might begin to believe that you are developing memory problems because you do not seem able to remember things people tell you, the fact is that you are actually sleeping during your interactions. You simply do not look as if you are asleep because your eyes are open and those around you are unable to tell that you are sleeping.
Other interesting characteristics of the rarer forms of narcolepsy include hallucinations and paralysis. Having hallucinations on waking might be a sign of narcolepsy but it is certainly not an absolute indicator although people with severe narcolepsy could well experience scary and dramatic hallucinations because of their quite rare sleep disorder. Sleep paralysis is actually quite common and our bodies are in essence ‘paralyzed’ while we sleep so that we do not act out our dreams. However for people suffering from narcolepsy the paralysis extends beyond the normal sleep paralysis and a narcoleptic may be completely paralyzed upon waking up yet be aware of the situation and thus understandably scared stiff.
Of course there is medication that is designed to help people with narcolepsy and medication is normally quite effective in assisting people to stay awake during the day and then to enjoy a full night of sleep.
A few individuals find that they do not get on with narcolepsy medication because the stimulant effect designed to help them to stay awake during the day makes them feel nervous or jittery. In the real world is a trade-off for some narcoleptics who must either continue to have erratic and insufficient sleep or solve their sleeping problems and put up with the side-effects of the medication.
However, some narcoleptics do not have a choice because the impulse to sleep during the day is so powerful that they wind up falling asleep while driving a car or at other clearly dangerous times. In these rare instances medication is quite literally a life-saver.
Tags: narcalepsy, narcolepsy, narcolepsy symptoms, narcolepsy treatment, sleep disorders