I know that there are three main sleep disorders. Insomnia, Sleep Apnea and Naroclepsy. But what exactly is narcolepsy. I get the gist of it but I dont understand the whole thing. As a mental health professional with 20+ years experience, I have to tell you two things. One is that, in my "not-so-humble" opinion, I think the last three of your first four answers are best. If you want an "in depth" answer, look on pages 562-567 of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders, where all such diagnoses come from. As a "gift", I will tell you that the "Diagnostic Criteria for Narcolepsy are: (page 567 in the oversized paperback edition of the DSM)
A. Irresistible attacks of refreshing sleep that occur daily over
at least 3 months.
B. The presence of one or both of the following:
(1) cataplexy (i.e., brief episodes of sudden bilateral
loss of muscle tone, most often in association with
intense emotion)
(2) recurrent intrusions of elements of rapid eye-
movement (REM) sleep into the transition between
sleep and wakefulness, as manifested by either
hypnopompic or hypnagogic hallucinations or
sleep paralysis at the beginning or end of sleep
episodes
C. The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological
effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse,
a medication) or another general medical condition.
WOW, I've never given such an exact answer!!
And Second, when first began my practice, the medical director was an elderly psychiatrist who had narcolepsy, and she was no more than 4 ft., 10 inches, and when she fell asleep, she never bowed her head because her head was just barely above the table level, and so when we were staffing our cases, we never knew when she was asleep or awake. But the worst thing you could do was to assume she was asleep and give a sloppy report on your patients, because she'd suddenly ask you a question about something you said, and you'd better know the answer.
So, there's Narcolepsy, from the diagnostic to the personal / professional knowledge of it. God Bless you. (I hope you didn't fall asleep during this lengthy explanation.)lol. You're very welcome. I'm glad to see you didn't fall asleep halfway through reading it (lol). God Bless you. Report It
narcolepsy is when you fall asleep when getting overexcited or randomly and uncontrollably.
if you've seen rat race, mr bean has it.
your mind shuts down when there is a surge of excitement or emotion and you fall asleep for x amount of time. It's when you can't control when and how you fall asleep. You could be talking to somebody and black out. It's is when you fall asleep thru out the day and you don't
know it's happening. A sleep disorder characterized by sudden and uncontrollable episodes of deep sleep randy's answer is by far the most accurate one, but let me assure you that reading about it doesn't paint the whole picture of it, lol. mine's pretty rambling, too, just to warn you.
sleep affects all aspects of our lives, so you can only imagine that a sleep disorder affects everything as well, be it financially, behaviorally, socially, physically. it affects everything.
main characteristics:
鈥?sleep attacks...can occur at any time, but most likely to happen at a time we are relaxed in a passive activity. (not very common if we are doing something active like walking.) in plain terms, when the average person feels tired, they yawn and think, "wow, i'm tired. i'd better make sure i stay awake thru this presentation/movie/phone call/etc." narcoleptics don't possess the switch to keep sleep at bay so we feel, "wow, i'm tired. i'm going to sleep now." no stopping it if it's going to happen, and to try just makes us miserable. nap attacks generally last a few minutes, and can recharge our batteries for hours.
鈥?cataplexies...loss of muscle tone. someone having a seizure (cataLEPSY) gets stiff, while we go limp. key difference is that we are aware of everything going on - we are not unconscious nor are we asleep - but we can't move whatever body part is being affected (might be just one part like our head bobbing over or not being able to use our hands, might be the whole body and we look like we fainted.) there is *generally* some warning for this so we can get to a safe spot. not good to have one of these while doing something, like say, walking down the stairs. it is brought upon by extreme emotion (sleep has absolutely nothing to do with it) like anger or laughter...so you don't see many narcos in comedy clubs, lol. my first one hit when i was woken up by some solicitors at my door selling religion at 7:30 am. i got very angry, had a cataplexy and scared the living hell out of them. they probably thought i was possessed or something, but they never ever came back. :-)
鈥?hypnagogic hallucinations...we hallucinate as we fall asleep or wake up. might be visual if our eyes are open, might be auditory where we hear someone who isn't there, might be tactile where we feel a "fire". most people take 90 mins to hit REM (the dream stage of sleep) when they fall asleep...narcoleptics hit REM in just a few minutes, and sometimes it kicks in when we aren't even technically asleep or hangs around as we are waking up. so we "dream" and hallucinate.
鈥?sleep paralysis...we can't move our muscles as we wake up or fall asleep. can be scary if you aren't fully awake and realizing what it is. this is because in REM, the human body paralyzes to keep you form getting up and hurting yourself in your sleep. since our REM time is screwed up, this is kicked in early or hangs on late too.
it can be hereditary. there are 4 of us confirmed in my family with it, with 2 more possibilities. and a child of mine has about a 60% greater chance of having it than the average child. and a child born in march has a much greater chance of having it, while a child in september has the least. no other month comes into play. (has to do with the timing of the baby's autoimmune creation while in the womb.)
the narcolepsy you see in movies really isn't accurate...it's made that way to be funny. this has it's funny moments too, but more often than not, it causes a lot of problems in life if the symptoms aren't kept in check. (ever try to get hired for a job when you fall asleep in the interview?) it has its funny moments, though...like when the person in charge of the narco support group i went to decided to show a film on the latest advances in sleep medicine. he brought in the TV, turned it on & shut off the lights. 20 mins later at the end of the documentary, he flipped the lights back on to see that only 2 of the 24 people attending were still awake. oops.
one person said that to feel like a narcoleptic, do the following: stay awake for three days straight. then sit in a nice comfortable armchair and try to do something really dull like read a stock report or college math book cover to cover. now do that every minute of every day. welcome to the world of narcolepsy. |
