Narcolepsy Symptoms
Narcolepsy is a chronic, or long-lasting, sleep disorder with no known cause. It affects the body's central nervous system, which is made up of nerves that carry messages from the brain to other parts of the body. When a person has narcolepsy, messages about when to sleep and when to be awake can get mixed up. This can cause a person to fall asleep when they do not want to, and often without any warning like feeling drowsy.
The desire to sleep can be overwhelming and hard to resist, and can happen to a person several times during the day. Night sleep may also be poor, broken up by waking up often during the night. If not controlled with medication, narcolepsy can cause serious problems in a person's personal, social, and work life. It can also limit a person's activities, such as driving a car, work, and exercising. Studies indicate that narcolepsy may run in families.
Symptoms of Narcolepsy
While it can happen at any age, symptoms of narcolepsy most often begin between the ages of 15 and 30. The main symptoms are cataplexy and being extremely sleepy during the day, even after a good night's sleep. There are other symptoms of narcolepsy, listed below, which may not occur in all people. These symptoms often come and go. But being very sleepy during the day is a symptom that can be chronic, or long lasting. Other symptoms include waking up during the night, tossing and turning in bed, leg jerks, and nightmares.
- Cataplexy - sudden loss of muscle control, ranging from slight weakness (such as limpness at the neck or knees, sagging facial muscles, or slurred speech) to complete body collapse. Attacks can be triggered by sudden and strong emotions such as laughter, anger, or fear. Attacks can last from a few seconds to several minutes.
- Sleep paralysis - not being able to talk or move when falling asleep or waking up. This is temporary and may last from a few seconds to several minutes.
- Hypnagogic hallucinations - seeing things that are not there. These images can seem very vivid and dreamlike and sometimes scary. They happen when a person is dozing or falling asleep.
- Automatic behavior - doing tasks that are familiar, routine, or boring without knowing that you are doing them. Like getting to work with no memory of actually driving there.
About 135,000 Americans have narcolepsy, but many more may be undiagnosed. Narcolepsy often is mistaken for depression, seizure disorder, fainting, simple lack of sleep, or other conditions that may cause abnormal sleep patterns.
Although there's no cure for narcolepsy, medications and lifestyle changes can help you manage its signs and symptoms. Narcolepsy
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