Sleepy all the time? You might have a sleep disorder.
I know Rare Disease Day is for illnesses people don’t know much about, but sleep disorders can often be misunderstood even if the names are well-known.
I have a sleep disorder called narcolepsy, also known as “excessive uncontrollable daytime sleepiness.” And that’s basically what it is. You’re extremely sleepy during the day, and you can’t really control it by how much you sleep.
Important: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FALL ASLEEP DURING ACTIVITIES TO HAVE NARCOLEPSY. One book actually said this rarely occurs in people with narcolepsy. You need to have a sleep study to be properly diagnosed, but here are some defining symptoms (these can go along with a lot of sleep disorders).
Main symptoms (everyone experiences narcolepsy differently, so not everyone has every one of these symptoms):
-excessive daytime sleepiness (again, you do not have to fall asleep during activities)
-cataplexy. this basically means you experience muscle weakness during strong emotions. you could be shocked, crying, laughing, etc. it can affect any or all muscles. some people may collapse (this mostly happens for me during shock or laughter).
-nightmares, especially realistic ones.
-sleep paralysis. this occurs during asleep to awake/awake to sleep transitions. when someone gets sleep paralysis, they are unable to move for often a few seconds to a few minutes.
-hypnogogic hallucinations. these are described as dream-like experiences that occur when someone is awake. they often take place during awake to sleep/sleep to awake transitions and can go along with sleep paralysis.
(Keep in mind we all have different symptoms. Daytime sleepiness is the main symptom shared by narcoleptics.)
Other/correlating symptoms:
-issues with alertness and concentration.
-dreaming instantly after falling asleep
I could be missing other symptoms, but those are some main ones. If you’re extremely sleepy during the day for no known reason, that isn’t supposed to be “normal,” and you might want to get a sleep study. It might help you rule out a number of sleep disorders. Plus, if you have diagnosis, you can get treatment, which might make life much easier.
Narcolepsy is known as a neurological disorder. Basically, narcoleptic brains don’t know how to regulate sleep. This leads us to enter REM (rapid eye movement) sleep soon after we fall asleep when we’re supposed to enter it much later in the sleep cycle. For those who don’t know, the REM sleep period is when most dreaming occurs. The brain also seems to crave REM sleep, leaving us on the verge of REM throughout the day.
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