Narcolepsy Support Group

I need some advice. So where to begin? Ok. Well since as long as I can remember, I've always been able to fall asleep at the drop of a hat. Family stories tell of me falling asleep in a snowbank on the way home from school. After growing up into adulthood, I noticed that I would get 'night terrors'. I'd wake up thinking I am seeing someone from my dream or just wake up thinking someone is in the house. My wife would just shake me and say, "You're dreaming" and I'd go to bed. Occasionally I have hit my wife in my sleep and not remembered it.

The one constant thing that always happens to me is that I will be able to just fall asleep during the day at anything. Watching my daughter's children show, sitting in a chair at my computer. I quickly fall asleep and such. When I take my daughter to her half day kindergarten, I have to pick her up by 11am. I drop her off at 8:30. Every day I come home, and take a nap on the couch, dreaming every time. I wake up groggy and go pick her up and try my hardest to play with her.

I worried a lot about it because my 4 year old daughter is home with me and I fall asleep and can't help it. I don't want to be a bad dad and I think I'm just lazy.

So finally I had enough and my wife showed me stuff about symptoms of Narcolepsy. I was amazed at how many of the symptoms I had. So I went in to see a neurologist and he signed me up for a polysomnogram and a multiple sleep latency test. I finally got in for the test.

Well when I went there, it seemed from the get go that the sleep tech guy was convinced I had sleep apnea. He asked me what I was here for. I said, "My doc wanted to test me for narcolepsy." So he had me watch a movie on sleep apnea treatment and I got ready for bed with the wires on and such.

I slept for a short bit and then he woke me up to put some mask on my face. I guess it's called a CPAP. He made me lay on my back for the rest of the night and honestly it took me forever to get back to sleep with it on and I woke up mulitple times during the rest of the night.

The next morning, he woke me up and said, "All done, you can shower and go home now." I asked about the other test and he said, "No need, we canceled it. Does that make you feel mad?" I shrugged and got dressed and showered and left. I am set to see my neurologist guy on Friday.

After poking around on the Internet, it seems that everything the tech did just points to them thinking I have sleep apnea. After thinking about it long and hard I feel angry. Not at the possible result, but more that it seemed as if I was flippantly brushed off for the other test.

On Friday, I plan on going in and asking them about why they canceled the test, and is it possible to have sleep apnea and narcolepsy, and what to do from there.

So here is where the advice question comes in. What should I be asking my neurologist when I meet with him? Was I off in thinking that maybe the tech wrongly canceled the test? What should I look for on the test results to demonstrate a need for a possible second test?
Posted on 10/26/09, 12:10 pm