Narcolepsy Support Group
A sleep disorder (somnipathy) is a disorder in the sleep patterns of a person or animal. Some sleep disorders can interfere with mental and emotional function. If you are having trouble falling asleep or having some other kind of sleep disturbance, this group is for you.
I was reading a number of the posts here and see a lot of common symptoms. I am not sure if I have N or just sleep deprivation. I sleep about 5.5 hours every night. I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow and I sleep the entire night, rarely even moving. I am a morning person and I get up without any problems and exercise for about 1. 5hours. During the day, I can feel alert while I am working, etc. However, once I stop and a have a few minutes of downtime I could close my eyes and be asleep in a few minutes. Meetings, watching TV, reading a book, are horrible as I cant stay awake. I have even fallen asleep eating. I can feel fully alert and awake and then get in the car to drive a few minutes and within a block or two I am already starting to feel very fatigued and may even nod off. I can turn up the radio, roll down the window, even scream out loud and still feel like I am going to fall asleep doing those things. However, once I get out of the car and start moving again, I am fine. I dont know what to make of it. Its like once one of these spells starts, the only way to stop it is to completely leave the situation. In meetings, I can start kicking my legs under the table and it wont help until I actually get up and leave the room (I usually go to the bathroom) just to get up. Does this sound like N or am I just not getting enough sleep at night? I would love to try to get more sleep but with life demands, its hard enough to accomplish what I do during my wake times.
Thanks for any advice/suggestions, etc!
Thanks for any advice/suggestions, etc!
That being said, 5.5 hours is unlikely to be enough for you. The average adult needs about 8 hours of sleep every night. In the U.S., the average adult gets about 7.
Narcoleptic have problems with the different stages of sleep. We don't.get thebrestorative sleep we need, regardless of how much we sleep. Also, the parts of sleep are all mixed up.
Now the question is, do you have any other symptoms?
-Periods of insomnia or extremely broken sleep
-Regular extremely vivid dreams
-Sleep paralysis
-Seeing or hearing strange things just as falling asleep or waking
-Automatic behavior (doing things without remembering doing them)
-Cataplexy (partial or full muscle weakness, usually triggered by laughter learning emotion. Slurring words, double vision, weak arms, dropping things, knees buckling, etc.)
You didn't mention any of those things, which are extremely common with narcolepsy.
If you are causing yourself to be sleep deprived, which I suspect you are, that can lead to further nasty issues: depression, anxiety,daytime sleepiness, weight gain, memory loss, aphasia (not able to don't the right word), and much more. In fact, just one hour of lost sleep can cause insulin resistance in a healthy adult. Over time, this causes not only weight gain, but possibly to diabetes and other long-term health problems.
My suggestion? If you are seriously concerned, talk to your doctor. But the first thing he'll say is to get more sleep. You should at least be in bed for a full 8 hours to give yourself the best chance to get enough sleep.
You won't see results right away, because you have a debt to pay, but I suspect you will see results. Right off, I can find an easy hour you can add...shorten your workout. Yes, you will probably gain some weight initially, but if you give yourself the sleep your body needs, you are likely to reduce cravings, improve your metabolism, and make it easier to maintain your weight in the long run.
It is very unusual for a narcoleptic to have an easy time getting out of bed when they wake up, even if they are most awake and productive early in the day. And not many of us truly ever feel fully awake and alert at any time.
Also, while getting up and moving around may fend off an episode temporarily, most of us will pay later for fighting it. There is a nearly constant brain fog, and when the urge to sleep comes on, it is nearly impossible to resist.
Personally, I don't think you have narcolepsy. I'm not a physician, and even if I were, I couldn't diagnose you without a proper history, exam, and testing. However, your symptoms fit with basic sleep deprivation.
I understand it is difficult to get in your 8 hours, but it is so so so important for your present and future health, no matter who you are. Once you get the sleep you need, it won't be so hard to comments time because you won't be losing so much time to drowsy space outs and redoing things. You productivity will improve.
Finally, NEVER DRIVE DROWSY. No matter who you are, loud radio, open windows, singing, and whatever else DON'T WORK! You put your life and the lives of ever guy one else on the be parts at risk when you get...or stay...behind the wheel like that. Literally thousands of lives are lost every year to drivers who thought they could push through it. Don't take the chance. If you even have to ask if you are awake enough to drive or if you should use one of your wake-tricks, you Sergio sleepy to attempt it and you need to take a nap first, find a ride, and/or get in a good caffeine boost BEFORE you try again.
Feel free to ask more, but I recommend using the time to nap instead...
I am like you in that from what mybeach said I would say to start with getting as close to 8 hours of sleep as possible. Also, I haven't talked to a PWN yet that feels refreshed when they get up. That made me wonder too if it isn't just sleep deprivation and not N.
Mybeach, I would do what Kidlet suggested and try and cut out some of your workout routine and try and get more sleep. Give it a try for at least 2 weeks, that's what my sleep doctor suggested I try. It didn't work for me though, hopefully it will work for you.
The other thing that caught my eye was the fact that you said you sleep through the night and hardly even move. Most PWN don't sleep through the night, in fact many of us suffer from insomnia, just not being able to sleep. It's weird that we can have sleep attacks and insomnia all together but it happens a lot. During my sleep study I moved over 100 times an hour. I also have the sleep paralysis, hallucinations, automatic behavior, actually I exhibit all signs of narcolepsy except cataplexy, and even then I think I have that mildly because when I feel a sleep attack coming on, not always can I feel them, my speech starts to slur, i can hardly hold a pencil, if I try to write it is all chicken scratches that not a sole can read, my head drops down. I can hear what people are saying around me just can't respond.
So, with all that being said try and get more sleep for a minimum of 2 weeks, a month would be better and see if that doesn't alleviate your symptoms, if not then most certainly consult your physician with your concerns.
Best of luck, and for your sake I hope you don't have N, it is a life I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy.
Kimmers
Thank you both so much for your responses. You both really helped clarify some things for me. I too think, hope, that it is just sleep deprivation. It appears that I don't have a lot of the symptoms that you both described further. Except the vivid dreams. I recall very vivid dreams within moments of falling asleep.
Sometimes I feel so sleepy that I would like to just collapse as continueing about whatever I am doing is almost too much but I do push through, I may have brain fog at that point but I eventually get my "second wind" the more I move. However, there are times that I get to a certain point and cannot shake it. I once was in Las Vegas at a comedy/magic show and could not stay awake for the life of me. Even my boyfriend kept nudging and shaking me and I kept nodding about every minute, almost falling out of my chair. Once it was over and we got up and started walking I was fine. Weird. I don't think I have slept on average more that 5.5 hours since I was a teenager, I am now 37. I have a lot of debt to make up.
Again, thanks for all the great advice and I would love to say that I am going to bed early tonight but let me just say that I am going to TRY to get to bed earlier tonight :0)!
Now I don't claim to know everything or even much about all there is to know about N but from what I recall from talking to other PWN there isn't a second wind.
One of the sleep doctors I went to and in an article I read last night it said that PWN almost always feel refreshed when they wake up. From everyone I have spoken to this is just not the case. We can sleep 20 minutes or 20 hours and still be sleepy when we wake up.
Now I will say that I can sleep for an hour or more and feel like crap when I wake up, however if I have just a short attack, 20 minutes or less, I feel a bit more refreshed then. When I have the short naps and feel refreshed I almost always have several attacks during the day about and hour or so apart.
With saying all that how do you feel in general on an average. Are you mostly groggy all day, or do you feel fine when you wake up and then get tired later on? I would say if it's the latter it is probably the sleep deprivation.
I wish you all the best in getting more sleep and hopefully that will fix your problem.
Take Care,
Kimmers
All of the above posts are very sound and factual, but keep in mind, there are hundreds (possible exaggeration) of "sleep disorders" that all share in the same family of symptoms.
You definitely sound like you have some sort of sleep deprivation. The cause can be very difficult to diagnose with out the proper medical advice/tests.
I would say you should call up a sleep center and meet with a doctor. Most insurances cover sleep centers, and I don't believe you would need a referral either (at least I didn't). I just walked in and said "Hey, I can't sleep at night!" :-)
Anyways, good luck!