What are the five major symptoms of narcolepsy?
They include:
- Excessive daytime sleepiness. People with narcolepsy fall asleep without warning, anywhere, anytime.
- Sudden loss of muscle tone.
- Sleep paralysis.
- Changes in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.
- Hallucinations.
What is the primary symptom of narcolepsy?
Narcolepsy is a lifelong problem, but it does not usually worsen as the person ages. Symptoms can partially improve over time, but they will never disappear completely. The most typical symptoms are excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, sleep paralysis, and hallucinations.
What is the life expectancy of someone with narcolepsy?
Narcolepsy is a life-long condition. It does not directly effect a person’s life expectancy. Symptoms of narcolepsy can be managed to a degree with medication and/or lifestyle changes.
Do narcoleptics sleep well at night?
Do narcoleptics sleep well at night? About half of people with narcolepsy have trouble sleeping through the night. You may wake up frequently (fragmented sleep) and have difficulty falling back to sleep.
Are ADHD and narcolepsy related?
Attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy may share genetic links, according to an analysis of polygenic risk scores published online in the journal Translational Psychiatry.
Is narcolepsy considered a mental illness?
However, narcolepsy is frequently misdiagnosed initially as a psychiatric condition, contributing to the protracted time to accurate diagnosis and treatment. Narcolepsy is a disabling neurodegenerative condition that carries a high risk for development of social and occupational dysfunction.
What is the root cause of narcolepsy?
Many cases of narcolepsy are thought to be caused by a lack of a brain chemical called hypocretin (also known as orexin), which regulates sleep. The deficiency is thought to be the result of the immune system mistakenly attacking parts of the brain that produce hypocretin.
Is narcolepsy related to anxiety?
Anxiety disorders, especially panic attacks and social phobias, often affect patients with narcolepsy. Although symptoms of mood disorders are present in many patients, the prevalence of major depression is not increased. Anxiety and mood symptoms could be secondary complications of the chronic symptoms of narcolepsy.
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How to know if your loved one has narcolepsy?
Think you or a loved one might have the condition? Here are seven subtle signs of narcolepsy to watch out for: 1 Weakness or muscle loss. 2 Mental “fogginess”. 3 Uncontrolled facial and body movements. 4 Sleep paralysis. 5 Having dreams immediately after falling sleep. 6 (more items)
How often does cataplexy occur in narcolepsy patients?
The symptoms of cataplexy may appear weeks or even years after the onset of EDS. Some people may only have one or two attacks in a lifetime, while others may experience many attacks a day. In about 10 percent of cases of narcolepsy, cataplexy is the first symptom to appear and can be misdiagnosed as a seizure disorder.
Why do I wake up every night with narcolepsy?
Some narcolepsy patients wake up multiple times each night, and experts say this is caused by the same sleep-wake brain disturbances that cause narcolepsy patients to feel extremely tired during the daytime.
