What is a narcoleptic episode?

Narcolepsy is a chronic sleep disorder characterized by overwhelming daytime drowsiness and sudden attacks of sleep. People with narcolepsy often find it difficult to stay awake for long periods of time, regardless of the circumstances. Narcolepsy can cause serious disruptions in your daily routine.

What does a narcoleptic episode feel like?

Narcolepsy is a neurological sleep disorder that affects your ability to get good quality sleep. Because of the condition, you will feel excessively sleepy or tired during the daytime even with a full night's sleep.

What causes a narcoleptic episode?

What causes narcolepsy. Narcolepsy is often caused by a lack of the brain chemical hypocretin (also known as orexin), which regulates wakefulness. The lack of hypocretin is thought to be caused by the immune system mistakenly attacking the cells that produce it or the receptors that allow it to work.

What are the 5 signs of narcolepsy?

There are 5 main symptoms of narcolepsy, referred to by the acronym CHESS (Cataplexy, Hallucinations, Excessive daytime sleepiness, Sleep paralysis, Sleep disruption). While all patients with narcolepsy experience excessive daytime sleepiness, they may not experience all 5 symptoms.

How long do narcoleptic episodes last?

Attacks often last from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. You remain aware during the attack. During the attack, your head falls forward, your jaw drops, and your knees may buckle. In severe cases, you may fall and stay paralyzed for as long as several minutes.

Diagnosing Narcolepsy

How can you tell if someone has narcolepsy?

What is a narcoleptic seizure?

Many of the symptoms of narcolepsy mimic epileptic seizures. Cataplexy, a common symptom of narcolepsy, can cause individuals to collapse after laughing or feeling a strong emotion.

Is narcolepsy 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 can mimic narcolepsy?

How do you stop narcolepsy?

Is narcolepsy fatal?

Narcolepsy isn't a deadly disease by itself, but episodes can lead to accidents, injuries, or life-threatening situations. Additionally, people with narcolepsy may have difficulty maintaining jobs, doing well in school, and have problems maintaining relationships due to episodes of excessive daytime sleepiness.

Does Covid affect narcolepsy?

In concluding, the authors wrote that the greatest takeaway of this review for sleep medicine clinicians and researchers is to consider COVID-19 infection as a possible triggering event leading to narcolepsy.

Can you wake up someone with narcolepsy?

Most of the time, when you wake up someone with narcolepsy, you're pulling them out of a very vivid dream. For Mike, those are usually nightmares. He gets incredibly startled and seems ready to fight, regardless of how long he's been asleep.

What do you do when someone has a narcoleptic episode?

Can you fight a narcolepsy episode?

Though there's no cure for narcolepsy, you may be able to control sleep attacks with a combination of medication and lifestyle changes. Medication for sleep attacks include: Stimulants.

What are narcolepsy sleep attacks like?

vivid dreams or hallucinations upon falling asleep (hypnogogic hallucinations) feeling paralyzed momentarily in sleep (sleep paralysis) interrupted nighttime sleep. sudden attacks of muscle weakness in the daytime (cataplexy)

Does anxiety cause narcolepsy?

Narcolepsy has a known association with mood and anxiety. In fact, narcolepsy is often comorbid with mental health conditions including anxiety.

Why do narcoleptics gain weight?

People with narcolepsy have been found to be prone to weight gain even when they don't eat more. Low metabolism may be part of the reason. When you have narcolepsy, your body burns calories more slowly. Some researchers have suggested that daytime sleepiness makes people less active, and so more likely to gain weight.

Does narcolepsy affect memory?

Narcolepsy can present challenges to daily living: in addition to sleepiness, people with narcolepsy may experience mental fogginess, poor memory, and hallucinations.

What are 2 triggers for narcolepsy?

Can emotional trauma cause narcolepsy?

Central nervous system disorders such as tumors and vascular legions involving the hypothalamus can cause secondary narcolepsy. In addition, brain trauma can contribute to post-traumatic narcolepsy despite lack of any definite brain lesion.

Who suffers from narcolepsy?

Who gets narcolepsy? Narcolepsy affects both males and females equally. Symptoms often start in childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood (ages 7 to 25), but can occur at any time in life. It is estimated that anywhere from 135,000 to 200,000 people in the United States have narcolepsy.

Is falling asleep suddenly a seizure?

Nocturnal seizures happen when a person is sleeping. They are most common: Right after falling asleep. Just before waking up.

What is a head drop seizure?

Atonic seizures are a type of seizure that causes sudden loss of muscle strength. These seizures are also called akinetic seizures, drop attacks or drop seizures. The sudden lack of muscle strength, or tone, can cause the person to fall to the ground. The person usually remains conscious, and may not always fall down.

Is narcolepsy part of epilepsy?

Narcolepsy and epilepsy are both disorders caused by changes in the brain. These conditions are related to each other in two important ways, including the similarity of their symptoms, and their tendency to co-occur with one another.