Common narcolepsy treatments
For the majority of people the only knowledge of narcolepsy they have comes from the 1992 film My own private Idaho, where River Phoenix plays a character with the illness alongside Keanu Reeves. To those who don't suffer from narcolepsy or who don't have any friends or relatives with this neurological disorder it may even seem quite funny and unusual.
Put simply, narcolepsy is when the sufferer cannot control when or where he or she falls asleep. They could be having dinner or working or even walking in the street when it strikes. Having narcolepsy is a very serious condition, though, and one that has a lot of serious effects. Every moment of the day can be a danger to patients. They don't know when it will happen only that it most definitely will.
The main problem with sufferers is that their nervous system can't regulate sleep. In a normal healthy person, the central nervous system sends messages from the brain to other parts of the body telling them when to sleep and when to be awake. In a person with narcolepsy, though, this either doesn't happen or the messages get lost and go to the wrong places. Scientists are looking into the possibility that narcoleptics lack a chemical in the brain called 'hypocretins'. This chemical regulates our sleep and is also responsible for activating arousal.
There are usually four other symptoms for sufferers of narcolepsy to bear than just falling asleep. The first is called sleep paralysis and as the name suggests patients have to go through partial or complete paralysis of the body when falling asleep or waking up. The paralysis also includes not being able to talk and while it only lasts a couple of minutes may seem like hours to the sufferer.
The second symptom of narcolepsy is an affliction called hypnogogic hallucinations, and is characterized by the patient experiencing often terrifying dreams and sounds while falling asleep or waking up. These hallucinations often go hand in hand with the sleep paralysis so you can imagine for stressful this can be for the person.
The third and probably most common symptom of narcolepsy is called cataplexy. This is when one or more muscles in the body suddenly lose strength and is often triggered by intense emotions like laughing, being afraid, being angry or surprized. It can range from the head nodding or speak being effected to total and complete collapse of the entire body.
The last symptom is called automatic behavior and this is where the sufferer does specific routine tasks like cleaning and such like without being aware of it and without remembering later on.
There is still no known cure for narcolepsy but it can be contained and controlled to a certain extent. Sufferers are usually prescribed stimulative drugs and research now suggests that changing there behavioral sleep patterns can make a huge difference. This means taking several daytime naps and avoiding such potentially hazardous activities like driving, swimming or operating machinery.
