I am curious to know what some of the symptoms of Narcolepsy are. At what age can this develop? Is it something you will have your whole life or can it be noticed later in life?
The most readily observable symptoms of narcolepsy are excessive daytime sleepiness, blurred vision, double vision and droopy eyelids. There is also sleep disruption in the evening, which loved ones may be able to observe. It affects everyone from teenagers and above. But it often get diagnosed often later. As you can see, the symptoms can be easily mistaken as trivial.
If you have a bad case of it you might have it diagnosed young for example if you have loss of muscle control called cataplexy it may be notices sooner than later. Another symptom is sleep paralysis.
I thought Narcolepsy was the uncontrolled falling asleep because of some neurological stimulus. What you're describing can be said about almost any teenager I know, especially my son.
This is good to know. I have a friend that has a lot of this symptoms and keeps saying that it is stress. I am always telling her that she should be checked out for sleeping disorders.
Narcolepsy involves much more than just excessive sleepliness. With narcolepsy you go immediately from being wide awake to a sudden deep REM sleep. It can be very dangerous as it can occur in the middle of any activity without warning.
That is really strange. It sounds like it would be very dangerous for someone with Narcolepsy to drive. Do they even give them drivers licenses?
I was just wondering the same thing. I would also like to know if someone with Narcolepsy can get a drivers license. I am going to guess that they can not get one. Must be hard to have narcolepsy. What a strange way to live life.
Narcolepsy has a tetrad of symptoms:
1.Sleep attacks – overwhelming episodes of drowsiness or sleep.
2.Cataplexy – sudden loss of muscle tone usually triggered by a strong emotion.
3.Sleep paralysis – consciously experienced paralysis whilst falling asleep or waking up.
4.Vivid hypnagogic hallucinations – vivid hallucinations at sleep onset.
You do not need to have all four symptoms for a diagnosis. In the UK you cannot get a driving license if you have a diagnosis of narcolepsy.
Like the poster above me stated, there are a tetrad of symptoms, but sleep attacks are the most common. These are when a person falls asleep suddenly for a short period of time, often not knowing they are asleep. This can range from mild, just falling asleep at work once a week, to severe, where you can fall dead asleep doing dangerous tasks, or even on rollercoasters. These attacks can be rare or very frequent.
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