Narcolepsy: All you need to know about this sleep disorder

It is a chronic neurological disorder that affects the brain's ability to control sleep.

By: Aishwarya Iyer | | Published: July 27, 2018 2:06 pm

For the 46-year-old Mark Doyle, the boundary of being sleepy and staying awake is blurred. This goes to say that he performs activities like cooking and cleaning in his sleep. But what will amuse you the most is to know that this man recently bought toiletries worth Rs 10,000 in his sleep. Shocked? Don’t be. This is due to a medical condition, a sleep disorder called narcolepsy.

Doyle has been suffering from narcolepsy, a sleep disorder for many years. Earlier, his turns lasted for 5-10 minutes, off-late, they last for about half-an-hour. But Doyle isn’t the only one suffering from this issue. Narcolepsy affects roughly 1 in 2000 people (men and women alike). The symptoms of the illness appear in childhood or adolescence, but many people may exhibit symptoms of the disorder, way before being clinically diagnosed.

What is narcolepsy?

The National Health Service, United Kindom defines narcolepsy as “a rare long-term brain disorder that causes a person to suddenly fall asleep at inappropriate times.”
In other words, it is a medical condition where a person cannot control his sleep-wake cycles. It is a chronic neurological disorder that affects the brain’s ability to control sleep. Individuals who suffer from narcolepsy experience uneven or interrupted sleep through the night and may feel excessively sleep throughout the day.

Why does this occur?

This is due to a discrepancy in the sleep cycle. Here’s why it occurs: In our normal sleep cycle, a person enters rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in about 60-90 minutes. Dreams occur during this REM sleep and our brain prevents us from acting out our dreams by keeping our muscles limp. But for those who suffer from narcolepsy, the duration of entering REM is about 15 minutes. For them, the muscle weakness could happen while staying awake. This could explain some of the symptoms of narcolepsy:
1) Excessive daytime sleepiness
2) Sleep paralysis
3) Sleep attacks (could fall sleep while performing any activity, like say driving)
4) Hallucination
5) Insomnia.

What causes it?
Although, what causes it exactly is unclear. There are 5 plausible causes for this condition:

1) Lack of brain chemical hypocretin (also known as orexin). This chemical regulates wakefulness. For people with narcolepsy, there is a lack of this chemical and so the lines between sleeping and waking are blurred.
2) Genetics
3) Brain injury
4) Major psychological stress
5) Some infections like swine flu.

Can it be cured?

Although narcolepsy doesn’t have any cure as yet, there are certain medications that may be helpful in reducing daytime drowsiness or help you in sleeping better at night. Apart from this, maintaining strict sleep-wake cycles or taking short naps could be helpful.

Image source: Shutterstock

Published: July 27, 2018 2:06 pm

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