Essay On Narcolepsy

Affecting an estimate of 250,000 Americans, narcolepsy is considered to be another type of common sleep disorders. People who suffer from this disorder have recurrent episodes of sleep attacks during the day even if they had plenty of sleep the night before. The sleep attacks that a person with narcolepsy has can last up to thirty minutes (Berger w.p.). It may be hard for people who suffer from narcolepsy to stay awake for a long period of time. Narcolepsy causes extreme disruptions in the regular routine of people’s life. People who suffer from this disorder, most commonly start to experience symptoms between the ages of ten to twenty-five. The symptoms of this disorder include: excessive daytime sleepiness, sudden loss of muscle tone, sleep
This symptom can cause a person to become very weak and even have slurred speech. Cataplexy is uncontrolled and is normally caused by intense emotions. Emotions such as laughter, excitement, fear, surprise, and anger trigger a person to have cataplexy. Cataplexy is a symptom that is not common in everyone who suffers from the sleep disorder of narcolepsy. According to the Mayo Clinic Staff, “People with narcolepsy often experience a temporary inability to move or speak while falling asleep or upon waking.” These episodes of sleep paralysis can last for only a few seconds but can be very scary. Sleep paralysis is most common in people who are young adults, but it is not a symptom that everyone who suffers from narcolepsy has. There are two types of hallucinations that can occur to a person who has narcolepsy: hypnagogic hallucinations and hypnopompic hallucinations. Hypnagogic hallucinations occur when a person is falling asleep and hypnopompic hallucinations occur when a person is waking up. These hallucinations can be very frightening because they can seem so real to the person who is suffering from it. A person who suffers from narcolepsy has a low level of chemical