Comment by larsiusprime
Comment by larsiusprime 7 days ago
Author here:
> I absolutely don't have narcolepsy - quite the opposite, I tend towards insomnia
FWIW most people I know with Narcolepsy also have trouble sleeping at night, so that's not so much an opposing symptom as a fully compatible one.
Narcolepsy is generally associated with the following classic symptoms:
- Excessive daytime sleepiness and/or "sleep attacks"
- Sleep paralysis
- Cataplexy
- Hypnogogic hallucinations ("dreaming while awake")
But also, every narcoleptic I know, when untreated, has significant issues with sleeping at night. I myself had full blown insomnia (not sleeping at all) several nights out of the week back in high school for years on end.
Not all narcoleptics have all of the symptoms, for instance many will have E.D.S. but not cataplexy, or the reverse, or won't have sleep paralysis, etc. I'm not a doctor, and I'm not trying to diagnose you over the internet. But it is interesting that you have what pattern matches to 2 out of 5 common narcoleptic symptoms.
On the other hand, just having one or two symptom doesn't mean you have the full blown disorder. Plenty of people have a motor tic or too but don't have full blown Tourette's.
I write this mostly to clear up a misconception -- that many people assume Narcoleptics have no trouble sleeping at night.
Yeah on the opposite I'd say it's pretty clear that the insomnia and poor sleep during night contributes heavily to why we are so spent and sleepy during the day. Aside from general insomnia I also had so much night terrors. Terrible nightmare, then waking up, then resuming the terrible nightmare again. Sometimes I'd try to stay awake just not to experience the night terrors. I inadvertently learned lucid dreaming to handle them.