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Learn how to cope with Narcolepsy without seeing doctors!
By: Ebe Heng
Narcolepsy is a malfunction of the sleep/wake regulating
system in the brain which until recently was of unknown
origin. Its most common manifestation is Excessive Daytime
Sleepiness and sleep attacks.
Symptoms of Narcolepsy includes:
a. Temporary paralysis on falling asleep or awakening (sleep
paralysis).
b. Hallucinations - vivid images or sounds - on falling
asleep or awakening (Hypnagogic and hypnopompic
hallucinations respectively).
c. Moments (but sometimes extended periods) of trance-like
behaviour in which routine activities are continued on
"auto-pilot" (Automatic behaviour).
d. Interruption of night-time sleep by frequent waking
periods, marked by quickening of the heart rate, over-
alertness, hot flushes, agitation, and an intense craving
for sweets.
Is there any treatment?
There is no cure for narcolepsy, but the symptoms can
be controlled with behavioral and medical therapy. The
excessive daytime sleepiness may be treated with stimulant
drugs or with the drug modafinil. Cataplexy and
other REM-sleep symptoms may be treated with antidepressant
medications.
Medications will only reduce the symptoms, but will not
alleviate them entirely. Also, many currently
available medications have side effects. Basic lifestyle
adjustments such as regulating sleep schedules, scheduled
daytime naps and avoiding "over-stimulating" situations may
also help to reduce the intrusion of symptoms into daytime
activities.
Drug Therapy
Stimulants are the mainstay of drug therapy for excessive
daytime sleepiness and sleep attacks in narcolepsy patients.
These include methylphenidate (Ritalin®), modafinil,
dextroamphetamine, and pemoline. Dosages of these
medications are determined on a case-by-case basis, and they
are generally taken in the morning and at noon. Other
drugs, such as certain antidepressants and drugs that are
still being tested in the United States, are also used to
treat the predominant symptoms of narcolepsy.
The major side effects of these stimulants are irritability,
anxiety, quickened heart rate, hypertension, substance
abuse, and disturbances of nocturnal sleep. Methylphenidate
and dextroamphetamine are known to cause hypertension. A
common side effect of modafinil is headache, usually related
to dose size, which occurs in up to 5 percent of patients.
Pemoline poses a very low but noticeable risk for liver
complication. None of these stimulants influence the
occurrence of narcolepsy’s auxiliary symptoms and usually
are not used to treat them.
Modafinil does not carry the addiction potential that
methylphenidate and dextroamphetamine do. In fact, the
latest development in treatment is a new modafinil drug
called Provigil®, which does not act as a stimulant and so
does not produce side effects like anxiety and irritability.
Provigil’s therapeutic effects have been observed in
maintenance of wakefulness test research, where patients
have tripled their wakefulness.
Although there is no cure for narcolepsy, excessive daytime
sleepiness, sudden sleep onset, and cataplexy. Proper sleep
hygiene,which includes a consistent sleep schedule and the
avoidance
of shift work and alcohol, can drastically reduce the ill
impact of narcolepsy.
And often, patients with narcolepsy feel refreshed after a
short nap; therefore, taking short scheduled naps may
greatly benefit patients combatting excessive daytime
sleepiness.
About the Author
How important is a good night sleep worth to you? Ebe Heng
has co-created the ultimate, informative and useful sleep
dirctories for anyone with any sleep related problems. Rid
that insomnia bug and get the sleep that you deserved!
Check out=> http://www.1-2-sleep.com
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How to Benefit from the Mind-Body Connection
(excerpt)
You are about to gain insight into the
mind-body connection. The number of
people who truly understand these principles on our
planet are relatively few.
There is an undeniable connection between our minds and
bodies, you can learn
to use this fact to your benefit.
Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of "Love, Medicine and
Miracles" was once a
distraught cancer surgeon until he
began to understand the greater principles
of the mind-
body connection. He felt dragged down by the artificial
barriers
that existed between patient and doctor, and the
helplessness he often felt as
a result of his inability
to effectively serve those patients. Eventually, those
barriers
were disintegrated by Dr. Siegel's recognition
and growing understanding of the
mind-body connection and
how it could serve his patients and himself.
Dr. Siegel, or Bernie as he began to have his patients
refer to him, had some
startling realizations as a cancer surgeon. He found that
there were actually
quite a few people in the world that successfully beat
the statistics on cancer
survival. He began to recognize that a patient's ability
to defeat something as
serious as cancer had to do with the patient's mind and
attitude about their
disease.
If you would like to see the rest of
this article, please go here:
http://www.tobeinformed.com/repository/mind-body.html
copyright 2004 - David Snape
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