Many individuals with narcolepsy experience weakness and the sudden loss of voluntary muscle tone (cataplexy). Despite disrupted sleep patterns, the total sleep time for people with narcolepsy in every 24 hour period is generally normal because they sleep repeatedly for short periods during the day and night. Affected individuals may frequently awaken during the night and may be wide awake for significant periods during the night. Narcolepsy can also disrupt nighttime sleeping patterns. A characteristic finding of narcolepsy is that affected individuals often feel dramatically more awake and alert following short naps. Affected individuals may fall asleep for brief periods ranging from a few seconds to several minutes. Consequently, narcolepsy can profoundly disrupt a person’s life. However, the episodes can occur at any time even when a person is walking, talking, eating or driving a car. These episodes are more likely to occur during monotonous, boring activities such as watching television. This susceptibility to unending drowsiness and/or falling asleep may occur every day but the severity varies from day to day and throughout each day. People with narcolepsy typically experience periods of drowsiness, tiredness, lack of energy, an irresistible urge to sleep (“sleep attack”), and/or an inability to resist sleep. Depending upon the severity of the disorder, narcolepsy can dramatically affect a person’s daily routine, disrupting all aspects of a person’s life.Įxcessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is usually the first symptom of narcolepsy. Sometimes symptoms do not change for months, while at other times symptoms may change very quickly. Narcolepsy usually begins in an adolescent whose initial symptoms are mild but worsen with age. The onset of symptoms initially occurs one at a time appearance of new symptoms may be separated by years, with sleepiness generally preceding cataplexy. The development and severity of symptoms associated with narcolepsy vary greatly from one person to another. Why the immune system attacks healthy cells in narcolepsy is unknown and additional environmental and genetic factors may play a role in the development of the disorder. Hypocretin impacts on many brain functions, but the details of its actions are not yet understood. In narcolepsy, the immune system destroys certain brain cells that produce a peptide called hypocretin. Autoimmune disorders are caused when the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue or cells. There is increasing evidence that narcolepsy is an autoimmune disorder.

The incidence of narcolepsy is approximately 1 in 2,000 and most researchers believe that the disorder remains undiagnosed or misdiagnosed in many affected individuals. doing something automatically without any memory afterward. Narcolepsy also may be associated with “automatic behavior”, i.e. Three additional symptoms often associated with narcolepsy are sudden extreme muscle weakness (cataplexy), a specific type of hallucination that occurs just before falling asleep or upon awakening, and brief episodes of paralysis while waking up. Nighttime (nocturnal) sleep patterns may also be disrupted. These episodes vary in frequency from a few incidents to several during a single day. Attacks of drowsiness may persist for only a few seconds or several minutes.

Narcolepsy is a neurological sleep disorder characterized by chronic, excessive attacks of drowsiness during the day, sometimes called excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS).

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Eds and cataplexy