Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (EDS)

• You feel sleepy or fall asleep at inappropriate times and places, regardless of how much you sleep you have had.
• You experience sleepiness or sleep attacks on a continuing, daily basis and not just once in a while.
• You almost fall asleep during passive situations like watching TV, reading, waiting, etc.
• You find it difficult or impossible to stay awake during some interesting and /or important events.
• You are not as alert as you should be during the day and have difficult concentrating.
• You can easily fall asleep within 5-10minutes.
• You frequently feel tired and have little energy.

Cataplexy

• You sometime experience in your limbs, head or neck, sagging facial muscles or garbled speech. These episodes seem to be brought on by emotions such as laughter, surprise or anger.
• If you have experienced any of the above, you have been conscious and aware of what was happen.

Hypnagogic Hallucinations

• You have very vivid (often frightening) dreams, see people or images, or hear sounds (especially voices) as you are going to sleep or walking up.

Sleep Paralysis

• You have been aware you were unable to move or speak as you ere going to sleep or walking up.

Automatic Behavior

• You have done familiar, routine or boring jobs without being fully aware of your actions.
• You have performed tasks and afterwards not remembered doing them.

Disrupted Nighttime Sleep

• You may wake up several times during the night.
• You wake up in the mornings feeling tired.

Other Symptoms

• You feel depressed, unhappy about your circumstances and unable to cope with your problems.
• You have mood sings, feel irritable and grouchy.
• You procrastinate and have trouble finishing tasks.
• You have blurred or double vision, trouble focusing and eye flickering.
• You are experiencing some memory problems.

Checklist for Consequences of Narcolepsy

• You have trouble with relationship.
• Your marriage/relationship has broken up.
• You have given up part of your social life, various forms of entertainment.
• You have given up personal pleasure, such as reading and handwork.
• You have had difficulty in school and unable to continue your higher education.
• You have been unable to participate in sports due to cataplexy.
• You have been denied a job, lost a job, or had other job related difficulties.
• You have become unable to work and have filed a disability claim.
• You have had to restrict or give up driving.
• You have had an auto accident or other type of accident due to sleepiness or cataplexy.
• You have been denied a drive’s license.
• You have been denied insurance, had exclusions for narcolepsy placed in your insurance, or been charged higher rates.
• You feel bad about yourself (lowered self-esteem).

Keywords: Narcolepsy, sleep disorder, sleep, insomnia, rem behavior disorder, sleepwalking

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 5th, 2007 at 3:56 am and is filed under Narcolepsy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.