Sleep Apnea Narcolepsy | Sleep Apnea Symptoms

Sleep Apnea Narcolepsy Issues

Sleep is one of the basic human needs. Our mind and body need a chance to rest and operate on auto pilot for awhile without our personal demands to fulfill. Although we don’t all need exactly the same amount of sleep, most of us do recognize a certain number of hours that feels sufficient for us personally, usually around eight hours.

When we don’t get enough sleep, especially on a continuous basis, it can cause a lot of problems. The easiest to detect are waking in the morning without feeling rested and a feeling of fatigue and sleepiness during the day. We might experience these symptoms even if we know we were “sleeping” for enough hours.

Narcolepsy is a condition most commonly manifested by excessive daytime sleepiness. It can be difficult for a person to stay awake and they may fall asleep at inappropriate times. Another symptom is a loss of muscle function for short periods of time, either in the face, or manifest by slurred speech or even by collapse of the entire body.

Other symptoms include sleep paralysis, when you can’t move or speak on waking for a short time, hallucinations that are often dream-like and frightening while falling asleep and automatic behaviors that are performed while actually in a state of sleeping that are not remembered afterward.

With the sleep disordered breathing condition sleep apnea narcolepsy can sometimes also become an issue. Unfortunately the poor quality and quantity of sleep those with sleep apnea can lead to narcolepsy on top of the sleep apnea and all of the symptoms associated with it.

Narcolepsy is more easily noticeable than sleep apnea because of the tendency to not just be very sleepy during the day but to actually fall asleep without being able to stop yourself. This combined with some of the other symptoms make it easy for those close to a narcoleptic to know that they have the condition.

In order to diagnose sleep apnea a person needs to take a sleep test known as a polysomnogram. This involves being monitored while you sleep for a number of different bodily functions such as heart rate, breathing, eye movement, brain activity and muscle movement. When a person stops breathing repeatedly, five or more times per hour they are diagnosed with sleep apnea.

Because sleep apnea narcolepsy mostly stems from complications due to sleep deprivation, treating the sleep apnea should help the narcolepsy too. Once a person is getting better sleep without the pauses in breathing their life returns to a more normal rhythm and this can be true for those who have had narcolepsy associated with sleep apnea.

Treating conditions such as sleep apnea is important not only because it will allow you to get the necessary amount and quality of sleep, but also because it can help clear up other sleep related issues you may have such as narcolepsy.

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