Exposure to Environment may cause Narcolepsy

Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder in which the brain does not regulate sleep wake cycle and it causes a person difficulty staying awake.

The common symptom of narcolepsy is excessive daytime sleepiness. You may sleep at any time during the day and you may have episodes of sleep half an hour or less.

If your muscles become weak without loss of consciousness, it is called cataplexy. It may occur by sudden emotional reaction such as anger, joy, surprise etc.

Narcolepsy is common in both men and women and can occur at any age. About one of every 2000 people have narcolepsy. The symptoms of narcolepsy include excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, sleep paralysis and hypnogogic hallucinations.

If you are suffering from narcolepsy, you may prone to accidents as you may sleep while driving due to excessive sleepiness. Sometimes you are prone to sleep attacks while driving and this leads to accidents.

Narcolepsy is caused by the shortage of chemical called hypocretin. The deficiency of hypocretin might produce sleep attack.

According to the common belief that a person’s body mass index, immune responses and stressful life events are factors that may cause narcolepsy, a review published in the issue of the journal SLEEP finds that, as with other diseases characterized by selective cell loss, exposure to environment may cause narcolepsy before the age of onset in genetically susceptible individuals.

According to Longstreth Jr., MD, MPH, at the University of Washington, the body mass index, immune responses and stressful life events of a person are most thoroughly examined in the search for etiologic risk factors, but noted that such associations may reflect a consequence rather than a cause of disease.

Although he and his colleagues have produced the scenario that environmental exposures may be a contributing factor into a person’s development of narcolepsy, investigators must intensify the search for these exposures, said Longstreth, adding that the identification of modifiable risk factors will help to prevent this disease.

Diagnosis should be done to know whether you have narcolepsy. Diagnosis is based on excessive day time sleepiness, cataplexy and uncontrollable sleep. You have to give the details of the sleep history to find out whether you have narcolepsy.

A Multiple Sleep Latency Test is part of the diagnosis of narcolepsy. The test should be performed in the sleep lab where you have to sleep for the diagnosis. In some cases overnight polysomnography is performed to determine the cause of sleepiness.

You should avoid heavy meals and alcohol before going to bedtime as this may lead to poor sleep in the night.

There is no complete cure for narcolepsy. You should follow good sleep hygiene, medications, and proper sleep. Take two naps in daytime, one after lunch and the other before dinner.

By napping at regular times in the day, you can avoid accidents as you will get sufficient sleep by taking naps. If you are taking naps, you feel refreshed after the nap; therefore take short naps which are scheduled at regular times.