For your environment, you seem to be lazy sleepyheads – you are sick: About 40,000 people in Germany suffer from narcolepsy. From one to the other Moment, the world blurs in front of your eyes and you feel an irresistible fatigue. But that's not enough: Sometimes, you collapse as the blow hit. Reality and dream are blurred, the victims are trapped in a world of hallucinations and nightmares. How did this strange disease? And what can we do about it?

What narcolepsy is?

narcolepsy is a neurological disease, which occurs relatively rarely. It is characterized by the urge by a sudden onset of Sleep, usually at the most inopportune times. It is believed that disease and the cause is an autoimmune a Defect in the Hypothalamus, the command center of the brain. Here is normally produced by the Wake-up hormone Orexin that controls our sleep-Wake rhythm. Researchers have found that Narkoleptiker to produce a few of these Wake-up hormones. The Orexin deficiency causes the brain sleep and wakefulness at random. It comes to falling Asleep, not under the control of the person Concerned. Also the night sleep is not restful. Other symptoms are failure sudden muscle or cataplexy, sleep paralysis, and hallucinations.

whence comes this Defect is not yet known. It is believed that genetic factors play a role, but also environmental factors, such as, for example, inflammatory diseases.

narcolepsy is incurable

narcolepsy is often detected late. Up to the correct diagnosis offense in many of the Affected years. Also it is assumed that the number of unreported cases of narcolepsy-patients is high. Cure the disease not, although medications can help to make Concerned the life easier. With appropriate medication, the frequency can be reduced, with the help of the symptoms occur and, for example, the night sleep will be improved. Due to the very different characteristics of the disease, it is important to develop for each patient an individual treatment strategy. In addition to drug treatment, therapeutic measures and the enlightenment of the social environment and behaviors are essential – so that the person Concerned is stigmatised as lazy.

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Date Of Update: 18 June 2020, 08:26