This bright-eyed guy was diagnosed with narcolepsy two weeks ago. For those of you who do not know what narcolepsy is, here’s a short explanation…
Essentially, the part of the brain that tells us when to sleep and wake up is a little confused (or a lot confused) in someone with the disorder. That means that while it appears often that someone with narcolepsy is sleeping a lot, they actually rarely, if ever, go through a long sleep cycle including the deep sleep that our bodies need.
The understanding by most people is that REM (rapid-eye-movement) sleep is our deepest, most refreshing kind of sleep, when that actually isn’t the case. There are three phases of non-REM sleep that happen before most of us hit REM, about 90 minutes after drifting off. Those stages are essential for immune system strengthening and repairing our bones and tissues. REM sleep is when we dream, and often when our brain processes information we didn’t during the day.
In short, someone with narcolepsy is generally sleepy all day long. And all night, unless they have insomnia, which is also possible, but I’ll talk about that in another post.
Backstory:
Because this is all new to us, I’m going to document our journey as it goes along. To start, here’s how we got to this point.
In 2013, BF (that’s my boyfriend), was diagnosed with ADHD. He was in a doctoral program at the time, graduated a high level university with a big degree in 3.5 years, and graduated with a high GPA in high school. He didn’t fit all the bill, but he had a hard time paying attention, and staying awake, in lecture. So we went with that.
He tried Adderall, which made him like the hulk. Not physically, though he is strong, but in a “I have too much intense energy and this is bad.” kind of way. Then onto Concerta and Ritalin, which helped. He was on 27mg of Concerta with a booster of 10mg of Ritalin at night after the Concerta ran out its 12 hours. (Though it doesn’t work this long for everyone)
Fast forward – he was still experiencing a fair amount of anxiety, so ended up going off of Wellbutrin, which he had been on for a couple years, and onto Lexapro. That did the trick – no more anxiety.
But then he was still reallllllly tired.
He would come home from work and sleep before eating dinner. Then would eat, and then fall back asleep. Weekends would be sleep-a-thons with lots of napping. And he just always felt crabby and tired. He couldn’t get his work done at a pace he was happy with, and had a hard time staying awake for conversations. We weren’t sure what it was, so we were just riding it out.
Diagnosis:
Then one day he fell asleep driving to work, and almost went in the ditch. That day was the end of guessing. He went in to see his general practitioner, who mentioned that he might have narcolepsy. He’s already been treated for sleep apnea, so we got his CPAP numbers checked at sleep med a week later, which were fine, and got a formal narcolepsy diagnosis. Thanks Mayo Clinic!
He also has cataplexy, which means when he feels a strong emotion, his muscles go weak. We didn’t know what that was at all, and thought it was funny that he would fall down when getting scared. (think fainting goats) But, most people who have cataplexy, if not all, have narcolepsy. So we got a name for that too.
Treatment:
He was already taking stimulants for what now is likely a void ADHD diagnosis, so that dose was doubled to 54mg of Concerta with a 20mg booster of Ritalin in the evening. His doctor said that most people with narcolepsy take a bunch more than that, and he’s certainly not awake enough now, so we’ll see where we go on this front moving forward.
Because we requested that he be able to sleep well and not just be pretend awake his whole life, his doctor wrote him a voucher for Xyrem. It’s one of the most protected drugs in the world, and is often known as the miracle drug for people with narcolepsy, allowing them to hit non-REM deep sleep stages. We’re two weeks into a discussion with the drug company and insurance right now. It is delivered straight from the company, and has to be signed off on by many people before it is delivered to the patient. Stay tuned for updates.
——
I think that’s long enough for now – no one likes overly long posts! I’ll write more soon. If you have any questions or would like any more details, please comment or send me a message!
…because love wins.
I know a large number of individuals who have adult ADHD (yes, as adults!). It’s a part of me that I always like to know people fully. So, that has recently opened the door of understanding that this is a widely misunderstood illness.
Because Love Wins 