Sleep Saga 3: I'm Still Tired
Jun. 4th, 2019 10:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zenolaliaIt's the next day now, and I've spent most of my conscious hours cycling through a few states of mind. Incoherent rage, leading to a complete certainty that I am making everything up because why would my doctor look me in the eyes and functionally just tell me to get fucked, leading to an overwhelming guilt that maybe I'm just doing this all to myself and there's nothing wrong with me and if I just tried harder I would be fine, leading to frantic research binges, leading to incoherent rage.
I've learned a lot about narcolepsy. More and more, the condition fits. Sudden, rapid weight gain is literally one of the primary diagnostic symptoms of narcolepsy, even. So is inability to lose weight even when eating at a level that could be classed as starvation depending on the situational factors. Most narcoleptics lose the ability to identify feelings of hunger, which is a problem I've had for years. 80% of narcoleptics have persistent migraines, and the longer it's untreated the worse the migraines tend to get, which also fits. Until yesterday I literally thought everyone started dreaming before they fell asleep, I thought dream-hallucinations were normal.
Narcoleptics often fall asleep at the "wrong" times and can't sleep at the "right" ones, but don't have a consistent offset circadian rhythm, which is another long term confounding factor that has prevented me from correctly self-diagnosing this condition and managing treatment on my own or seeking appropriate care in a hostile medical environment, because so do I. Narcolepsy also strongly correlates to temperature intolerance/sensitivity, another long term symptom that I don't even remember to discuss anymore because at this point it's so far down the list of things I cope with on a daily basis that it just sounds like fucking whining.
It's a singular diagnosis that literally explains everything.
I'm really, legitimately entranced by the possibility of this diagnosis. It could actually be a real solution. And one of the fucking medications used for narcolepsy treatment is even ritalin which I was on for a little while as a child and had a positive reaction to, though these days apparently that's a "third choice" medication rather than a first try one.
Which is why it's so intensely frustrating that this doctor keeps presenting sleep apnea even after it should have been ruled out by a negative fucking lab.
I've learned a lot about narcolepsy. More and more, the condition fits. Sudden, rapid weight gain is literally one of the primary diagnostic symptoms of narcolepsy, even. So is inability to lose weight even when eating at a level that could be classed as starvation depending on the situational factors. Most narcoleptics lose the ability to identify feelings of hunger, which is a problem I've had for years. 80% of narcoleptics have persistent migraines, and the longer it's untreated the worse the migraines tend to get, which also fits. Until yesterday I literally thought everyone started dreaming before they fell asleep, I thought dream-hallucinations were normal.
Narcoleptics often fall asleep at the "wrong" times and can't sleep at the "right" ones, but don't have a consistent offset circadian rhythm, which is another long term confounding factor that has prevented me from correctly self-diagnosing this condition and managing treatment on my own or seeking appropriate care in a hostile medical environment, because so do I. Narcolepsy also strongly correlates to temperature intolerance/sensitivity, another long term symptom that I don't even remember to discuss anymore because at this point it's so far down the list of things I cope with on a daily basis that it just sounds like fucking whining.
It's a singular diagnosis that literally explains everything.
I'm really, legitimately entranced by the possibility of this diagnosis. It could actually be a real solution. And one of the fucking medications used for narcolepsy treatment is even ritalin which I was on for a little while as a child and had a positive reaction to, though these days apparently that's a "third choice" medication rather than a first try one.
Which is why it's so intensely frustrating that this doctor keeps presenting sleep apnea even after it should have been ruled out by a negative fucking lab.
