Fighting Narcolepsy Stigma in School Coping with people at school who don’t understand narcolepsy is just one example of the stigma facing students living with the condition. Teachers who know how to respond to EDS and cataplexy can improve school morale and safety standards, and influence how fellow students and school staff respond to students…
Author Archives: NAFKenya
The following are suggestions. Make changes and medi cations to fit your situation and fi nd out what works for you. Time management (a) Don’t wait until the last minute and then cram all night. Instead, study every day (two to three hours a day is a suggestion). This way, no late nights or cram sessions, and hopefully better…
The sleepiness brought on by narcolepsy can be debilitating and overwhelming. However, many teens have learned to work with their narcolepsy and found simple things they can do to improve alertness. SOME STRATEGIES Work with a doctor to optimize the timing and doses of medications. This can help improve alertness across the school day and while studying later. Talk with…
Have you ever heard of narcolepsy? Well, that condition has become part and parcel of the life of one Edward Karungu. The life of the form four student at Kirimara High School in Karatina continues to be characterized by a permanent and overwhelming feeling of sleepiness and fatigue, two years on. Edward was diagnosed with narcolepsy … a chronic disorder of the central nervous system, characterized by the brain’s inability to control the sleep – wake cycle. It is a cycle that our reporter Sally Mbilu reports on after spending a day with Edward, a teenager who in his own words says “great men are known in times of crisis”
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Anne Nduati is a woman on a mission, working to make more people in her country, Kenya, and indeed across the African continent, aware of the sleep disorder Narcolepsy, a condition that her daughter was diagnosed with when young. The organisation she founded, Narcolepsy Awareness Kenya, aims to empower those who suffer from the condition…
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Some individuals with narcolepsy may experience hallucinations that may occur at the beginning or at the end of a sleep period. These are often vivid and frightening. Examples of hallucinations may include hearing a phone ring or a person walking nearby, seeing people or animals that aren’t there, or having an out of body experience….
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Narcolepsy can also disrupt nighttime sleeping patterns. Affected individuals may frequently awaken during the night and may be wide awake for significant periods during the night. Despite disrupted sleep patterns, the total sleep time for people with narcolepsy in every 24 hour period is generally normal because they sleep repeatedly for short periods during the…
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Many individuals with narcolepsy experience weakness and the sudden loss of voluntary muscle tone (cataplexy). This often occurs during times of intense emotions such as laughter, anger, elation, and/or surprise. Episodes of cataplexy may occur as short periods of partial muscle weakness and can vary in duration and severity. In some cases, a cataplectic attack…
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Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is usually the first symptom of narcolepsy. People with narcolepsy typically experience periods of drowsiness, tiredness, lack of energy, an irresistible urge to sleep (“sleep attack”), and/or an inability to resist sleep. This susceptibility to unending drowsiness and/or falling asleep may occur every day but the severity varies from day to…
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Narcolepsy is a neurological sleep disorder characterized by chronic, excessive attacks of drowsiness during the day, sometimes called excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS).Attacks of drowsiness may persist for only a few seconds or several minutes. These episodes vary in frequency from a few incidents to several during a single day. Nighttime (nocturnal) sleep patterns may also be…