I am beginning to look into the relationship between narcolepsy and ADD. I saw a well respected MD Internist yesterday, who is an expert ins sleep medicine. He eveluated me by interview, and his initial diagnosis, is sleep apnea which I already knew about complicated by narcolepsy. He said that one out of 200 people have narcolepsy, whereas it used to be believed that only 1:200,000 was the ratio...here we are at 1:200. He said that 85% of narcoleptics are not properly diagnosed, and usually live under other labels of nuerological disorders like ADD or mental disorders such as depression and bi-polar. He said it is highly correlated with people who also have sleep apnea, so the prescence of one condition does not preclude the prescense of the other. He said that memory and concentration are very effected by narcolepsy, which affects the part of the brain directly associated with memory, and he said emotional states would be very affected. Since narcolepsy is mainly recognized by people falling asleep at a moments notice mid-sentence, most narcoleptics are not diagnosed, because most do not have this symptom. Therefore, those people who suffer the symptoms of narcolepsy like loss of memory, extreme forgetfullness, forgetting where one is going, putting things in strange places and never remembering it, etc, are diagnosed as ADD, depressed, etc.

I will be taking some tests over the next few days, both daytime and nite time sleep studies. I've never had daytime sleep studies, this is unusual, but necessary for the narcolepsy tests. These results will tell if Narcolepsy is part of my attention problem and what kind of narcoleptic pattern is taking place. My sleep patterns already indicate it is narcolepsy. Exact measurements of brain activity, to indicate what kind of narcolepsy this is, will allow a treatment plan to be developed and customized. Apparently, there are many different variations, and they must know what kind of REM disruptions are taking place, DELTA sleep pattern disruptions, alpha wave patterns, distruptions, etc.

Here is a great primer article on Narcolepsy: http://www.reutershealth.com/wellconnected/doc98.html

Here is a great primer article on Narcolepsy: http://www.reutershealth.com/wellconnected/doc98.html

WHERE ELSE CAN HELP FOR NARCOLEPSY BE OBTAINED?
American Sleep Disorders Association, 6301 Bandel Road, Suite 101, Rochester, MN 55901, call (507-287-6006) or on the Internet (http://www.asda.org/)
Gives all accredited sleep disorder centers. This is a professional organization, but they will provide people with a full list of accredited Sleep Disorder Clinics. They publish the journal Sleep.
National Sleep Foundation, 729 Fifteenth Street, NW, Fourth Floor, Washington, D.C. 20005. Call (202-347-3471) or on the Internet (http://www.sleepfoundation.org)
Will supply names of sleep disorder clinics and information to the public.
National Center for Sleep Disorders Research, National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute, PO Box 30105, Bethesda, MD 20824-0105. Call (301-251-1222)
or on the Internet (http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/nhlbi/sleep/sleep.htm)
Narcolepsy Network, 277 Fairfield Road, Suite 310B, Fairfield, NJ 07004
Call (973-276-0115) or on the Internet (http://www.websciences.org/narnet/)
Stanford Center For Narcolepsy, 1201 Welch Road- Rm P-112, Stanford, CA 94305-5485
On the Internet (http://www-med.stanford.edu/school/Psychiatry/narcolepsy/)
The Sleep Well (http://www.sleepquest.com/). This is a very good site filled with information
Useful Internet Sites
General.
UCLA Sleep Home Page (http://www.sleephomepages.org/) Has a searchable database with articles on all sleep topics.
Good site (http://www.websciences.org/bibliosleep/NAPS/)
World Federation of Sleep Research Societies (http://www.wfsrs.org/newsletter.html)
Narcolepsy & Sleep Disorders (http://www.narcolepsy.com/)
Center for Narcolepsy Research (http://www.uic.edu/depts/cnr/)
For information on modafinil call the manufacturer Cephalon at (1-888-41-AWAKE) or at their website (http://www.cephalon.com)
Young Adults With Narcolepsy (http://www.yawn.org)
National Narcolepsy Registry (http://www.narcolepsyregistry.org/)
Narcolepsy Research Project (http://www.nursing.upenn.edu/Narcolepsy/)
One can take the Epworth Sleepiness Scale Test at this site (http://www.smmc.com/sleep/sleepweek/epworth.html)

Most interesting is that narcolepsy is often treated with the same medications as are people with ADD. So why get a complete diagnosis of narcolepsy if already getting stimulants for ADD? If it is narcolepsy, other treatments would be advised in addition to taking medications, and the medications might be changed. There are also some medications for narcolepsy that are not available for ADD. It seems focus would be on sleeping patterns if the diagnosis became Narcolepsy, and also a focus on whether there were mental blanks going on during the day, where the mind is just blank, asleep, even in the middle of seeming to do activities, like driving. Apparently, people can be in these blank states while driving, but they might end up where they did not intend to go. This happens to me a lot, but I just attribute it to forgetfullness, maybe it is something else... Either way, there would be more focus on what state of mind I am in during the day, and treating towards acheiving full alertness wakefullness, and treating towards acheiving proper REM Sleep, proper rejuvinatin sleep. Somehow, this seems like a more thorough treatement than just taking ADD medications. I wonder where this is going, in my life?