If you feel worn out throughout the day and find yourself dozing off unexpectedly in the middle of what you are doing, you could be suffering from narcolepsy. It is a troubling and serous medical condition. It is not related to poor sleeping habits nor is it due to sloth. It is also dangerous for the individual.
This condition usually shows up between the ages of 10 and 25. It will rarely affect those who are over the age of 40.
Extreme tiredness and falling asleep during the day, no matter how much sleep you get at night, are the most noticeable symptoms of this condition. People who suffer from narcolepsy have difficulty focusing on daily tasks due to a constant feeling of being tired. This symptom is troubling enough, but in some cases the sufferer will also have a tendency to suddenly fall asleep, even while performing certain tasks.
This can be very serious and dangerous because it happens with no prior warning. The person has no time to stop doing what they are doing to get prepared. There is no time to remove yourself from a potentially dangerous situation and find a safe place to lie down. This can happen at any time, but can be extremely dangerous when you are driving or in some other situation where concentration is important.
During these attacks, a person might sleep for just a few minutes or up to a half hour. This pattern can repeat itself several times during the course of a day. There is often certain automatic responses that go along with this condition, such as continuing to perform the task they were working on before they fell asleep. Many people do not remember this behavior after waking up from and episode.
Around 75% of narcolepsy sufferers also experience another symptom called cataplexy. This condition involves an inability to control muscles. The individual can experience difficulty in articulation or even lose ability to control muscles. Some will experience this symptom more often than others. Some report rare instances, while others experience it every day. There seems to be some association between this condition and a sudden change in emotions, such as excessive laughing or becoming angry.
Narcolepsy can also show up in the form of paralysis, such as can be seen during REM sleep. The difference is that the paralysis, in this case, takes place either when the person is first falling asleep or just waking up. The frightening thing is that the person is often fully aware of what is happening and can do nothing about it.
A common sign of narcolepsy is hypnagogic hallucinations. The individual experiences very real images when he is in a state of half-consciousness. Between one quarter and one half of narcolepsy sufferers will experience this symptom.
There is still much to learn about what actually causes narcolepsy, but it is believed that genetics plays a role. Having low amounts of a chemical called hypocretin, which is needed to awaken sleep, can be a possible reason.
Amenorrhea is defined as delay of menstruation. There are 2 types of amenrrhea: Primary amenorrhea is defined as no period by age 16 and Secondary amenrrhea is defined as period beginning at the appropriate age, but later stops for more than 3 cycles or 6 months. Women who have a delay of period used to think that may be pregnant. In fact, there are many reasons of amenorrhea. In this article, we will discuss causes and symptoms of primary amenorrhea.
I. Causes 1) Delay due to purity characteristic Some women may just start to have breast tender at age 16 due to nutritional deficiency or genetic passing through form generation to generation causing delay of menstruation.
2) Defects of reproductive system a) Androgen insensitivity syndrome The person develops the appearance of a female despite having a male chromosomal pattern and gonadal production of male hormones. However, the person does not have a uterus or periods, pubic and axillary hair are scant, and testosterone levels are high in the male hormone range.
b) Turner syndrome A common genetic condition that one of the X chromosomes is missing,resulting in absent menses and failure to develop ovaries.
c) Policystic ovarian syndrome In some women, the uterus develops but the vagina does not, or a setum blocking release of the menstrual blood causing pelvic pain at regular intervals similar to the expected pattern of menstrual periods.
3) Hymen problem (lack of an opening in the membrane at the entrance of the vagina) Hymen is a membrane that surrounds or partially covers the external vaginal opening. If the membrane is too thick causing puberty, menstrual blood becomes trapped behind resulting in painful pelvis and amenorrhea if the collection of blood may become larger with each month period. Hymenotomy may also be required if the hymen is particularly thick.
4) Problem with the hypothalamus or pituitary gland As we know, in order to start a menstrual cycle, the hypothalamus releases hormones that stimulates the pituitary gland to release follicle-stimulating hormones and luteinizing hormones. If any steps go wrong, there is no egg being produced by the follicle causing amenorrhea.
5) Drastic weight loss or obesity Females who are obese often experience amenorrhea as a result of excess fat cells causing hormone imbalance that interfere with the process of ovulation.
6) Eating disorder Females with anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa often experience amenorrhea as a result of maintaining a body weight that would be too low to sustain a menstrual cycle.
7) Imbalanced diet Imbalanced diet causes deficiency of certain nutrients and minerals, such as magnesium deficiency resulting in imbalance of estrogen and progesterone that interferes with normal processing of the menstrual cycle.
8) Thyroid diseases Hyperthyroidism occurs when the thyroid releases too many of its hormones causing hormone imbalance resulting in too much thyroid hormone in the bloodstream and over activity of the body's metabolism causing the absence of menstrual cycles. The most common cause of hypothyroidism is Hashimoto's thyroiditis, a disease of the thyroid gland where the body's immune system attacks the gland causing failure of the pituitary gland to secrete a hormone to stimulate the production of hormones that needs to regulate the stage of the menstrual cycle.
II. Symptoms a) Dry vagina b) Headache c) Increased hair growth in a male pattern d) Voice changes e) Breast size changes
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