Hypochodria

So, as you may know, I am a mild hypochodriac (a diagnosis I made for myself. Mild hypochodria is characterized by continuous diagnosis of various maladies that produces worrying. What divides mild hypochondria and regular hypochondria is that I don't seek a doctor's advice about the maladies I diagnose myself with). The past few weeks have been fun, because I've found two real illnesses I could have: narcolepsy and telogen effluvium.

Narcolepsy: According to the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, narcolepsy "is a disorder that causes periods of extreme daytime sleepiness. It may also cause muscle weakness. Rarely, people who have this disorder fall asleep suddenly...Most people who have narcolepsy also have trouble sleeping at night." I've always considered my proclivity for day-time napping to be a personal preference, even a bonus of my constitution. I love napping, I feel bad for those who are unable to nap during the day. However, the desire to nap comes at inopportune times, almost always. There are rarely days where it's ok for me to curl up and sleep in the middle of the day (that doesn't mean I abstain).

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke goes further in describing narcolepsy as "...a neurological disorder caused by the brain's inability to regulate sleep-wake cycles normally. At various times throughout the day, people with narcolepsy experience irresistible bouts of sleep. If the urge becomes overwhelming, individuals will fall asleep for periods lasting from a few seconds (in Becka-terms: "The Nod") to several minutes." They call this "excessive daytimes sleepiness" or EDS. Damn. They have that exactly right, the irresistible urge to sleep hits me often.

I've avoided looking up the symptoms of narcolepsy until recently, in part because I didn't really want to know if I had it, and in part because I thought it was just lack of motivation to stay awake (which is silly, I've fallen asleep during a lot of lectures and movies that I thought were really interesting). There are other conditions that narcolepsy can cause, including cataplexy (sudden loss of muscle tone when you're awake), hallucinations (vivid dreams that occur while falling asleep and waking up) and sleep paralysis (which prevents you from moving or speaking while waking up). Thankfully, I don't experience much but the hallucinations (as far as I can tell), and they're actually kind of fun. I'd claim sleep paralysis for the reason I don't always answer the phone when people call me early in the morning, but that would be incorrect.

These symptoms occur because people with narcolepsy fall into REM sleep quickly and wake up directly from it. This seems an apt description of what my mom calls "The Death Spiral." Again, I've almost always seen this as a benefit, once I determine to sleep it usually happens quite quickly. Unfortunately, I have little control in determining when to Death Spiral. Waking up from REM sleep is what causes vivid dreams. This all may be caused by low levels of Hypocretin in the brain, which is the chemical that controls levels of wakefulness. However, little is known about what causes one to have lower than average levels of hypocretin.

All of this would be great to know if there were a treatment that could prevent me from falling asleep during the middle of the day. There are some behavioral modifications that could help regulate symptoms, including maintaining a regular sleep cycle and scheduling small daytime naps during times where the desire to sleep is strongest. I wonder if my future employer will be alright if I schedule a siesta into my work day (it can be an off-the-clock siesta, that's totally fair)? I'm hoping that once I finish this thesis exercise that I will be better able to regulate my sleep cycle. I guess we'll just see.

Telogen Effluvium: I just read about this disorder today, but I can definitively say that I have suffered from this condition. If you want anymore proof, just talk to my vacuum (or anyone who has ever shared a living space with me). TE is a sudden hair shedding (up to 1/2 or 3/4 of your hair) caused by sudden physical or emotional stress. It is usually noticed when handfuls of hair come out while shampooing, combing and running hands through your hair. Um, all of that has happened, almost always during periods of high emotional stress (Hello, thesis).

There is one exception to this, in my life. One day I went camping with my family and got my hair caught in a tent zipper. In an effort to be efficient with his time (maybe?) my dad cut my hair out of the tent zipper, but did not tell me. The next day, while brushing my hair, I noticed a huge chunk of hair whipping around my brush and almost burst into tears because I thought I was losing my hair (truth be told, I thought I had developed cancer, forgetting that you have to go through chemotherapy before your hair falls out). Everyone got a good laugh out of it, but I'm pretty sure the emotion stress of potentially losing all my hair caused me to actually lose quite a bit. This stress was compounded a few days later as Liz and I frantically tried to wax my hair down for senior portraits.

So, there it is. Two real disorders that I might have, and some fun facts. I'm pretty sure the internet is only serving to make me more of a hypochondriac, but I love it!

(*Explanation of photos: the first one is me pretending to sleep in my truck, because I can. The second is me experiencing extreme emotional stress, in the form of fear, as the St. George wind tried to blow me out of my truck. I feel like a post without pictures just couldn't be as fun, but I was having difficultly visually conceptualizing hypochondria, narcolepsy and telogen effluvium.)