When does sedation become narcrolepsy

[medium_crash]

In my battle with chronic pain I have discovered that by one way or another I will be tired. I can either have the pain wear me down or the medication bring me down.

However, I am experiencing something that seems different. I do not have to be that tired to fall asleep. All I have to do is sit still. Even after a good nights sleep, if I stop moving, I will lose time. I wake up seconds later and continue my day. It makes reading really difficult.
I know that sedation is a side effect of my current medications, so that could be it. My other side effects are not that severe and I keep my medications to a minimum. Then again, when would it start to be narcolepsy.

I just wonder if all I can do is not use any medications or do I have another choice. If anyone has any idea, please share. My doctor likes to blame it on depression and gives me fluoxitine, which sedates me to unacceptable levels. Honestly, my mood is good and I feel positive about life. I will admit that fluoxitine does reduce the perception of pain for me.

Thanks for you ideas and thoughts.

[artemis]

@medium_crash I have something similar, but it is not narcolepsy. I have been diagnosed with petit mal (now called absence) seizures, where I look like I am alseep, but I am really not. I am not tired, but I will become unfocused, I sit absolutely still, I lose time. I can still hear various things in the background, but they are mumbles, not clear cut words. It lasts for less then a minute, usually because my co-worker tells me to wake up.

If you trust your doctor, I would go back to him and tell him the symptoms. If you would prefer I would also try a sleep disorder clinic. Just my suggestion. I hope you find the right help.

[H20shed65]

@medium_crash

Well, hard to say without knowing what meds you are on but assuming you are on some type of narcotic for pain and that the dose hasn't recently increased which could cause sedation temporarily, your tiredness, sedation is likely caused by the medication or perhaps a sleep apnea caused by any number of things. If you had these symptoms prior to taking pain meds, then it could possibly be non-medication related.

If this problem only started after you began taking narcotics and/or upped the dosage, then it's likely med related. You should talk to your physician about this but it is not uncommon once narcolepsy & sleep apnea and any other physiological causes have been R/O, that a patient on long term narcotic pain management suffering from excessive sedation would be treated adjunctively with a drug like modafinil or armodafinil.

Simple caffeine might even do the trick, but you should speak to your physician first to make sure something more serious isn't going on.

Best of Luck and hope you get it resolved.

[fatalframe]

As far as I'm aware narcolepsy is a neurological condition. The way you describe it I would more than likely see your medication as the trigger for these little naps, I'm assuming your doctor is a psychiatrist/neurologist? If you want to be 100% sure about this you might want to consider seeing one. I'm no fan of long-distance diagnosis :P

[medium_crash]

Thanks for all the great thoughts. I had the realization that there was an easy way to figure out if it was medication related: I could just back off and deal with my autonomic nervous system being on fire.

The meds are messing with me.

It turns out, I think I have discovered my limit for when sedation becomes unacceptably high for me. It was definitely sleep that I was experiencing and I am not sure what I will do about the pain. I can't take NSAIDs anymore (acetaminophen being the only thing close) because I fried my stomach lining trying to avoid anything with "abuse potential". I just didn't realize that I was abusing my body.

Honestly, I think I am going to ask the chronic pain crowd how to manage pain and still maintain mental clarity. I have a bad feeling that I get to pick one or the other.

[etinin]

Well, it really depends on the individual. But for me, surely there are narcotics which work fine without making me tired or taking away my mental clarity. Oxycontin, for example, works wonders. There are plenty of options to be tried, as long as you have a sympathetic doctor.


EDIT:
p.s.: ritalin works fine for helping you stay sharp while on opiates and may even help boost pain killing effects. this nowadays is often seen with bad eyes but there's a study in which they demonstraded huge improvements in life quality for those on huge amounts of pain killers due to terminal cancer. i specifically mention ritalin because of this scientific evidence.