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Home › Articles › Sleep Issues › Uncontrollable ZZZZZs

Uncontrollable ZZZZZs

Narcolepsy in Children

Part One

By Carma Haley

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In addition to these symptoms, family inheritance is a factor in the presence of narcolepsy in children. However, there are families that are not aware of the family's trait of narcolepsy. "Narcolepsy is a genetic disorder," says Sheldon. "It is passed on genetically so people become genetically narcoleptic at the time of conception. We have many child patients who have narcolepsy -- and we can prove it -- and their parents have absolutely no symptoms but have the genetics for it. They don't know that they have it; they never knew that they had it and until we diagnosed their child they had no clue there was even any evidence of it."

According to Sheldon, any one of the symptoms in and of itself is not diagnostic of narcolepsy. It is only when a medical or family history combines itself with these symptoms that the presence of narcolepsy is suspected. "You have to have the combination of symptoms and often it is difficult in a child to make a clear-cut diagnosis," says Sheldon. "Unless you have a family history or the child has a cataplexic attack in front of your eyes, the diagnosis may go incomplete until they are teenagers. That's the reason why it's said that narcolepsy onsets in adolescence and young adulthood -- because that's when you can diagnosis it. But that doesn't mean necessarily that's when it begins."


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