Do you wake up feeling exhausted or struggle to get up at all? New study might have the answer
ARE you often exhausted during the day, despite a long sleep the night before?
And does waking up in the first place feel like an impossible task?
Scientists recon you might have a sleep disorder called idiopathic hypersomnia.
It’s a neurological disorder previously considered to be quite rare, but fresh research suggests more people might have idiopathic hypersomnia than we thought.
It might be as common as conditions like epilepsy or bipolar disorder, the scientists claimed.
Symptoms include being very sleepy during the day, sleeping excessive amounts, finding it very difficult to wake up and feeling confused or disoriented when you do.
Those with the disorder might have the desire to nap during the day.
But unlike people with narcolepsy who might fall asleep suddenly, they won’t feel refreshed from their nap.
Having these symptoms can make it impossible to complete everyday activities and they can decrease idiopathic hypersomnia sufferers’ quality of life.
A study published in the journal Neurology looked at the sleep data of 792 people to gauge just how prevalent the sleep disorder is.
Study author David T. Plante, of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, said: “It has been difficult to determine the prevalence of idiopathic hypersomnia because expensive and time-consuming sleep testing is required to make a diagnosis.
“We examined data from a large sleep study and found that this condition is much more common than previous estimates, and as prevalent as some other common neurologic and psychiatric conditions such as epilepsy, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.”
Participants with an average age of 59 all completed an overnight sleep study and a daytime nap study, which measures how fast someone falls asleep over a course of four or five naps.
Researchers also examined how sleepy or fatigued people felt during the day, the amount of time spent napping and how many hours they slept on work-nights and weekends.
They determined that 12 people probably had idiopathic hypersomnia, accounting for 1.5 per cent of the study pool.
It was found that people with the disorder had more severe sleepiness, despite sleeping similar or longer amounts of time than other participants.
Participants were asked to complete a sleepiness survey scored out of 24, which asked questions like how likely a person is to nod off while sitting, talking or stopped in a car.
A score of higher than 10 was concerning, according to researchers.
People with idiopathic hypersomnia had an average score of 14 while those without it had an average score of nine.
Differences were also observed in how long participants took to fall asleep,
Those with the disorder took an average of four minutes to fall asleep at night and six minutes during naps, compared to an average of 13 minutes at night and 12 minutes during naps for people without the disorder.
Finally, researchers looked daytime sleepiness in people with idiopathic hypersomnia over an average of 12 years.
The 10 people studied often experienced chronic daytime sleepiness, though this symptom went away for four of them.
According to Dr Plante, their ability to recover gives hope to people with the disorder and highlights the need to further study what leads to remission.
Dr Plante said: “Our results demonstrate that idiopathic hypersomnia is relatively common, more prevalent than generally assumed, so there is likely a sizable difference between the number of people with this disorder and those who seek treatment.”
“Further efforts to identify, diagnose and treat those impaired by idiopathic hypersomnia are needed.
“Additional research may also clarify the causes of idiopathic hypersomnia and lead to new treatments.”
One limitation of the study is that it examined people who were employed.
Researchers said people who idiopathic hypersomnia have higher rates of job loss and disability, so there might be a higher prevalence of the disorder in people who are unemployed.
The study was also funded by Jazz Pharmaceuticals, which makes a drug used to treat idiopathic hypersomnia – but authors said the company had no imput in the study design.
What are the signs of idiopathic hypersomnia?
Symptoms of the neurological sleep disorder often develop slowly during the teens or young adulthood. They include:
- Daytime naps that do not relieve drowsiness
- Difficulty waking from a long sleep – you may feel confused or disoriented, also known as ”sleep drunkenness”
- Increased need for sleep during the day — even while at work, or during a meal or conversation
- Increased sleep time — up to 14 to 18 hours a day
People might also suffer from:
- Anxiety
- Feeling irritated
- Loss of appetite
- Low energy
- Restlessness
- Slow thinking or speech
- Trouble remembering
Source: Mount Sinai