Comorbidity With Narcolepsy

I also have sleep apnea, chiari malformation, syringomyelia, lingual tonsil hypertrophy, vocal cord dysfunction, dysphagia, epilepsy etc. I am always at a doctor's appointment. All of these conditions can really be overwhelming to deal with and to be able to explain to employers, family, and friends. Nobody understands the struggles but yourself. I am just grateful that I am alive and walking!

I have narcolepsy with cataplexy and sleep apnea and obstruct sleep apnea I had cancer when I was younger so they took everything out and I have no hormones which contributes to my sleepiness and I have ADD ADHD I have terrible focus and the combination of all of them make me exhausting every minute of every day more so than just having narcolepsy and I can't get any help.

Well, I am on thyroid, diabetes, low testosterone, and ed meds. I've been diagnosed with depression, then bipolar, then add inattentive as well as generalized anxiety. However, my psychiatrist has known me long enough that she's concluded I'm not depressed plus she's not so sure about these other mental health diagnoses anymore given how long I've had tiredness issues which she's not been able to help and my getting diagnosed with sleep apnea and having now a bipap didn't fully help. Instead, she's concluded that I'm not depressed, but I'm pissed off. She encouraged me to get tested for narcolepsy and I did. I tested positive.

Looking back over my life, I see where I likely had narcolep[sy following a very stressful time for my family and for me professionally which likely served as a trigger. No wonder I gained, weight, developed diabetes, and got low testosterone which sometimes is related to being overweight (anyhow, it is a problem of many young teens and young adult men who are overweight and don't even have the amount of testosterone that their dads had in their 40s), plus developed sleep apnea, had some mode swings due to the low quality of my life with undiagnosed narcolepsy, had trouble with being attentive thanks to the brain fog which possibly all contributed to generalized anxiety. On the other hand, considering my toxic mother who created my traumatic childhood and adolescence, I came by anxiety naturally as my therapist told me.

My weight loss doctor has helped me lose from 275 down to 235. My diabetes is under the best control ever with 2 A1Cs of 5.1 back to back. Mounjaro is awesome for both diabetes control and weight loss. I'm off of insulin now which helps my weight loss for insulin works against it.

However, this bipap is still not enough. My current neurologist, bless his little heart, does not believe someone 67 can have narcolepsy, but I do. I will soon leave him now that I've found an actual narcolepsy specialist who is also a neurologist.

I think a better question or one for another article is What comorbidity were you diagnosed with that is no longer true now with your diagnosis of narcolepsy? I believe there are more of us out here than imagined. We need to tell our story.

I also have a thyroid condition, diabetes, eczema, sleep apnea and a recent diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis as well