Health Advice An answer to your medical questions » Insomnia

Fatal Familial Insomnia

Kevin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:32:37 +0000

Due to degeneration of a part of the brain known as thalamus, fatal familial insomnia is said to have occurred. It is also a genetic disorder called the prion disease of the brain resulting in a waxy substance formation called amyloid plaques.

Both the sexes can be affected by this disease and if an individual inherits the mutant gene, chances of suffering are high at some of time. Fatal familial insomnia is found in about 50 families worldwide, the chance of the responsible gene affecting the offspring is 50% if only one parent carries it.

Patients remain completely sleepless and do not respond to treatment or sometimes are untreatable leading to fatal consequences.

When two women from one family died of insomnia in 1974, Italian doctor Ignazio Roiter detected the disease and was confirmed when another member of the same family again fell ill and died of mysterious circumstances ten years later. Many investigations were held in the US where the brain was flown to, and it was found that an insoluble protein called prion was responsible for the disease.

Supposed to strike people in their fifties, the onset of fatal familial insomnia disease can take place even at the age of thirty and risk remain in people till their 60th year. In newborns the disease can be fatal between 7 and 36 months after their birth. Progressing through four stages, the disease shows up when the patient suffers increasing insomnia coupled with panic attacks and phobia lasting four months.

Panic attacks become more pronounced with hallucination for five months. This is followed by rapid weight loss and inability to sleep. At the final stage, the patient turns unresponsive and mute for six months that finally leads to his death.

Fatal familial insomnia is without any cure as scientists keep working on gene therapy to arrive at a solution. But till today there has been no positive result as yet from gene therapy.

For patients stricken by fatal familial insomnia, sleeping pills have no effect. Hope lies to some extent on the symptoms that can be focused on to improve quality of life. Prion related diseases can also cause sudden outbursts of laughter known as laughing disease and researchers have tried to relate fatal familial insomnia related gene disorders to mad cow disease and the chronic wasting disease that plague deer and elk.

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Effect of Insomnia

Kevin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:29:57 +0000

Insomnia doesn’t announce its arrival beforehand. It can hit anyone anytime and at any age. It can last for a few days if it is mild enough or last for weeks and months if it is acute and severe making normal lifestyle difficult to maintain.

Primarily insomnia is the inability to sleep like a normal person which is reason enough for failing health over a period of time.

No one can deny that the body needs a minimum amount of sleep everyday to maintain optimum level of functioning. Age and other factors can have a bearing in the amount of sleep but the effects of not being able to sleep due to insomnia will cause disruption and create problems for your health which if left unchecked could turn fatal.

Insomnia is as simple as this. If you cannot sleep for the required amount of time that your body needs, it would affect your concentration and you would find difficulty in focusing making you irritable. Fallouts like these can affect your performance at the professional as well as the personal front. You may loose your job. It can destroy seemingly happy relationships as your condition would make you explode any moment without reason.

Even if you feel bad about it later on chances are that you would be helpless again in a similar situation and feel totally out of control. Divorce is the usual result when one spouse is an insomniac and has not undertaken proper treatment or not taken preventive measures to ward off sleeplessness early on. No one would like to share your life if insomnia persists and you go without treatment.

Among health issues, loss of weight even if your diet is adequate is noticeable if insomnia persists more than usual. At the beginning depression too can set in because of your inability to sleep and resorting to sleeping pills as is usually the practice, can sometimes lead to insomnia on the rebound.

It is never too late to go and see a doctor for advice on prescription drugs for insomnia.
An estimated 70 million people in the United States suffer from insomnia; many of them are patients of the severe type. It has been observed that insomnia can affect women more than men, and many children in the US are also suffering from the disease.

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Insomnia advice

Kevin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:26:30 +0000

Insomnia is a sleeping disorder making it difficult for people affected to close their eyes or put them to rest for more than a few minutes even if they are very tired. Even when an opportunity to sleep arises, an affected person cannot get to sleep.

Insomnia is said to occur 1.4 times more in women than in men and in the US, nearly 64 million people suffer regularly from insomnia according to a study report by the US Department of Health and Human Services in 2007.

Among the types, transient insomnia affects people whose sleeping environment and timings have changed or they are depressed and stressed out or both. Sleep deprivation results from sleepiness and an impaired psychomotor performance and can last for a few days or weeks. Acute insomnia robs sleep for three weeks to six months as people are unable to sleep with consistency.

Patients affected by chronic insomnia cannot sleep well for years. Causes can vary from muscular or mental fatigue to hallucinations. As they live with this problem, some become artificially more alert and see the events around them played out in slow motion and can at times have double vision.

A Sleep in America poll 2007 by the National Sleep Foundation of the US came out with alarming figure of 58% adults who experience insomnia for a few nights a week or more. Insomnia can result from some drugs or stimulants, caffeine or cocaine. Women can experience insomnia during hormone shifts and menopause.

Financial and workplace related stress, unsatisfactory sex life, fear and anxiety are some of the principal causes. Obsessive compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, mental disorders and post traumatic stress are some of the causes. Common issues like jet lag from traveling through multiple tome zones and change in work shifts can affect people with insomnia.

Estrogens levels changes with sudden withdrawal or postmenopausal fluctuations or usually during clinical recovery for depression postpartum are common in women insomniacs. Prescription sleep aid taken too long can cause insomnia on the rebound and poor sleeping habits with nervous disorders can cause insomnia.

Genetic conditions can impact consistent sleep and even lead to fatal types of insomnia called fatal familial insomnia. Intestinal disturbances from parasites during sleep can also cause insomnia.

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