Re: Sleep disorders and ADD

[Anonymous]

sugargremlin, it’s impossible for us to assess ourselves as being safe if we have these kinds of uncontrollable behaviours. I am disappointed and frustrated by having been told to stop driving, but now I totally get it – it’s the same as driving drunk, we’re impaired. Unfortunately there are no tests that highway police officers can perform to test for alertness other than to ticket people who text (or are otherwise distracted) and drive. We’re in the same category, I’m afraid, if we’re drowsy or not alert when we drive.

It’s not a question of getting to bed earlier or getting a better night’s sleep since I have no control over it. For the times when I fall asleep inappropriately, if I am aware of it, it’s 10 minutes or so (we can usually tell by how long we have to rewind a movie when I fall asleep at home). But the scary part is that it could be microseconds, and it can happen (and has happened to me) when doing any activity, like driving. I was once in stop-and-go traffic, the morning after a night of little sleep, and I must have fallen asleep, my foot slipped off the brake and I banged into the person in front of me. We weren’t driving, just stopped. No damage, but it frightened me.

You should really read this wikipedia article about narcolepsy (head-bobbing is common) especially the section on “signs and symptoms” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcolepsy

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