In our case, the curve ball was ADHD. Now, my wife and I are both educated people and we have already known a thing or two about this condition. This also helped us recognize it in Clive as soon as he started showing symptoms. He was about 9 and a half when we first started noticing his attention wondering when we wanted to talk to him. He also started getting bad grades in school and he became somewhat of a menace. We didn’t want to panic, but we still called our family friend who happens to be a psychiatrist.

He told us to bring Clive over. We did, he did all kinds of tests and queries to make sure it is really ADHD. We begged him to be sure as we have read all the stuff about ADHD and the fuss that is raised about this condition. It was definite. Clive had ADHD and he would have to take medications. Our friend told us that the best thing would be Ritalin as it has shown great results in children with ADHD. It has also showed great results in our case. Before we knew it, Clive was his old again, talking to us and listening to us. His grades improved and in the last year or so, he stopped taking Ritalin altogether. It was that efficient.

And to tell you the truth, I was quite content with it. I didn’t mind it. As the guy from the Office said, “I am on a three right now. I could roll the dice again. It could turn out to be 6, but it can also turn out to be 1.” Or something like that, I don’t remember it precisely. In the period between 16 and 22 I put on a few pounds, like most guys do. You are just not active and you sit much more. So that was also quite ordinary.
However, when I was 22, I stopped being your true Average Joe and I became your Average Joe with Narcolepsy. It turned out that I developed narcolepsy for some unknown reason and I have been living with it since then. And it is an average narcolepsy. Not too mild, not too serious. I am lucky I didn’t also develop cataplexy, so that’s a plus.

And like the most people do when diagnosed with narcolepsy, I started taking Ritalin.
And like it does for the most people, it worked great for me too. The excessive sleepiness has gone, I got my sleeping in order and I am pretty much free of any symptoms. In addition to this, Ritalin also helped me lose a few pounds. The thing is that its effects on the certain chemicals in the brain, besides treating narcolepsy, are also great for losing weight. Now, I am not suggesting that you should start using Ritalin as a weight loss pill, but it sure made me lose a few pounds. So, a double benefit from Ritalin. I just hope I didn’t bore the living hell out of you with my unsensational story. But that is what most stories are like.

It was a strange case because this condition usually starts between the ages of 6 and 25. This was also the reason why it took the doctors some time to diagnose it. For a long while they all thought I was depressed or simply exhausted. One doctor thought that I simply suffer from insomnia and that my daytime sleepiness is due to that.
One day all of this changed as I had an episode that the people who were around me at the time described as an epileptic attack. I went stiff in a second and I fell over like a plank, hit my head quite hard in fact.

They say I was lying on the floor for about a minute or two. I told the doctor from the ER that I have been feeling weird lately and that the doctors think I am depressed or insomniac or something like that, thinking about my sleepiness and sleep disturbances. The ER doctor immediately sent me to the sleep specialist and told me it was most likely narcolepsy, complete with cataplexy.It turned out he was right. I told the specialist that I have a business to run and that I have no time for alternative treatments. I needed a solution that is going to work at once. He gave me two solutions. Ritalin for narcolepsy and Xyrem in case I still had cataplexy episodes. It turned out it was the first and the last one. However, I am still taking my Ritalin and I cannot imagine my life without it.

Namely, I cannot remember the time in my life when I didn’t want to be elementary school teacher. While other girls pretended to be princesses, doctors, veterinarians, or whatever, I always pretended to be a teacher. I would get my toys to sit and listen to me teaching them stuff. I guess it is nice to know what you want to be and stick with it. Throughout my elementary school and the best part of high school I was hoping so much that I would one day be the teacher.

However, it turned out that Chance had something different in store for me. Namely, when I was in my senior year in high school, I started experiencing strange things that really got me worried in no time. In about a week or so, I went from being a completely healthy girl to someone who is having problems staying awake in school and sleeping properly. Still, it was only a beginning. Namely, I started having cataplexy attacks, as I would later find out those were called. I would feel weak in my knees and then I would fall down. It happened every time I felt any strong emotions.

This was the signal that there was something really wrong with me and I feared the worst, some incurable disease that will have me in a month or so. It turned out I had narcolepsy and like many people who do, I also suffered from cataplexy, the weakness in the muscles that is. My doctor told me it was quite serious and that I will have to start taking medications, Ritalin for my narcolepsy and Xyrem for the cataplexy. This combo really did it for me. As my narcolepsy became almost negligible thanks to Ritalin, my cataplexy episodes became really rare. I am still taking my combo of drugs and I am living the life I always wanted to live. I am a teacher. And a good one at that.

For a while I thought I was suffering from a syndrome I cannot even recall now. It took quite a few visits to the psychiatrist to convince me that I was simply anxious and a bit of a hypochondriac. And the worst thing that could happen to a hypochondriac is that actually something happens. That is when you go all mental and start imagining stuff that is way worse than what is actually wrong with you.
To cut a long story short, I started suffering from narcolepsy when I was about 16, at the worst possible time. I didn’t have the experience and knowledge I have now, but with all the hypochondriac obsessions.

The first thing I noticed was that I was getting sleepy all the time. And I mean all the time. I would wake up and then, an hour later I couldn’t hold my head up straight. It was enough cause for alarm, but the next thing that happened nearly made me scream in panic.
Namely, one day, I was waking up and I had this hallucination that was so scary I don’t like thinking about it now, ten years later. It was so vivid and so scary that I was convinced I was going crazy. I knew it wasn’t a dream, but it was still like the worst nightmare you can imagine. I told my parents that I was going crazy and that I should visit a psychiatrist. They knew that the only way I would calm down would be to actually take me to the psychiatrist. So, we went.

He told me that it was most probably narcolepsy, but he sent me to a specialist who confirmed the psychiatrist’s suspicions. I had narcolepsy. First of all, I was so happy I was not going crazy, and I was so happy that there is a medication that actually works for narcolepsy. The doctor prescribed Ritalin and I started taking it religiously. After no more than a week or two, I started feeling my old again. No symptoms of narcolepsy, but even Ritalin couldn’t help me with my hypochondria.

Another strange fact is that the scientists still do not know what causes narcolepsy. There are a number of suggestions, but there is still no consensus on what it is that actually causes narcolepsy.
As I already said, I was almost thirty when I started experiencing first signs of narcolepsy that I didn’t even dream could be signs of narcolepsy. It all started with me becoming unable to sleep properly. I fell asleep like a log, immediately. Not like usually, when you first have that half sleep and then you actually go out. I also started dreaming the moment I fall asleep. And all of that I could have ignored. However, I started waking up all the time during night. It was really a nuisance.

And then the nuisance became a real problem when I started being unable to stay awake during the day. I would fall asleep at my desk at work. Of course, my boss had no patience for this and he thought that I was drinking or taking drugs, something like that. I myself didn’t think it was an illness or anything. I thought I was just exhausted and that it is a phase.
However, when it continued for more than a month, I decided to talk to someone. My doctor sent me to a sleep specialist who ran some tests, monitoring me during sleep. He also asked me if I experienced loss of muscle tone, or cataplexy as it is also known, when you suddenly feel certain muscles going limp and everything. I said that it never happened and that made him doubt his diagnosis that was up to that point narcolepsy.

However, when the results of the test were in, he had no more doubts about the fact I am suffering from narcolepsy.
I told him that I want a solution as soon as possible and he told me I should start taking Ritalin, a great medication for narcolepsy. So, I started taking Ritalin and it really worked like a charm for me. During the day I stopped feeling sleepy and my nighttime sleep became much better. I was also able to explain to my doctor what had been happening and he even apologized. So, an apology from the boss and a treatment for an illness. All Ritalin’s doing. Not bad at all.

However, I did start noticing stuff when she was about 4. She somehow couldn’t find a place where she could be still and quiet for a second. She would always go here and there, looking for stuff, only to leave them behind after ten seconds. She was always full of questions and her questions came in piles, one over another. And being parents that could never find a fault with their daughter’s behavior, my husband and I thought that she was just very intelligent and that this erraticness of hers is a product of that.

And then she started school. She started coming home with bad grades and we were lucky enough that her teacher noticed that Julie could do much better, but that she just seemed uninterested in anything that goes on at school. The teacher also told us that Julie has troubles making friends. Once again, we thought that they might be overreacting and that there is nothing wrong with Julie. We started thinking how all other kids are mean and jealous of her.

Still, when things didn’t change and when the teacher insisted that we go see someone, we decided to do the smart thing and an objective thing. We went to a child’s psychiatrist and after less than an hour spent with Julie; she came with a diagnosis that was a definite one. Julie was suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. We didn’t want to start Julie on any drugs and so we tried all kinds of therapy, cognitive therapy, behavioral therapy, you name it, we tried it.

After half a year or a whole year, it was a long time ago, Julie showed no progress. She had the same problems at school and she was getting more and more erratic and impossible. We decided it would be best for Julie if she started taking Ritalin, which we heard was the best medication for ADHD. She started taking it and after less than a month, we could see the progress. She would sit still and talk with us for hours, paying attention to what we are saying for the first time. The teacher was also thrilled with Julie’s progress; she said she did much better at school. And then, one day, Julie came home with a friend, Patsy, her new best friend. We were too happy to describe. To this day I cannot thank enough people who came up with Ritalin.

I thought that it might just be because I was nervous. But no, it was only the beginning.
After a week or so, I started feeling fatigued all the time. I would go to school in the morning and in my first class, I would already feel as if my head was going to drop at any moment now. I simply couldn’t help it but have naps during classes. It goes without saying that this got me in a lot of troubles, both at school and home. My parents thought that I was taking drugs or something, that I was depressed.

And then, one day, it all changed. We were having dinner at home and my parents were going at me for doing bad at school. I was so tired and so angry that they won’t believe me and suddenly, my head dropped. I was completely aware of everything that was going on, but for about ten seconds, I simply couldn’t lift my head. You can imagine how panicked my parents were and I have to tell you that I was the same.
We went straight to the doctor who sent us to an expert. I told him about my sleep problems and my tiredness. When he added two and two, he knew immediately what was wrong with me.

I was diagnosed with narcolepsy, complete with cataplexy (the loss of muscle tone and control that resulted in my head dropping). The doctor immediately prescribed Ritalin to me and told me that I should organize my time so that I have a nap or two during the day, short naps, no more than 20 minutes or so.
The Ritalin really helped me much. I could stay wide awake and I could follow the classes once again. I have had several cataplexy episodes and I also started taking Xyrem for cataplexy. In the last few years though, I haven’t had a single cataplexy attack and I am now only taking Ritalin for my narcolepsy, as I cannot imagine living without this medication that makes my narcolepsy manageable.

Take, for another example narcolepsy, a condition that I am suffering from. It affects the same number of people like, for example Parkinson’s disease. And yet, very few people are even aware of the illness. At best, people view it as that funny illness from movies that makes people fall asleep unexpectedly. In fact, this condition is much more debilitating and much more serious than that. I am talking from my personal experience.
Namely, I was diagnosed with narcolepsy some five or six years ago, when I was fresh out of college. I later learned that it is quite rare for it to occur later than in teens, but I was one of the few cases when this happens.

The first sign that I noticed was that I started feeling sleepy all the time. I would go to work and after an hour or two, I would find it absolutely impossible to keep my head straight. Unfortunately, I attributed this to my new job that was quite stressful and strenuous. However, as things didn’t seem to improve, I figured that there was something more at hand here. I also started noticing that I just cannot get enough sleep during night. I started waking up regularly and it was all contributing to my feeling of fatigue during the day.
I decided that I need to visit someone and I went to my doctor, a guy I knew since I was a kid. At first, he didn’t think it was narcolepsy because I was not an adolescent. He thought I might be depressed or something like that, maybe simply exhausted. However, after a while, it became quite obvious to him that it might be narcolepsy.

I went to a sleep specialist who ran some tests and the verdict came in soon. It was definitely narcolepsy. Luckily for me, I was one of the minority of narcolepsy patients who didn’t also suffer from cataplexy as a symptom, losing muscle tone. My doctor immediately prescribed Ritalin, a stimulant medication that affects certain chemicals in the brain and thus helps people with Ritalin. It truly changed my life. I know, it sounds like something from TV commercials, but Ritalin truly made a huge difference, and still does. I can finally go to work without fearing that I will fall asleep during a meeting, or something like that. It is a whole different story now, thanks to the medication called Ritalin.

And you realize that it truly is the most important job ever. You have to make sure your child gets everything you can hope to provide and you have to make sure it grows up to be a decent person. However, sometimes things just do not work out as you wish they would.
Namely, our second child, our son Jeff has been suffering from ADHD for years now. It was first diagnosed when he was in primary school. And it took a while. First, both us and the teachers thought that he is just a mischievous boy, always doing stuff he shouldn’t be doing, always wondering round, never sitting still. My wife and I first thought that we have maybe spoiled him too much. We were realistic enough to recognize it as a possibility. However, when things just seemed to stay the way they were, we started thinking that there may be something the matter with Jeff.
We went to a child’s psychologist and she told us that it is quite possible Ritalin is suffering from ADHD. He was 11 at the time. All the signs were there. He simply couldn’t concentrate on a particular task.

He couldn’t cooperate with other kids and his grades suffered. He suffered as well. We wanted to make sure, so we went to a number of experts and specialists who have ruled out every other possibility. Jeff had ADHD.
To an extent, it was a relief. We knew that it is a condition that can be managed and we were happy that there isn’t something more serious with our son. We first tried with behavioral therapy, visits to the psychiatrist, cognitive behavioral therapy, but somehow nothing seemed to have any effect. And then the doctor prescribed Ritalin.
Jeff started taking it at the lower dosages possible and things soon improved greatly. Jeff was able to finally concentrate on his tasks. He found it much easier to interact with other children as he was finally paying attention to what they were trying to communicate. His grades also improved. Over time, he started high school and we are proud to say that he finished high school with very good grades. He is currently looking at colleges. And it is all thanks to Ritalin.